Are We Certain That It's Safe?

In a 3-2 vote last week, the Manatee School Board approved an amendment to Team Success’ charter that will allow for the construction of a second campus adjacent to the SRQ airport, despite concerns over the safety of the site. Given the county’s history with Bayshore High School, this was an outcome that was both surprising and disappointing.

Team Success began as a charter K-8 school in a facility that formerly housed the Manatee Police Athletic League’s charter school, PAL Academy. In 2017, it began adding one grade per year and had its first graduating class in 2021. It is a Title 1 school and has done an admirable job serving a population of students who are largely from lower-income families. I wrote a profile on the school’s success back in 2017 which you can see here.

For some time, Team Success has expressed a desire to add a second campus near the airport in order to leverage opportunities with aviation-related programming that could serve as a pathway to similar programs at Manatee Technical Institute. After years of conversation with the district and one application that was withdrawn, the charter school moved forward with those plans with the idea of having the existing “north” campus serve grades K-5, while the new “south” campus would serve grades 6-12.

From the beginning, however, there were questions about the site’s suitability ranging from noise and air pollution to an adjacent railway, but mostly because of the long history of industrial operations in that area. When it came before school board members during a July 27 workshop, it did not appear to have gained the support of staff or the superintendent and multiple board members expressed serious reservations.

The district’s concerns included “the past use of the site, the identification of onsite currently and soon to be regulated chemicals, proximity to heavy industrial uses, proximity to a railroad, proximity to a flight path, and proximity to significant above ground fuel storage.”

The workshop was instructive in demonstrating the many differences between how state statutes address district charter schools versus regular schools in the district. Because charter schools typically repurpose existing structures while districts build new facilities there seems to be less scrutiny when the former develops from the ground up, as was the case in this location. Because they are largely governed by a different statute, some of the things that would have required (additional testing) or prohibited the site’s use (an adjacent railroad) did not seem to be applicable.

In the end, the district accepted somewhat meager remediations, and the executive summary on the item that was given to board members noted that Team Success had “partially addressed” the previous concerns before newly-installed superintendent Jason Wysong gave his recommendation for approval.

The dynamic concept of the school is certainly interesting, and Team Success’ history with the district certainly lends weight to its prospects, but there seemed to be something very troubling about the way the process was able to lawfully play out without the impression that every effort to ensure that the long term safety of the site had been ascertained. Three board members were enthusiastic about its approval and were largely dismissive of the concerns. Richard Tatem spoke of “acceptable risk.” Chad Choate noted that it wasn’t like there was “nuclear waste” on the site, and Cindy Spray argued that since the campus wouldn’t have the K-5 grades, students would be less likely to be playing on the ground.

Board members Gina Messenger and Mary Foreman, however, were not nearly as comfortable, either during the July workshop or last week’s meeting, and I think they had good reason not to be. Redevelopment, particularly in industrial corridors, is complicated, often a little messy, and sometimes includes a certain level of risk. However, that is precisely why it is not ideal when it comes to the site selection for a school where young people who are still developing will be exposed to an area's environment for as many as seven years.

If this had been a proposed site for a district school, it was very clear that it never would have been selected. To that point, it would behoove the state legislature to look at possible unintended consequences of the way the statutes governing charter schools differ from those that govern public school districts. The sentiment, expressed more than once at the meeting, that parents who do not think it is safe can simply choose not to send their children also misses the point. By approving the site, the district and its board—whether they mean to or not—are offering the community implicit assurance that it is just that. Such is the power of institutions.

As the horrific legacy of the old Bayshore High School campus and the infinitely improbable rates of rare leukemias, cancers, and autoimmune disorders among its students and faculty have demonstrated, the price for a mistake in this arena can be incalculable. And when such a tragedy occurs, rarely is anything done, as connecting the dots between a site and the effects that are often not realized until long after the exposure occurred is nearly impossible even when the anecdotal evidence is completely overwhelming.

Again, I’ve been impressed with the results of Team Success’ north campus, and I find much to be excited about in the ambitions expressed for a second one. But no amount of enthusiasm can overcome the fact that I do not feel as though everything has been done to ensure the long-term safety of the children who are going to attend that campus.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.