Who Do You Call if You Have a Concern About Your Child's School?

The Hillsborough County School District has more than 260 schools, sites and centers, which makes for a pretty hefty administrative load for a centralized school system.

In other parts of the country, there are lots and lots of school districts, many within blocks of each other. In Florida, every county is a school district, which means one school board oversees all public schools in Hillsborough County.  

To facilitate the governance of those schools, the district has been broken down into eight areas and each area is a run by an area director.

The big change this year concerns areas 5, 6 and 7, as evidenced by a change in high school placements. Area 5 retains Bloomingdale and Spoto, picks up Newsome from Area 6 and loses East Bay, Lennard and Riverview to the newly formed Area 8.

Consider the area director a "mini-superintendent" for the cluster of schools closest to your home. It's a good first call to make with any concern after you exhaust your channels of communication at the school level.

Indeed, the area director has been called the "principals' principal," as noted in the job description posted on the school district website.

It reads: "The area director supervises the day-to-day operations of the school and the school budgets for a specific geographic area to assure proper implementation of school board policy and procedures. In a sense, they are the 'principals' principal.’ "

Greater Brandon area schools fall under the auspices of:

• Area 5, directed by Sherrie Sikes, a Brandon High School graduate, who can be reached at 813-744-8630. Her offices are at 825 Brooker Ave. in Brandon.

• Area 6, directed by Jerry Jackson, who can be reached at 813-707-7050. His offices are at 703 North Thomas Street in Plant City.

• Area 7, directed by Anthony Satchel, who can be reached at 813-740-3711. His offices are at 1005 North Parsons Avenue in Seffner.

• Area 8, directed by Chris Farkas, who can be reached at 813-658-1970. The offices are at 2807 John Sherman Way in Ruskin.

To determine what area a school falls under, a complete listing of schools by areas is posted online.

Below is a list of areas, along with both the number of schools in each area and the comprehensive high schools that are included in that mix. Presume that each high school's feeder middle schools and elementary schools would fall under the same jurisdiction (but check with the link above).

Area No. of Schools, Sites and Centers
Comprehensive High School 1 37 Blake, Jefferson, Plant, Robinson 2 32 Alonso, Leto, Sickles, Steinbrenner 3 40 Freedom, Gaither, King, Wharton
4 39 Chamberlain, Hillsborough, Middleton
5 27 Bloomingdale, Newsome, Spoto   6 32 Durant, Plant City, Strawberry Crest 7 36 Armwood, Brandon, Tampa Bay Technical 8 23 East Bay, Lennard, Riverview 
Source: Hillsborough County School District