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Students Always Retiring Principal's Top Priority

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By JANIS D. FROELICH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 7, 2008

DOWNTOWN - Tony Perrone is known in the Hillsborough County school system as "an opener."

That's because he has opened a handful of new buildings as a principal, including Rampello Downtown Partnership School when it moved to larger quarters in August 2005.

But Perrone would be upset if any profile of him overemphasized his value to the school administration.

"It's all about the children," he said frequently as he discussed his approaching retirement after 35 years as a teacher, guidance counselor and principal.

Perrone, 57, is excited about the future as he and his wife, Lois, who will keep working for five more years as a school nurse, move toward a Tennessee retirement.

Students are his priority, evidenced by the group hugs he receives as he walks the corridors of Rampello, a cultural arts and humanities school serving the children of downtown workers.

The school, at 802 E. Washington St., has grown greatly under Perrone's leadership since he joined the staff in December 2003. The Tampa Downtown Partnership School opened in a downtown church in 1997 with 50 students, growing to 175 in kindergarten through fifth grade before relocating and changing its name.

It now serves 750 students up to eighth grade, with 225 on a waiting list.

Suzette Armatas, whose son Calvin began at the school in 1997 and just graduated from eighth grade, said Perrone is part of a system of caring.

"If your kid gets a haircut, the teachers notice. If they aren't excelling, you get a phone call," said Armatas, who heads the PTA and whose son MacKenzy will start eighth grade in August.

"I always say Mr. Perrone's strength is how he relates to the kids," she said. "And my sons tell me they like his integrity. He has never promised them anything he didn't deliver on."

"He's a teacher's principal," physical education instructor Bill Sowell said. "They loved him at Orange Grove Middle School when he was principal there. And he's brought the same quality where he makes everybody feel relaxed. He believes in trusting others to do their job."

Fourth-grader Chelsea Stewart, 10, greeted Perrone warmly last week.

"He gets into everything we do," she said. "I love the dance club and all the after-school stuff, and he really cares that I'm doing something extra."

Perrone said his pride and joy at Rampello is the dance studio. He boasts that the faculty includes six professionally trained dancers.

He's so adamant about the school's cultural offerings because downtown is its learning area and playground. School productions have been staged at Tampa Theatre and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

He recalled how the stagehands at the arts center told him after the last show, "Your kids were unbelievably professional."

Perrone's last day was Friday.

He said he's leaving his successor - Liz Uppercue of Woodbridge Elementary in Town 'N Country - with two projects that will be completed this summer. There will be an outdoor basketball court, and a rubber surface will replace mulch around the playground.

Media specialist Carol Hogue said Perrone always encourages her to think outside the box in the library and computer center. So she started a project last year in which Rampello students create laminated storybooks to send to Uganda.

Hogue said the ideas at Rampello always go back to the basics though.

"Because of Tony," she said, "it's always about the love of the kids."

Reporter Janis D. Froelich can be reached at (813) 835-2104 or jfroelich@tampatrib.com.

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