Mayor's Mentors and More!

Clam Bayou Education Facility

Gulf Coast Community Care

High School Principals Forum

The First Tee of St. Petersburg

Joint Use Agreements

Play ‘N’ Close to Home

School Website Directory

Summer Youth Intern Program

Clam Bayou Education Facility
The College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida has established several education programs designed to benefit a diverse population of students and teachers. These educational efforts have forged partnerships between state and federal agencies, businesses, and individual supporters to educate the entire community on one of our city’s most valuable resources- water. One such program that embodies the University’s commitment to community education is the Clam Bayou Environmental and Marine Education Center . The property where Clam Bayou rests was donated to the College of Marine Science by the City of St Petersburg . In return, the College of Marine Science provides programming for St. Petersburg schools and citizens of the community on topics such as oceanography, estuaries, and ecosystems. These programs are interactive and interdisciplinary providing experiential learning via research cruises, coastal field trips, research projects, and web-based technologies.

Ongoing programming throughout the year such as the Oceanography Camp for girls and generous grants from preservation agencies like Forever Florida and the Pinellas Education Foundation ensure that future generations of young people are educated about Florida ’s water resources.

Currently the following city schools are participating in programming with Clam Bayou:

Bay Point Elementary

Bear Creek Elementary

Campbell Park Elementary

Jamerson Elementary

Azalea Middle

Lealman Intermediate

For more information about fieldtrips or use of this educational facility contact Teresa Greely at tgreely@marine.usf.edu.

Gulf Coast Community Care

Since 1980, Gulf Coast Community Care’s Adults Mentoring Children initiative has been supporting Pinellas County youth through the Adopt-a-Grandchild program. This program, sponsored by the Juvenile Welfare Board, specializes in matching adults and seniors with youth in order to develop supportive relationships. This intergenerational program targets children through age sixteen who are predominately from low income, single parent families, long-term foster care, kinship homes, or youth who’ve been abused or neglected. Since 1989, the program has broadened its focus to middle school aged youth.

The program has been successful as it has grown from serving 150 to 225 children annually. As the program continues to grow, more volunteers are needed. Volunteers are asked to commit a few hours per month for one year and attend regular trainings. Activities can be social, cultural, or educational; and it is preferred that visits take place in the community or at the volunteer’s home.

For more information about volunteering call Sandy Nelson in Children’s Services at 727-479-1841.

High School Principals Forum
Since becoming mayor, Mayor Baker has advocated at the local, state, and national level for education in topics ranging from joint use programs, allocation of resources in public schools, the importance of technical education in our city, addressing the importance of community participation in our schools. One way he shows his support is by hosting a regular high school principal's forum. The principals of St. Petersburg's high schools representing Boca Ciega, Gibbs, Northeast, Lakewood, St. Petersburg Collegiate and St. Petersburg, get together and discuss relevaant issues. Principals report these quarterly meetings are very beneficial, as they allow the principals to discuss issues they have in common, best practices and innovative problem solving strategies.

The First Tee of St. Petersburg

First Tee is a nationwide initiative of the World Golf Foundation. The St. Petersburg chapter was established in 2005 by the City’s Golf Course Department. Participating clubs include Mangrove Bay, Cypress Links, and Twin Brooks. Twin Brooks which is located in Midtown, serves as the program’s home site.

The purpose of the First Tee junior golf program is to positively impact the youth of our community regardless of age, gender, race, or socio-economic status by teaching the inherent values of the game of golf. The nine core values for the program are honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect, confidence, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy, and judgment.

First Tee provides of a variety of youth programs for ages 8-18. Target clinics, summer camps, par/birdie practice & play, after school and weekend clinics, life skills curriculum, outreach programs, and summer tournaments are a few highlights of the program.

Volunteers are needed in all areas. For more information call 727-551-3300.

Joint Use Agreements
The Mayor also worked with the Pinellas County School Board to establish an inter-local agreement which streamlined land-use regulations for the development and redevelopment of public educational facilities. Now, regulatory fees paid by the School Board are directed to the installation of additional landscaping or to replace required landscaping at the City's discretion. There are currently 64 agreements in place.

Play ‘N’ Close to Home
View Map (updated 12-31-07)
Mayor Rick Baker pledged to locate a public playground within one-half mile of every resident in the city as part of this initiative. The city had a large inventory of 47 playgrounds when the "Play 'n' Close to Home" program began. However, a GIS survey of the city revealed some glaring geographical gaps where there were no playgrounds.  Since St. Petersburg is 95 percent developed, land is at a premium and prices continue to escalate rapidly. In order to develop new playgrounds, the city needed creative, cost-saving solutions and community partners.

