JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Some Duval County families are calling on school board members to vote against hiring a construction company to build the new Venetia Elementary School, saying they still have unanswered questions about its size, traffic impact, and which students will eventually attend.<\/p>\n
Duval County Public Schools\u2019 current plan would combine students from Venetia and Ortega elementary schools at the new campus, bringing together a total of about 700 students.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n However, the new school is planned to accommodate up to 1,200 students. That additional capacity has led some Stockton Elementary families to worry their students could eventually be moved to the new campus as part of another school merger.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not being told what\u2019s happening, and we\u2019ve asked for an independent traffic study,\u201d Laura Garcia said. \u201cWe\u2019ve asked who\u2019s going in this school. Ortega Elementary and Venetia Elementary only make up 600 kids. Where are the other 600 coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n Garcia and Nick Gieschean are among the neighbors calling on school board members to vote no on the construction contract. Organizers taped flyers to doors in the neighborhood and encouraged community members to speak during the meeting\u2019s public comment period.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not getting answers, but now we\u2019re getting a construction contract passed,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n Neighbors are also pushing for an independent traffic study because they worry a school built for 1,200 students would overwhelm the surrounding neighborhood and add more traffic to an already busy Roosevelt Boulevard.<\/p>\n \u201cThis spills out onto Roosevelt,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cRoosevelt Boulevard is one of the most dangerous highways in Jacksonville. And around the same time this school gets out, we have thousands, literally thousands, of employees leaving NAS Jacksonville.\u201d<\/p>\n Garcia said anyone familiar with the area knows how congested Roosevelt Boulevard can become between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.<\/p>\n Neighbors also worry additional school traffic could make it more difficult for emergency crews to reach the adjacent senior condominium community.<\/p>\n Gieschean said residents have not been given enough information to determine whether the district is addressing those concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are the concerns we have, and if they\u2019re addressing them, we certainly can\u2019t tell,\u201d Gieschean said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t disclosed anything to us. The lack of transparency is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n He is calling on the district to study how much traffic the proposed school could generate and whether a campus of that size is appropriate for the community.<\/p>\n \u201cDo the traffic study. See if this size school will fit here,\u201d Gieschean said. \u201cWe don\u2019t think this size is right to begin with, but at least figure out what will actually fit the community.\u201d<\/p>\n Gieschean also questioned why the district would move students from another school to the new campus.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cWhy tear it down? Or why move that population over here?\u201d he said. \u201cWe just don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n All seven school board members were contacted by email and asked whether they would consider the neighbors\u2019 request. Only school board member Melody Bolduc responded, saying, \u201cOf course!\u201d<\/p>\n Neighbors say they will continue pushing for answers before final decisions are made.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Some Duval County families are calling on school board members to vote against hiring a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43680,12909,18583,25176,155267,116,118,117,155264,634,124586,155265,128824,128822,155266,150859,5326,155263,128828],"class_list":["post-387763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-ben_tanika","tag-deja","tag-deja_mayfield","tag-duval_county_school_board","tag-ein","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-laura_garcia","tag-local","tag-melody_bolduc","tag-nick_ehin","tag-ortega","tag-ortega_elementary","tag-ortega_elementary_and_venetia_elementary","tag-roosevelt_boulevard","tag-stockton","tag-venetia","tag-venetia_elementary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387763","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=387763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}