TAMPA, Fla. — Teachers, parents, and former students are fighting to keep a Tampa school open after the School District of Hillsborough County proposed closing it due to skyrocketing rental costs.
Pizzo K-8 has one school year left unless advocates can reverse the decision. A group called Project Pizzo created a website not only as a platform to save Pizzo K-8, but also as a space to voice and share concerns about the state of education in Florida.
Debra Bellanti, director of media and public relations for the School District of Hillsborough County, said the district has paid USF rent to operate Pizzo K-8 for nearly 30 years. She said the school was originally designed as a teaching lab in partnership with USF, a model that served students well for many years, but there is no longer a teaching lab at the school.
Bellanti said rental fees have increased dramatically over the years. At the beginning of the lease, the district paid just $10 to rent the facility from 1997 to 2008. In 2008, USF renegotiated the contract and added the Patel building to the lease, bringing the annual rent to $60,000. Under the current contract, which began in July 2024 and runs through July 2034, the annual rent starts at $555,000 and increases by 3% each year.
In addition, the district paid a one-time $1 million fee for parking spots at the school and pays an annual $25,000 for security with University Police. Bellanti said the estimated 10-year financial obligation if the district stayed at Pizzo K-8 would be $16 million, factoring in lease payments, building maintenance for both the Pizzo and Patel buildings, parking costs, and security costs.
Bellanti said continuing to lease is no longer fiscally responsible, especially when nearby district schools have available capacity. She noted that out of 233 schools in the district, only 3 are closing, and none will close until 2027. Of those 3, only 2 are actually closing; the third is moving to another campus.
According to the Project Pizzo website, the group is urgently calling on USF to revisit the lease terms to foster a partnership that strengthens both the school and the surrounding community. The site also calls on the School District of Hillsborough County to continue its commitment to keeping Pizzo K-8 open.
Dan Wolfe, a kindergarten teacher at the school, said the timing of the closure could not be worse for the students it serves.
"One of the things about being a teacher, you got to wear many, many hats, from this one to reading teacher to negotiator, and so now we are taking that extra role of teacher. We want to, obviously, in our classroom, we want to support and advocate for our kids, and sometimes it's times like this when after school and everybody's gone home, and we're here to fight the good fight, just us. So that's why we're here, for the same reason we've been here, the same reason we walk in with those doors every single day to advocate for this community, to advocate for our students."
Wolfe said child development is at the center of his concerns.
"This is a time developmentally for these children that they will thrive so much, and so much of their psychological makeup as humans and how they respond to situations is made here now at this developmental stage, which requires structure and consistency."
Wolfe said the school serves students regardless of their background or circumstances.
"Everybody who comes here, who comes through our doors, we work with, we educate, we counsel, we mentor, no matter where you come from, no matter where you, what your family is fleeing, no matter what background you came from. We're here to help, nurture, support, care for, and guide you."
He also pushed back on the financial argument for closure, saying the long-term value of investing in students far outweighs any short-term financial gain from the property.
"How much money do you think USF would receive in the long term by supporting and investing in these students and allowing them to become those citizens, those members of the community, those people. How that is incalculable, way more than what we're than an up charge on a rent and what we're paying for whether they wants to pay for a parking lot, they get so much more, and not only the benefit from the students itself, but from the surrounding community."
Wolfe said the fight is far from over.
"One of the things you read a lot of these articles, it seems like PISO is closed, because it's like, no, we are here because it's really bright from where we are, we the fight's not over yet, and there are so many people coming out saying we didn't know that you guys did all this. Guess what, we're still doing it."
Sixth-grade ELA and critical thinking teacher Angela Colonello said the community's response has been overwhelming.
"It absolutely speaks volumes to the community itself, and it says that there's nobody who truly wants this to be happening. And so we created Project Pizzo to operate as an entity to ensure that it doesn't happen, and to make sure that we're calling upon the people who made maybe an unenlightened decision to kind of turn around and realize the impact that they're having on the community, students, schools, taxpayers, alumni, students of USF."
Colonello said USF has found solutions to problems in the past and should do so again now.
"What the USF has been able to show to us is that they have been able to find solutions in the past when the problems arise, and so what we're asking for USF now is to find a solution for essentially this dilemma that has happened. It seems like so much is coming down onto all of the educational entities, and what we really want from them is to be able to come together and help each other instead of forcing hardship onto each other."
She said every person who has learned about the proposed closure has come out in support of keeping the school open.
"Every person who has heard about this has been supportive of keeping the school open or finding a solution."
According to the Project Pizzo website, those who want to help save the school can take several steps. The site urges community members to sign and share petitions, email School Board members, submit advocacy forms, and contact school boundary officials by phone at (813) 272-4608 or by email at boundaries@hcps.net.
The site also calls on supporters to contact USF leadership directly, including USF President Moez Limayem at (813) 974-2791, and to reach the USF board at board@usf.edu. The Project Pizzo website asks those who contact USF to request that the university revisit the lease agreement, emphasize Pizzo K-8's importance to the community, and encourage collaboration with the school district.
According to the Project Pizzo website, spreading awareness is also critical. The site encourages supporters to share information about the campaign with friends, family, neighbors, local businesses, and community leaders, and to post about it on social media.
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