Original Research by School Decision on Acts
ACTS was a public alternative school in Thonotosassa, Florida, operated under the Hillsborough County school district. It served only eighth grade and is now closed, according to its operational status in federal records.
Because the school is closed, much of what might ordinarily appear here is absent or inapplicable. Enrollment figures, demographic data, and attendance information are not available in the data. State assessment results for math and reading at the eighth-grade level were suppressed in the records that do exist, meaning the tested group was likely too small for Florida to report results publicly. That suppression does not indicate weak performance; it is a standard privacy threshold applied to very small groups. No graduation rate applies, since the school served only middle school grades. Program offerings, staffing, and course access data were not provided.
What the records do tell us is that this was a non-charter, non-magnet alternative school, a designation that in Florida typically reflects a specialized setting for students whose needs or circumstances place them outside a conventional school environment. Families looking for context on what the school was specifically designed to serve would need to look beyond what is available here, and since the school is no longer operating, that inquiry is now largely historical.
Thonotosassa itself is an unincorporated community in northeastern Hillsborough County. Publicly reported descriptions characterize it as a quiet, low-density area mixing long-established homes, agricultural land, and newer single-family subdivisions. Most residents commute to Tampa or Plant City rather than working locally, and the area is car-dependent. A branch library and several parks, including waterfront access to Lake Thonotosassa and the Hillsborough River, anchor community life. New construction has been arriving steadily, with developers targeting one-acre-lot subdivisions near the interstate corridor, and the population has grown alongside Tampa's suburban expansion. Home values in the zip code sit modestly above the Florida statewide benchmark and meaningfully above the national median, with year-over-year prices slightly down at the time of this data. Renting at current rates would consume a substantial share of a typical household's income.
At the district level, Hillsborough County voters approved a property tax referendum in late 2024, publicly reported as adding a one-mill levy from mid-2025 through mid-2029 to fund teacher and staff pay increases. That is a direct, multi-year cost for homeowners in the county. The district also completed a major boundary rezoning for the 2024-2025 school year, reshuffling attendance zones across many schools and affecting a large number of students. Families considering any Hillsborough school should verify current assignments, since those boundaries shifted substantially.
Because ACTS is closed, there is no current enrollment pathway to describe. The data on this school is thin by nature, and the school's closure means a reader cannot act on most of what would normally follow.
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