{"id":180117,"date":"2026-03-06T01:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/180117\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T01:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:21:09","slug":"school-board-favors-keeping-duval-open-moves-toward-k-8-schools-at-lincoln-and-mebane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/180117\/","title":{"rendered":"School Board favors keeping Duval open, moves toward K-8 schools at Lincoln and Mebane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The School Board of Alachua County met on March 3<\/p>\n

BY JENNIFER CABRERA<\/p>\n

GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2013 At the March 3 School Board of Alachua County meeting, the board agreed to keep Duval open and moved forward with plans to convert Lincoln and Mebane to K-8 schools, although those changes would not be implemented this fall. Under the current maps, Stephen Foster Elementary is the only school that would close in the fall of 2026.<\/p>\n

Public comment<\/p>\n

During public comment, 17 people asked the board to keep all the schools open or at least pause the process; various speakers objected to the potential closures of Foster Elementary, Williams Elementary, Duval Pre-K, Rawlings Elementary, and the Alachua elementary schools. County Commission Chair Ken Cornell asked the board to pause the process and said school district staff will present the plan to the Gainesville City Commission and the County Commission at their joint meeting on March 9.<\/p>\n

Member Tina Certain said she was \u201cglad that the schedules aligned\u201d so staff could go to the joint City\/County meeting, \u201cbut in the elected officials\u2019 meeting<\/a>, we were hoping to have a robust discussion with our colleagues from the County and the City. It was a good meeting, but it wasn\u2019t as robust as I would have hoped it had been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chair Thomas Vu said, \u201cYes, I would prefer if some of our local elected officials actually attended our meeting and gave their thoughts to us directly in a publicly noticed meeting they were all invited to, instead of directly to the press, before picking up a phone and talking to us. That would have been very nice. It also would have been really great if the City of Gainesville bothered to RSVP a yes or no in attendance as well. I just want to make note that the Mayor of Gainesville also did not come to this meeting, where they could have expressed their opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elementary schools<\/p>\n

John Gilreath from JBPro presented the latest elementary maps, which reflected board members\u2019 requests to make Mebane a K-8 (closing Irby and Alachua Elementary Schools); split Foster students between two schools instead of five (they will go to Rawlings and Metcalfe except for a small area north of NW 39th Avenue that will be zoned to Norton); relocate the Foster STEM magnet to Metcalfe or Rawlings; rezone the Longleaf neighborhood to Wiles; and rezone Fletcher\u2019s Mill, Pine Hill Estates, Ridgemont, and South Pointe to Terwilliger. The new map also rezoned Pine Forest Estates, Bella Vista, and the area in the rectangle bounded by NW 39th Avenue, NW 23rd Avenue, NW 13th Street, and NW 6th Street to Rawlings. Pine Park and Gateway Park were moved to Metcalfe; The Gables, Reserve at Kanapaha, and Element at Celebration Pointe moved to Idylwild.<\/p>\n

Concerns about a K-8 at Mebane for Alachua students<\/p>\n

Member Sarah Rockwell was concerned with the cost of the construction needed to put the youngest elementary students at Mebane because they need sinks and bathrooms in each classroom. She suggested keeping K-3 or K-4 at Irby Elementary.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Kamela Patton said there have been issues with state accountability at Oak View Middle School (currently 5th-8th grades) because you don\u2019t have \u201cthe whole complement of the elementary.\u201d She said they\u2019re also trying to keep siblings together so parents don\u2019t have to drop off and pick up students at multiple schools. But, she said, \u201canything can be done. It\u2019s always about what works best for a family and keeping kids, as much as we can, together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rockwell said, \u201cI\u2019m just trying to troubleshoot things that I\u2019m hearing from the community\u2026 with concerns about \u2014 how are we going to have enough money to build all these buildings? How are we going to plan for the new construction in Alachua?\u201d Rockwell also favored placing the STEM magnet at Metcalfe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vu said he favored a single K-8 in Alachua and proposed giving the Alachua Elementary property to the City of Alachua as a sports or recreation area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Elementary school capacity with the requests from the February 26 workshop<\/p>\n

Discussion about the other elementary schools<\/p>\n

Certain said she would prefer to have STEM programs at Norton, Metcalfe, and Rawlings, \u201cjust offer the programming at each of the schools.\u201d She said her position on the Alachua K-8 was that the district could add a new building at Mebane for the elementary students instead of redeveloping Alachua and Irby; she said the same logic applied to Williams Elementary and said the funding would come from the capital funds budget, not the General Fund. She also didn\u2019t support any zoning changes that would result in schools that are over-capacity from the start, particularly Chiles, Wiles, and Idylwild, so she supported taking out the modifications that were requested by the board at the last workshop.<\/p>\n

