St. Pete’s new middle school is ready to welcome students

Most American school days begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. The “first day” at Mangrove Bay Middle School was no different.

“A lot of people came together to make this possible,” Mangrove Bay Principal Brett Patterson said Thursday, after leading approximately 100  guests in the Pledge and National Anthem. They included representatives from the Pinellas County School Board including Superintendent Kevin Hendrick, architects, developers, faculty, families, student, and members of the community.  

Not long after, the ribbon was cut on Pinellas County’s newest public school, located at 501 62nd Avenue NE in Northeast St. Pete. Mangrove Bay opens to students for the 2024-25 academic year on Aug. 12; its 600 available places are fully subscribed, according to Patterson. 

Mangrove Bay was constructed on the site of, and as a replacement for, Riviera Middle School, which was closed in 2008. The name Mangrove Bay was chosen from more than 150 different community suggestions to reflect the neighborhood’s identity. Uniquely, it shares a campus and part of the building with the new Speer YMCA as part of an innovative partnership. The Speer YMCA opened in late 2023 and has already registered 12,000 members, noted David Jezek, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg. 

Up to a third of the facility will be shared between the YMCA and the school.

Hendrick highlighted the unique opportunity to partner with the YMCA to not merely build a shared facility but to open a new school, a rarity in an era of declining public school enrollments. For Hendrick, who lives not far from Mangrove Bay, it was especially important to bring facilities back to this site. “When [Riviera Middle School] closed, a little bit of the community closed with it,” he said.

The community enthusiasm was evident during the ceremony, with enthusiastic members of the community present and Riviera Middle alumni cheering when the former school was mentioned. 

Todd Pope was one of them. Now a Project Director with Creative Contractors, one of the construction partners on the school, his journey to building Mangrove Bay started 30 years before – in his father’s Riviera Middle School shop class.

“That’s what got me into construction,” Pope said next to his mother, Carol, and father, Richard, who beamed with pride. “The personal connection of being here when I was a kid and my dad being a teacher and then years later coming back and building a whole new school on the same property … It’s awesome. It’s going to be great for the kids. You know, I think they’re going to be excited. It’s a different learning environment.”

Incoming Mangrove Bay students expressed that hoped-for enthusiasm. When asked what she was most excited for, rising 6th grader Reese exclaimed, “Mostly everything!”

“Definitely the sports,” said her sister Payton, an incoming 8th grader. Both eagerly anticipated receiving assignments to elective coursework later on Thursday; Reese looked forward to gardening class while Payton anticipated the chance to pursue culinary studies.

Students have the opportunity to take elective courses in addition to general education requirements, explained Patterson. Students like Reese and Payton were given the opportunity to rate elective opportunities 1-4 by their interest. “For the most part, every student was able to get their first pick with their elective classes. Most students have two electives in their schedule.”

Culinary was the most popular elective, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the many facilities available for aspiring cooks. “We have a garden behind the school as well, so we will have a farm-to-table opportunity for students to be able to grow things … and be able to bring them into the classroom and learn about food preparation.”

The 111,000-square-foot school is organized around a media center – “our Main Street, if you will,” said Israel Sanchez, a project manager from Wannemacher Jensen Architects. “It’s your center. Everything is connected here. If there’s anything special about this project, it’s that we took this special communal space and made it the hub and the point of security for everything.”

Around the media center, the school includes both specialized and cross-content spaces, such as a Family Consumer Science Classroom, kitchen, and art room. Students will have the opportunity to study everything from culinary arts to 3-D printing to crocheting.

For School Board Chair Laura Hine, the bright and modern space at Mangrove Bay is an example of everything she, her colleagues, and Pinellas County Schools work towards. “Our job is to create the conditions that allow every child to succeed,” she said. “We rise to our built environment.”