JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Potential Duval County school closures and consolidations are still up in the air. But for now, some schools are off the closure list.
Thursday night, Duval County Schools presented a new proposal that took feedback from ideas presented in August.
In this new proposal,l Ramona Elementary, Bayview Elementary, and West Riverside Elementary are staying open. But this proposal shows schools like Garden City Elementary and Sheffield Elementary are having their new builds put on hold. There’s also the potential for boundary changes in multiple feeder patterns.
Tiffany Clark, a parent leader with Parents Who Lead, knows that some tough decisions are still ahead for the district.
“Just closing a school, isn’t going to fix some of those gaps, those spending gaps,” Clark said. “But we also know that the decisions that have to be made -- the direct impact that they’re going to have on the education of our students. And so I think that as we move forward, we have to take a look at how this is going to impact our education system overall, not just closing schools with boundary changes. How is that going to affect individual neighborhoods? And that’s something that I think cannot be fixed overnight, and that conversation is going to have to continue, especially as it pertains to boundary changes.”
In the updated proposal, Mayport Middle School would stay a 6-8 configuration instead of combining into a K-8 with Anchor Academy and Mayport Elementary School, as the Aug. 1 proposal suggested. But now the district is looking at consolidating Mayport Elementary and Anchor Academy.
Courtney Abernathy has three kids attending school in the Fletcher Feeder pattern and represents Anchor Academy in the Master Facility Plan focus group. She’s concerned that the district is considering consolidating those two schools.
“Children from either school cannot walk along Mayport Road to either school,” Abernathy said. “So Anchor Academy Children who live behind the gates of Mayport Naval Station cannot walk to Mayport Elementary, and children who live in or next to Mayport Elementary cannot walk along Mayport Road to get to Anchor Academy.”
She hopes that district staff will review the data they have.
“I think that they need to go back and look at the numbers that were initially presented to kind of rework those numbers,” Abernathy said. “There was a lot of inaccuracies pointed out, so I would like to see just a more accurate representation on a whole level of, you know, budget numbers. So until we get those, I’m not sure that I can speak to that.”
Clark hopes that people will continue to stay involved in the process as the district asks for feedback from the community on this plan.
“Even if you know some of our constituents and stakeholders, they don’t have children in public school, but this impacts the city, school closures, consolidation, boundary changes. It impacts everyone’s neighborhood,” Clark said. “And so I’m hoping that we don’t look at this as, ‘OK, well, I don’t have children,” but look at this as this is our city, and it’s impacting each and every one of us.”
School district staff will make changes to the proposal based on feedback from Thursday night’s meeting. The board will have a workshop on Sept. 17 to review the proposal they come up with. The earliest the board could vote on a proposal is Oct. 1.
See the focus group presentation below:
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