Pasco Schools Return Thursday, Latest in Florida, With About 2,000 Fewer Students

Pasco County students go back to class Thursday, Aug. 13, the latest first day of any school district in Florida, and they return to a system that is planning for roughly 2,001 fewer traditional students than it enrolled last year. The district has posted approved bell times for every campus, opened an extended bus hotline through Aug. 19, and drivers will be sharing US 41 and US 98 with daytime lane closures the same week the buses come back.

Start times swing more than three hours across the county. Land O' Lakes High, Pasco High and Sunlake High all begin at 7:05 a.m. The East Pasco and West Pasco Education Academies do not start until 10:10 a.m. Everything else sits somewhere in between, and it changes by school, not by grade level, so checking your own campus matters more than assuming.

Bell times to check before Thursday

School	Start / End
Land O' Lakes High	7:05 / 1:35
Zephyrhills High	7:06 / 1:36
Wesley Chapel High	7:07 / 1:34
Hudson Academy (4-8)	7:10 / 1:30
Starkey Ranch K-8	8:10 / 2:30
Wiregrass Ranch High	8:10 / 2:36
Wesley Chapel Elementary	9:50 / 4:00
West Pasco Education Academy	10:10 / 4:05

Wesley Chapel area elementaries are split between two bells that sit ten minutes apart. Wiregrass, Seven Oaks and Double Branch start at 9:40. Watergrass, Quail Hollow, New River and Wesley Chapel Elementary start at 9:50. If you have kids at two of those schools, that ten minutes is your whole morning. The full countywide list, including early release times, is on the district's approved bell times page.

The bus questions, and who to call

The district's extended back-to-school transportation hotline opened Monday, Aug. 10 and runs through Aug. 19. Hours are 6:30 to 10 a.m. and 2 to 6 p.m., which covers both ends of the day when a bus is actually late and a parent is standing at the stop wondering.

• 813-794-2500
• 727-774-2500
• 352-524-2500

After Aug. 19, the regular transportation line is 813-320-2562. Routes and stop locations are posted on MyBusPlanner, and student bus passes are in myStudent. Print or screenshot the pass before Thursday morning if your phone is unreliable in the car line. More detail is on the district's transportation page.

Two road jobs already in the way

The Florida Department of Transportation has crews working two Pasco corridors through Friday, Aug. 14. Lanes on US 41 (Land O' Lakes Boulevard) at Lake Patience Road are closed from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., which puts the work squarely in the afternoon pickup window. On US 98 between County Road 54 and Townsend Road, expect periodic closures and flagging from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A bigger one lands right after. Starting Aug. 25, FDOT begins a $19.8 million resurfacing of State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, 7.3 miles of roadway in total, with Preferred Materials Inc. as contractor. The work includes intersection safety improvements, ADA upgrades, drainage work, signal upgrades and overhead lighting. Completion is set for fall 2027, meaning Wiregrass-area drivers will be living with it through this school year and the next one.

Fewer students, fewer positions

Behind the first-day logistics is a number that is reshaping Pasco's schools: the district projected traditional enrollment falling by about 2,001 students this year while charter school enrollment grows. Pasco is still adding rooftops. It is not adding district students at the same pace.

The school board acted on that in June, approving employee allocations that eliminated close to 500 positions ahead of the expected decline. Local news reports put the breakdown at 9 administrative slots, 150 instructional posts and 256 school-related personnel jobs, with the district saying no current employee would lose a job because the reductions were absorbed through retirements, resignations and reassignment. Most displaced staff had already landed in other district spots.

The financial side is not finished. The board's next meeting is Tuesday, Aug. 25 at 6 p.m. in the Board room in Building 3, and the final budget hearing is scheduled for Sept. 8. Actual enrollment gets its first real test at the Day 10 count, when the district finds out whether that 2,001-student projection was close.

For more Pasco County news, visit Pasco County Community Website, follow us on Facebook, and join the conversation in our Community Forum. You can read more education stories and keep up with local alerts as the school year gets going.

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