Gilreath said the number of zoning exemptions could be reduced at Chiles and Wiles: \u201cThat\u2019s a policy decision.\u201d Certain asked for information on which zoning exemptions could be pulled; some are \u201cchoice\u201d exemptions in which students are grandfathered in until they finish fifth grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Member Leanetta McNealy: \u201cIt bothers me to know that I\u2019m right there in the midst of that community, and I\u2019m not really being heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member Leanetta McNealy said she still opposed closing any schools and said the process has not considered student outcomes; she said she can see Williaims and Lincoln from her bedroom window, \u201cand it bothers me to know that I\u2019m right there in the midst of that community, and I\u2019m not really being heard.\u201d She said she is not in favor of \u201ccontinuing with this on March 12,\u201d and she wasn\u2019t in favor of any of the maps: \u201cWe have got to find some other plausible solutions for allowing schools to remain where they are\u2026 We must stop\u2026 We need to put this in phases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member Janine Plavac explained that Schools of Hope \u201cis a law that was passed in \u201925 that says that if a school is under 75% enrollment or has more than 400 seats, then charter schools can occupy our buildings, and then we are responsible for food, transportation, and cleaning the building\u2026 So this is a new thing, and this is what\u2019s driving a lot of this right now, is bringing capacity up for our schools.\u201d She said Alachua County\u2019s birth rate hasn\u2019t dropped significantly, so \u201cwe shouldn\u2019t close five schools, because that does not address what the statistics show.\u201d She said there are 10,000 students in Alachua County who are not enrolled in district schools, \u201cand my fear is that we\u2019re going to lose more if we do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plavac said she was upset about closing Williams, \u201cthis historic school\u2026 What\u2019s going to happen to the community?\u2026 What we\u2019re doing now is, we\u2019re dividing the community more.\u201d She asked why the Williams students couldn\u2019t all go to Prairie View and suggested turning the Williams property into a community recreational facility with playgrounds and sports fields. She also supported keeping Duval and Rawlings open.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chair Thomas Vu on Williams Elementary: \u201cKids deserve to go to school on a place that isn\u2019t a dump site\u2026 My position on that is not changing at all, and I would rather see them go into a new facility next door [at Lincoln],\u2026 and I would love to see Lincoln Middle School itself rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vu said he would like to give the Williams property to the City of Gainesville or back to the Williams family. He said he became very emotional when he read that Williams was built on a dump site, \u201cand I think it\u2019s wrong to tell kids that they deserve to go to a school built on a dump\u2026 Kids deserve to go to school on a place that isn\u2019t a dump site\u2026 My position on that is not changing at all, and I would rather see them go into a new facility next door [at Lincoln],\u2026 and I would love to see Lincoln Middle School itself rebuilt\u2026 I think there are ways to honor history while at the same time creating something new and better\u2026 I\u2019m just thinking about these really dark parts of the history of that school, and I still remember the first time learning about it, I couldn\u2019t stop reading, and I just laid in my bed and I cried about it because I had no idea I was living next door to something so terrible in terms of a history and the way in the past that the governments here have treated kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member Tina Certain: \u201cWe have too many schools open for the number of students that we have\u2026 Keeping all 22 elementary schools open would make everybody happy, but that is not financially feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certain returned to the Schools of Hope topic and said charter schools can co-locate in existing schools \u201cat district expense\u201d without applying to the district. She also said that previous school boards have \u201ckicked this can down the road\u201d every time rezoning has come up, \u201cand we\u2019re at a place right now where, if we\u2019re saying we want to be financially efficient and to really handle taxpayer resources in a responsible manner,\u2026 we would heed the recommendations [from FADSS (the Florida Association of District School Superintendents)] that we have too many schools open for the number of students that we have\u2026 Keeping all 22 elementary schools open would make everybody happy, but that is not financially feasible.\u201d She said again that she didn\u2019t support the recent changes to the maps because several schools would still be over capacity and said she preferred Draft C.<\/p>\n

