History
The district was created upon Pinellas County's split from Hillsborough County in 1912. Dixie M. Hollins was the county's first superintendent of schools. Michael Grego, the current superintendent, has over 30 years of educational experience, having previously served as a teacher, Assistant Superintendent for Hillsborough County Schools, and Superintendent of Osceola County Schools.
Like other school districts in Florida and the South, Pinellas County has had to deal with issues of desegregation, court-ordered busing, and school choice. In 2000, the district received "unitary" (desegregated) status from the court assigned to monitor integration issues, and from 2003 to 2007 operated a "controlled choice" program which set minimum and maximum percentages of black pupils in individual schools. In 2007 the "Choice" program was replaced with a "close-to-home' school program, where students go to the school that is nearest to their residence. Exceptions to this plan are the district's various magnet programs, including the fundamental schools and the high schools with Academies of Excellence, which require application and acceptance.
In March 2009, Pinellas County Schools announced that all schools would close one hour early every Wednesday starting with the 2009-10 school year. The district said that this schedule change was to provide teachers with more planning period time. After much controversy, the school district voted in September 2012 to discontinue early release Wednesdays beginning with the 2013-14 school year.
Read more about this topic: Pinellas County Schools
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“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)