At Mort Elementary in Tampa, third-grade teacher Christina Weaver leads her students in dancing while a DJ plays music in the classroom — an unconventional scene that's become part of a turnaround effort years in the making. Hillsborough County Public Schools just posted its first overall A district grade in more than a decade, and district leaders point to a program called the Transformation Network as a key piece of how some of its most struggling schools climbed out of the D and F ranks.
The network launched in 2020 as a turnaround initiative for some of the district's most vulnerable schools, according to Hillsborough County Public Schools' own year-in-review report. Sources differ on exactly how many schools joined at the start — the district's report and a 2025 account from Tampa Bay Beacons both put the figure at 45, while a more recent account from Yahoo News cites roughly 50. Either way, the approach centered on intensive data monitoring, individualized plans for each student and a standardized curriculum, as the Tampa Bay Times reported in its original coverage of the effort, titled Hillsborough set out to transform its D and F schools. Here's how.
Grades Climbed As Schools Graduated Out of the Program
Schools transition out of the Transformation Network after three years of sustained improvement, per the Times' reporting. The district's own year-in-review document found that 38 of the original 45 schools saw school-grade increases during the program's first two years, and that the number of D- and F-rated schools fell from 28 in 2020 to five in 2022 — an 82 percent drop. By 2025, the network had narrowed to 39 schools, and it served 38 by the time of the Times' most recent reporting.
The shrinking roster reflects schools graduating out as their grades stabilized. In 2024, Spectrum News reported that Hillsborough had only eight low-performing schools districtwide, with six of them still enrolled in the program. Mort Elementary itself earned its first B grade in school history last year and repeated that grade in 2026, now outside the network entirely, according to the Times.
An A Grade for the District, and No F Schools
This year brought the district's first overall A in more than a decade, with no F-rated schools and only one D-rated school, per the Times. Hillsborough County Public Schools confirmed the milestone in a statement, noting that the Florida Department of Education issued the A district grade on July 1, 2026 — the district's first A rating in more than ten years.
For the first time in district history, every single Transformation Network school earned an A, B or C that year, the district said. Of the 214 traditional schools that received a grade, 127 earned an A or B. The number of A-rated schools rose to 74 from 70, and B-rated schools climbed to 53 from 44, according to the district's figures.
Individual Schools Tell the Turnaround Story
Lamb Elementary earned D grades during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years before steadily improving to its first A grade in 2026, the Times reported. DeSoto Elementary in Tampa went from a D-rated school to an A for the first time in more than a decade after going through the Transformation Network, according to Bay News 9. Booker T. Washington Elementary and Wilson Elementary each jumped two letter grades, moving from D to B, the district reported.
None of these accounts claim the Transformation Network alone drove the gains — the reporting describes the changes and the district's own explanations without asserting a single cause. Still, the district has backed the effort financially: last year, Hillsborough approved a bonus structure for employees at Transformation Network schools, offering $5,000 for teachers and assistant principals, $7,500 for principals and $1,000 for paraprofessionals, according to Tampa Bay Beacons. The agreement also built in additional planning and evaluation time for certain teachers.
What the Numbers Still Don't Show
The reported turnaround numbers come from the district and news outlets covering it, and there's no independent verification of a complete school-by-school grade history beyond what's been publicly reported. For families at schools like Mort, though, the day-to-day shift is tangible — a classroom where a DJ spins music and a teacher leads a dance break is a far cry from the D and F ratings that defined the school just a few years ago.
