- April 19, 2024
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Flagler Schools plans to expand Matanzas High School in three years, and may also add a new middle school if student population growth continues, School Board member Trevor Tucker said on Flagler Broadcasting's "Free For All Friday" on May 6.
The district expects to shift the sixth grade from elementary school to middle school starting in the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
"We've just gotten the drawings," Tucker said of the proposed Matanzas High School expansion.
The timeline isn't settled: The district is hoping to break ground in a year or a year and a half, but that could shift, Tucker said. The district will try to have as much of the work as possible done in the summer, when classes aren't in session.
The middle school is further out.
The district expects to shift the sixth grade from elementary school to middle school starting in the upcoming 2022-2023 school year, because elementary schools are "getting packed," Tucker said, while middle schools still have additional capacity.
Of course, the grade shift will means a sudden jump in the middle school population.
"If you move sixth grade, you're opening up space in the elementary schools," Tucker said. "Then you only have to build one middle school, instead of ... one elementary school, then maybe another elementary school."
It's not yet clear where that new middle school would go, Tucker said, but it will require a site that's at least 30 acres.
But while the district has no shortage of students, staff are another matter.
"We're not full. We're still hiring," Tucker said.
The shortage is national, and it's not just a teacher shortage — bus driver and support staff positions are hard to fill, too.
"It's really a scary situation," Tucker said. "And for the future, with the class size amendment, you can't pack [students] in. ... Small classroom size is ideal — 20, 23, 25, depending on which school you're at. And with that, it's hard — and we actually pay more than our surrounding counties for teachers, and we're still having problems."
Former School Board member and current County Commissioner Andy Dance had been working to develop a teacher cadet program for high school students who'd like to become teachers, Tucker said, with the idea that those students would go to college, then return to the district to teach.
"We want to grow our own," Tucker said. "I think we're really going to have to start looking at that."
Since that would be a classrooms-to-careers specialty program rather than part of the regular K-12 curriculum, it would require some form of outside funding, Tucker said.
Tucker noted that the district's half-cent sales tax is also coming up for renewal, and funds the one-to-one initiative that loans students tablets or laptops for school use.
"Without that, those students don't have that tool," he said.
The devices allowed the district to quickly shift to remote learning during the pandemic.
"We were a model," Tucker said. "Other districts around the state were calling Flagler County, 'How are you doing this? How do you have this?' And it's mainly because we already have the infrastructure in place with the technology."