Vu said he thought most of the board supported Draft D because it keeps Rawlings open. Patton said she wanted to remind the board that \u201cif we keep filling [schools] up and they\u2019re not full, it\u2019s defeating the purpose \u2014 we\u2019re still spending all the operating dollars on the buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member Sarah Rockwell: \u201cBoth Williams and Lincoln are desperately in need of redevelopment. Both of these schools are aging facilities, and our students deserve better,\u2026 and when we have two aging facilities that are under-enrolled, the way that we can provide the best facility\u2026 is to combine those facilities and build one excellent facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to a question from Rockwell, Gilreath said future growth is expected in the Meadowbrook, Terwilliger, and Wiles zones. Rockwell said it didn\u2019t make sense to her to have Terwilliger at 75% capacity while Wiles is at 105% and Meadowbrook is at 77%. She said creating a K-8 at Lincoln made sense to her because \u201cboth Williams and Lincoln are desperately in need of redevelopment. Both of these schools are aging facilities, and our students deserve better,\u2026 and when we have two aging facilities that are under-enrolled, the way that we can provide the best facility\u2026 is to combine those facilities and build one excellent facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member Rockwell: \u201cAs much as the financial impact of Schools of Hope is a huge issue for the board, the logistical impact and what it would do to students \u2014 socially, educationally, emotionally \u2014 to have their campus shared like that, it is just not something that we can allow to happen in good faith. It would be absolutely terrible for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rockwell said she kept thinking about what it would be like to share a school campus \u201cwith another school that has different schedules, different behavior systems, different school culture, and how that would negatively impact students to an incredible degree. And as much as the financial impact of Schools of Hope is a huge issue for the board, the logistical impact and what it would do to students \u2014 socially, educationally, emotionally \u2014 to have their campus shared like that, it is just not something that we can allow to happen in good faith. It would be absolutely terrible for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNealy said she believes enrollment will decline even more \u201cwith what we are getting ready to do\u2026 Can\u2019t we do better?\u2026 We have so many smart people in this very district who could certainly come up with\u2026 phases of what could be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member McNealy: \u201cThe dump\u2026 goes over the whole campus, not just Williams\u2026 We\u2019re talking about rebuilding Lincoln, and it sits on the same land\u2026 I know from the evaluations that that campus is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNealy told Vu that \u201cthe dump\u2026 goes over the whole campus, not just Williams\u2026 We\u2019re talking about rebuilding Lincoln, and it sits on the same land\u2026 \u2014 dump is dump.\u201d She said the property is evaluated every year, \u201cand it always comes back that it\u2019s fine\u2026 I know from the evaluations that that campus is okay\u2026 So I was surprised to hear you say and share that information with us tonight, because I was under the impression that that had been corrected,\u2026 I thought we had gotten that under control.\u201d She said she would not support a K-8 for Williams at any point in the foreseeable future: \u201cI\u2019m asking you\u2026 and almost begging you,\u2026 that you would consider listening to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plavac proposes moving Williams students to Prairie View<\/p>\n

In response to a question from Plavac, Director of FTE and State Reporting Kim Neal clarified that Williams Elementary will stay open until the Lincoln K-8 is completed. Plavac responded, \u201cSo if [Williams] is in such poor disrepair\u2026 why don\u2019t we move them over to Prairie View?\u201d Neal said Prairie View was only approved as a \u201ctransition school,\u201d and it would need significant improvements to be approved as a \u201cfull elementary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director of Planning and Construction Suzanne Wynn said that because the school was only being used as a transition school, the permitting organization gave them \u201ca pass on doing certain things that we needed to do, in terms of ADA modifications, etc.\u201d She said it would probably take \u201ca couple years\u201d to make those changes and added that the bus loop is another concern because there is only one road into the school, so parents and bus traffic would use the same road.<\/p>\n

Consensus<\/p>\n

Summarizing the discussion, Vu said, \u201cIt sounds like there are some misgivings about [Draft] D, the way it was redrafted, based on our consensus. And I just want to be clear on that \u2014 I\u2019m in favor of kind of keeping changes made, as is.\u201d He said he heard consensus around moving the Foster magnet to Metcalfe and getting more information about zoning exemptions, and he asked staff to look at future growth in areas currently zoned for over-capacity schools \u201cand then maybe they all can be absorbed into Terwilliger, because they\u2019re at 76% right now.\u201d He said there was also consensus for keeping Duval as it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

High schools<\/p>\n

Gilreath said that since there was consensus on Draft C for middle schools at the February 26 workshop, he was going to move on to Draft D for high schools. At the workshop, the board asked for all of Haile Plantation to be zoned to Buchholz (an additional 146 students), and Durant Estates, Beville Heights, Mill Pond, and portions of Gwynn Oaks (21 students) were also moved from GHS to Buchholz. The updates would put Buchholz at 101% of capacity, with Eastside at 86%, GHS at 97%, Hawthorne Middle\/High at 62%, Newberry at 97%, and Santa Fe at 92%. Gilreath reminded the board that future development will increase the number of students at Newberry and Santa Fe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>High school capacity (the Hawthorne number is an error and should be 62%)<\/p>\n

Rockwell asked staff to bring back information on zoning exemptions at Buchholz \u201cbecause it looks like we have a very high number \u2014 that might be able to relieve the capacity issue there.\u201d She asked Wynn whether there are plans to increase high school capacity beyond the next five years, and Wynn said she would suggest looking at building a multi-story classroom building at Newberry High School, which has a much lower capacity than the other high schools. Vu also pointed out that there are a lot of choice programs at Buchholz, \u201cand that\u2019s definitely something we should look at, especially in the next phase, when we look over curriculum and programs and strategic planning across the district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to see the boundary maps created after the March 3 meeting.<\/a><\/p>\n

April School Board meeting will be on April 21<\/p>\n

During board member requests, the board agreed to cancel the April 7 School Board meeting and hold a meeting on April 21.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plavac also said the Superintendent search has \u201cbeen pushed to after the summer,\u201d and she asked for that topic to be placed on the agenda of the next School Board meeting. Vu agreed, saying he\u2019d hoped to have a Superintendent in place by January to have a transition period between January and July. Certain pointed out that the board did not \u201cnail down a timeline,\u201d and Vu agreed but said they\u2019d \u201ctalked about generalities of when to get someone in.\u201d He said it would be good to have that discussion in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The School Board of Alachua County met on March 3 BY JENNIFER CABRERA GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2013 At the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-180117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}