Superintendent outlines immediate and long-term plan to relieve overcrowding

Hoping to address overcrowding in east Manatee and crumbling schools in the west while driving curriculum changes countywide, the school superintendent outlined plans Monday to close old schools and shift students beginning next year.

The most immediate changes will be closing two aging central Bradenton schools, Orange Ridge-Bullock and Wakeland elementaries, and continuing to find ways to turn around failing schools that are losing students who choose to go elsewhere.

The top priority, though, is to address the severe overcrowding in eastern Manatee County and build a new high school in the Parrish area, Superintendent Diana Greene told School Board members during the workshop.

The district didn't attach a dollar figure to its plan, but estimated it could cost about $122 million to build a new high school and middle school in east county and nearly $7 million to repair Oneco Elementary.

Board Chairwoman Karen Carpenter said the board was embarking on a significant period of decision-making, one that would level and elevate the educational opportunities for all children, especially those in the neediest neighborhoods, while relieving overcrowding in the eastern parts of the county.

Although they must take formal votes over the next couple of months, the majority of the Manatee County School Board members want to build a high school in the Parrish area; move the Wakeland Elementary International Baccalaureate program to the Johnson Middle campus; turn Blackburn Elementary into an early learning center; close Orange Ridge-Bullock after this school year and send its students to Rogers Garden; and revamp Harllee Middle School as an invitation-only program for gifted students in grades 4 through 8.

"We do understand that this is a complicated process and we understand that there is a rich history no matter which school we are talking about," Greene said.

Preparing for change

Much of the planning for buildings is expected to help the district complete an "academic realignment" by repurposing failing schools, such as Harllee Middle and Rogers Garden Elementary. Structurally, the buildings are in good shape.

Greene said her district staff would spend the next three months talking to administrators, teachers and parents about the changes.

The school district hired the DeJong-Richter consulting firm to study the district's building needs. People had input throughout the process, which began in September.

All of the plans to shift students, repair old buildings and construct new ones will take money. District leaders will ask voters to extend the sales tax, which ends in 2017. The sales tax money can be used as a guarantee to borrow bond money to pay for school construction.

Price tags include an estimated $82 million to build a new high school and $40 million to build a new middle school. Some schools, such as Tillman and Oneco elementaries, need significant repairs. Others, like Wakeland, are beyond repair. An estimated $6.7 million to renovate Oneco was "the tip of the iceberg," Greene said, suggesting rebuilding it on a larger site was a better option.

New high school�

The numbers of students attending schools figured prominently into the decisions, especially at the high school level, where Lakewood Ranch High School is over capacity by 530 students, and Braden River High is over by 500. Students no longer are allowed to use choice to attend the schools in the high-growth area of the county.

"We're going to be moving aggressively on a new high school," Greene said.

The new Parrish-area high school — set to open in 2019 at a site yet to be finalized — also will provide relief to Palmetto High, which has 10 to 15 extra students.

Palmetto High offers the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education program, which offers bright students a chance to accelerate their studies. Lincoln Middle recently was approved for the program, and district officials want to expand it to Palmetto Elementary. Both Lincoln and Palmetto received F grades last school year; district officials believe the Cambridge program will attract more students.

From 'F' to gifted

Harllee Middle received an F grade from the state for three consecutive years and has a declining enrollment as students go elsewhere. If it gets an F this school year, the state will require the district to prepare a turn-around plan, Greene said.

Earlier this month, school district staff recommended to the board that students zoned to Harllee be sent to other nearby middle schools so Harllee could become a site for all of the district's programs for special needs students. In a couple of weeks, though, that plan changed to offering instruction to gifted fourth- through eighth-graders who would be invited to attend.

About 1,600 gifted students countywide attend special programs one or two days a week, Greene said. With the new program, they would be in classes five days a week that are taught by gifted-certified teachers.

Board member Bob Gause, reiterating an earlier stance, said he would rather give control of Harllee to administrators of Rowlett Elementary, a charter school, who want to start a middle school.

Rowlett Principal Brian Flynn said the idea would help relieve overcrowding in the school district's other middle schools and help Rowlett because it would be less expensive for them to renovate than build a new facility.

"It's a win for the parents who believe in the programs and the culture created at Rowlett needs to continue in the middle school years," Flynn said.

With the exception of Gause, board members agreed with Greene's recommendation to put the district's gifted programs there.

District needs

Greene said the board heard the top priorities Monday and reiterated that she is trying to marry new with the old while honoring the past, such as retaining the Bullock name in the new hybrid with Rogers Garden. The program for disabled children, which began in 1984 and is housed at Orange Ridge, was named after handicapped activist Joe Berta Bullock.

"I'm trying to honor traditions done long before many of us started in the school district," she said.

Other ideas to relieve overcrowding that need more study include building new elementary schools in the east, west and central parts of the county and a new middle school in the east.

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