Especially for Teachers

Good News About Good Schools

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

School district leaders face growth issues

By Nicole Service | News-Tribune Staff Writer

PALM COAST — With Flagler County growing rapidly, school leaders are facing reality. In order to serve the county´s children, the district must build.

Flagler school officials predict the district will see about 1,000 new pupils by the start of school, with a total district enrollment of 10,000.

School leaders have discussed the possibility of building new elementary schools, another middle school and rebuilding Bunnell Elementary.

Superintendent Bill Delbrugge said, in addition to a new elementary school on Rymfire Drive in Palm Coast, the district will need another elementary school within the Matanzas Woods area and a new middle school, possibly at the same Rymfire site. Delbrugge said his hope is to have these schools built in the next three years.

"I think we need to start an elementary school in January as a replacement school for the portables at Belle Terre Elementary," he said last week.

The new Belle Terre Elementary, an $18.5 million school that will house 1,200 children, will open this fall with several portables to accommodate the influx of students.

He added that the fourth school the district needed to build or rebuild was Bunnell Elementary. The reasons: perception and age of the building.

"It´s the oldest building that we own," Delbrugge said. "It costs money to keep the building going, and it would be more cost-efficient to rebuild it."

Delbrugge said that while Bunnell Elementary is a school he is proud of, it is located in one of the district´s poorest areas, and "the poorest of our kids would like to have a nice school just like everyone else."

Board member Evie Shellenberger said she liked the idea.

"I think it will be doing a lot to improve Bunnell and to support them," she said. "That would be a large step for Bunnell."

School officials have also begun discussion on building a school near the coast, as well as the need for more land.

"We are going to be building some new schools left and right, and we are going to need land," said Chairwoman Sue Dickinson. "We need to go after these developers more and more."

District officials have been grappling in recent months with how to accommodate the influx of students.

The school board voted in April to redraw its school lines to accommodate countywide growth. Board members also recognized a need to reduce the district´s dependence on portable classrooms. The district would have needed 201 portable classrooms if school officials had not altered current zoning, but officials have not yet determined how many portables will be needed under the new zoning.

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