District may ditch plan to build new elementary schools in Viera, West Melbourne

It was just last spring that the Brevard County school district approved building two elementary schools over the next five years to solve overcrowding issues.

Now, district officials say they may not need two new schools, potentially saving them about $40 million.

The new schools were to be built in Viera in 2019-20 and in West Melbourne in 2021-22 — two of the fastest-growing areas in the county where elementary schools are quickly nearing capacity.

Before finalizing the plan last February, the district held a series of town hall meetings to gather feedback from families, who were frustrated with their children's crowded classrooms and excited at the possibility of a new school to provide some relief. 

But two new charter schools could erase the need for the district to build new schools of its own, district officials said at a school board workshop Tuesday.

Previous story:Facing backlash, school board tables Mel High rezoning

Previous story:School Board leases land for Viera middle school

Pineapple Cove Classical Academy is slated to open a West Melbourne campus this school year, and Pinecrest Academy is scheduled to open its first Brevard location in Viera next August. 

Pineapple Cove, which already operates a Palm Bay campus, will be a K-8 school and enroll 540 students. Pinecrest, owned by a company that operates charter schools across the state and in Nevada, will be a K-6 school and will enroll 470 students the first year and 910 students by the third year. 

The students who would attend these schools will likely live in the same neighborhoods where the district was contemplating building new schools. 

"They have solved our elementary school problem in that area," said Dane Theodore, assistant superintendent of Facilities Services. 

Without a new school in the area, Suntree, Manatee and Roy Allen elementary schools are projected to hit at least 92 percent capacity by 2019-20. Quest Elementary is expected to hit 117 percent capacity that year. 

A new elementary school in Viera would enroll 424 students, drawing kids from Longleaf, Sherwood, Suntree and Quest elementary schools.

School board members haven't officially decided to dump their plan to build schools, but district staff recommended at a workshop Tuesday that they monitor how Pinecrest affects enrollment at nearby elementary schools before constructing a school in Viera and in the meantime request proposals for designs. District staff also recommend that board members nix the West Melbourne elementary school. 

Each school would cost $20 million.

Previous plan:School Board OKs plan to build schools, reopen South Lake

Sue Hann, director of Planning and Project Management for the district, said money isn't the reason behind her recommendation to pause on construction, because the district planned to use impact fees to build the schools — the money that developments have to pay to agencies providing public services to their future residents. Impact fees can only be used to pay for new construction or paying off debt. 

The decision to build two new elementary schools was part of a five-year plan approved by the school board last February.

The plan also called for adding 92 portables to schools around the county over the next five years; reopening South Lake Elementary in Titusville, which is on schedule to open this August; building an addition at Cocoa High, which will start construction this school year; and redrawing attendance boundaries for some neighborhoods, a process that was completed in November. The district has also been converting computer labs into classrooms. 

Instead of using the money from impact fees to build elementary schools, district staff recommended the board start saving to build a middle school in Viera in five or six years — a development that's sure to please families who have for years asked the board to build them a middle school.

"You need to save $35 million. You can't do it overnight," said Hann. 

The middle school would be built on the 28-acre parcel of land next to Viera High School that is currently being leased to Brevard Production Inc. for the Space Coast State Fair. The land was donated by the Viera Co. to the school district in 2015; however, a school was never built because district staff said there wasn't an immediate need for a middle school in that area. 

The middle school would help with overcrowding at Kennedy Middle in Rockledge and DeLaura Middle in Satellite Beach, where kids in Viera go for middle school and are nearing total capacity.

District staff also advised the school board start to build a reserve if the district needs to build more schools in the north and south ends of the county down the road, where the district is seeing a lot of growth.

Projections show elementary schools in the north and south ends of the county are some of the most crowded. Even with the reopening of South Lake Elementary in Titusville, Apollo, Imperial Estates and Pinewood elementaries are also projected to surpass their total capacities by 2022, unless portables are brought in or the district finds another solution. 

The school board is also in the early stages of researching shifting sixth grade from elementary school to middle school and building one K-8 school in the central part of the county. 

Caroline Glenn is the Education Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact her at 321-576-5933 or caglenn@floridatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @bycarolineglenn and Education at Florida Today on Facebook.