Tampa Bay Live Meets Seminole Heights High School
With the first day of school just days away, FOX 13 Tampa devoted a Tampa Bay Live segment to a question a lot of families are quietly asking: what happens when the traditional classroom hasn’t been the right fit?
Regina Gonzalez sat down with Pamela Battistini, the new assistant principal at Seminole Heights High School, for a conversation about the path back to a diploma, and what it takes to walk that path alongside a student.
Flexible. Personalized. Supported.
Asked what makes the work possible, Battistini gave Gonzalez three words: flexible, personalized, supportive.
She explained that there’s no one-size-fits-all student, so there’s no one-size-fits-all school day. Seminole Heights runs two sessions, which lets students build school around work, family, and everything else life asks of them.
From there she walked the anchor through what personalization actually looks like on campus. Students move through a mastery-based curriculum at their own pace, and software surfaces each student’s strengths and growth areas. That data becomes a personalized dashboard, so progress stays visible and the next step is always clear.
And the support, she told Gonzalez, is for the whole student. Not just the transcript.
“We’re going to believe in you until you believe in yourself.”
Wraparound support, built around the barrier
Pressed on what resources families should know about, Battistini laughed that she didn’t know where to start.
Often a single obstacle stands between a student and their diploma, she said, and the school is built to find it and clear it. She described a team of family support specialists working alongside interns from public university partners across Florida, delivering in-house counseling and connecting students to outside mental health services. Free vision and dental screenings. Substance use prevention programming. Help with housing and food security. Voter registration, so students step into civic life before they graduate.
She was just as quick to credit the school’s community partnership manager, who builds relationships with local businesses, and its career coach, who helps students land jobs, earn high school credit for the work they’re already doing, tour college campuses, apply, and file for financial aid.
“We’re going to walk beside them. We’re not here to push them or pull them. We’re here to walk beside and identify those areas where we can really truly support them.”
Assemble your village
Asked what she’d tell families heading into the new year, Battistini kept it simple: advocate for your student, talk to your school counselor, explore the options, and assemble your village.
Seminole Heights is ready to be part of it.
Watch the full conversation. Pamela’s eight minutes with Regina Gonzalez are worth every one of them. She talks about graduation day, about what students tell themselves before they believe in themselves, and about what it takes to walk beside a young person all the way across that stage.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/EPjKRLNAqgo