ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mangrove Bay Middle School is Pinellas County’s newest school, set to open to students next year. 

It’s a magnet school that’s a collaboration between the Speer YMCA and the school district with a focus on health, wellness and leadership. The school’s principal says it’s a smaller school and was designed with collaboration in mind.

The campus is located on 62nd Avenue North at Pershing Street NE, the site of the former Riviera Middle School.

“We’ll know every single student, every single day, and be able to tailor our instruction to their learning needs,” said Principal Brett Patterson. “I’m a firm believer in whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning, so we will focus on a lot of collaborative components."

After watching the construction over the last year, Dawn Sims and her son Matthew finally took a tour of the brand-new Mangrove Bay Middle School. 

“Behind me, there are 12 classrooms that will be math, social studies, and language arts,” said Patterson as he gave the tour. 

He is currently the school’s only employee, but of course, that will soon be changing. He’ll hand pick his own staff, saying each will be as unique as this new school, which is attached to the Speer YMCA.

Students will have access to the YMCA, during PE class, and other times it may be incorporated into the curriculum, and which is a big draw for sixth grader Matthew.

“I really like it because of all the sports, I like playing sports. I do football and baseball,” he said.

That’s not all this new magnet program has to offer. It will serve students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, starting with 145 students per grade. In addition to the classrooms, Mangrove Bay Middle School will also have its own athletic fields with a track, a dining hall, cooking classroom, and access to the YMCA.

“The YMCA is such a big part of it, I love the YMCA and I think it’s an awesome organization so it was kind of cool that this was a partnership,” Sims said.

The location is also a bonus for the Sims.  

Matthew attends Thurgood Marshall Middle right now, which takes about 30 minutes to get to, and Mangrove Bay Middle School is less than one mile from home.

“I can ride my bike here, that would be nice,” said Matthew, and given the growth in the area, a new middle school is long overdue. 

“Also being brand new, that’s always appealing. I think that attracts teachers and administrators into a new environment with the latest technology and all that stuff,” said his mother.

They say there are pros, and some cons. 

“It’s a little smaller, but that’s not awful because then you’ll know everyone, you’ll basically be a big family,” said Matthew Sims. 

Which is Patterson’s vision, to create the Mangrove Bay Middle School family from the ground up.

Applications will be accepted through Jan. 19. The district hopes to have the school’s roster complete by Feb. 24.