City staff analyzed the GIS map and determined that elementary schools were located in every area where playgrounds were missing. Mayor Baker and his staff worked closely with the Pinellas County School Board to remove longstanding barriers -- such as legal liability, insurance, maintenance, security, vandalism, etc. -- that made joint use agreements difficult.

In March 2004, the first joint-use playground was opened at the Mt. Vernon Elementary School. Mount Vernon was selected because students had to walk farther to get to the closest recreation center than students of other schools. More than $80,000 was earmarked for the site, including equipment, fencing, and gates. Under the agreement, the city maintains the 1.6 acres of playground in exchange for public use of the land outside school hours, from sunrise to sunset.

By the end of 2005, St. Petersburg will have added 14 new playgrounds. Seven of these playgrounds will be located at elementary schools: Mt. Vernon, Maximo, Lakewood, Rio Vista, Lynch, Westgate, and Bay Point. An innovative win-win solution, schools receive state-of-the-art ADA accessible playgrounds at no cost to them, and neighborhood children have access to the facilities after school and on weekends.

SAVE Scholarships
Recognizing that all students may not choose to attend college, a local philanthropist, Frances Stavros, along with the Pinellas Education Foundation, established Scholarships for Adult Vocational Excellence (SAVE). These scholarships are aimed at young people who have an interest in technical training. SAVE Scholars receive their tuition as well as all necessary supplies and equipment in their training course. Again, using exclusively private donations, the Mayor has funded 112 SAVE scholarships for residents of St. Petersburg. For more information on applying for or donating to, please see the SAVE homepage of the Pinellas Education Foundation website.

Scrubbin’ da Burg

Each year, St. Petersburg teenagers band together to clean local school campuses, parks, residences, and streets. The teens clean the garden beds, rake leaves, pick up debris, weed beneath the tree canopies, wash windows, paint, and clean classrooms. In 2006, 840 teens took part in the event and worked at 14 schools, 15 parks, two street clean-ups, and four homes, doing a fantastic job.

The schools that participated were:

Sanderlin Elementary

Mount Vernon Elementary

Lynch Elementary

Melrose Elementary

Bear Creek Elementary

Southside Fundamental

Baypoint Elementary

Northshore Elementary

Rio Vista Elementary

Tyrone Elementary

Northwest Elementary

74th St Elementary

Clearview Avenue

A celebration is held at the end of the work day with food, music, and more fun.

St. Pete Values
Mayor Baker has implemented a program in our recreation centers called "St. Pete Values". The curriculum is meant to supplement and reinforce the character education programs already in our schools. As part of this program, character/values-oriented signage was posted in city recreation facilities. A character education program was started with elementary youth through a designated "Word of the Month" program. A different word associated with positive values is introduced each month. The meaning of the word is explored through group discussion, informational bulletin boards, daily interaction, and “Word of the Month” poster contests.

YES YMCA Program
The Youth Enhancement Skills (YES) program uses YMCA core values: caring, honesty, and respect and responsibility to build character development and enhance life skills in middle school students. Life skills facilitators and campus mediators use Youth Development strategy in order to challenge students to view their problems as barriers to development. By providing a caring and encouraging environment and engaging families, YES mediators hope to circumvent problems youth face and equip them with skills to resolve conflict. The program's curriculum actualizes success for students by drawing upon the expertise of many community organizations such as YMCA of the Suncoast, Department of Juvenile Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention, Congressman C.W. Bill Young and Pinellas County School Board.

The YES curriculum is based upon the following concepts:

Drop out Prevention
Peer Mediation
Reduction in school suspensions and arrests
Mentoring values and character development

The following schools are currently participating:

Meadowlawn Middle School
Pinellas Park Middle School
Dunedin Middle School
Kennedy Middle School

For more information please visit www.stpeteymca.org or call YMCA Middle School Programs,727-895-9622.

Summer Youth Intern Program

The City of St. Petersburg funds an annual eight to ten week Summer Youth Intern Program (SYIP) which is coordinated by the Community Affairs Department and administered by an outside agency under contract with the City. The SYIP is a temporary employment program for St. Petersburg youth in economically disadvantaged families, between the ages of 14 and 23, who meet certain household income guidelines. The program provides diverse opportunities for our youth to develop real vocational skills and earn income while employed by both private and public sector businesses.

For more information on this exciting and rewarding program, contact us at (727) 893-7229 or visit St. Petersburg’s official website at www.stpete.org/commaff.htm.

School Website Directory

Elementary Schools

74th Street

Azalea

Bay Point

Bay Vista Fundamental