Q: Can you explain how hurricane days for schools are determined in St. Johns County?
A: The process all revolves around schools as hurricane shelters and if we have to open them. If we do, it takes one day to prep the facility, the day(s) that the facility is open serving as a shelter, and one more day to close the shelter. For Hurricane Idalia, we (unlike Duval County) did not have to open shelters. The whole goal is always to get schools back open as soon as possible and the district is either entirely open or entirely closed to keep consistent attendance throughout the district.
Q: Can you shed some light on the rezoning plan for upcoming K-8 School NN (in Shearwater)?
A: The school board had a workshop on Sept. 5 and three plans were presented for this school’s zoning: 1) Keep Shearwater together; 2) Split the neighborhood with those living closest to Timberlin Creek remaining there; and 3) Zone some living in RiverTown to School NN. At our school board meeting the following week, after receiving a great deal of feedback (which we wanted to get), I asked for the third plan to be removed from consideration and School Board Member Tony Coleman asked for the second plan to be removed. This leaves us with the first plan, which keeps Shearwater together and since no one from Shearwater will go to Timberlin Creek or Switzerland Point, should alleviate some traffic on County Road 210.
Q: How about the rezoning for K-8 School OO (in Beacon Lakes)?
A: We didn’t receive as much feedback about this one. All the students in this area, to include Beachwalk, Beacon Lakes, and Sandy Creek, will return from Ocean Palms/Landrum or Liberty Pines Academy to attend School OO.
Q: What issues exist at current schools that might require rezoning?
A: By state law, we have to utilize all student seats across the county. Presently, we have seats available at Sebastian Middle School but meanwhile, Pacetti Bay Middle School is full and getting fuller due in part to Silverleaf and some other developments in the area experiencing tremendous growth. To solve both of these problems, it was proposed that middle school students from Palencia, Los Calenas, and Kensington be rezoned to Sebastian Middle School. There has been a lot of feedback about this and Patrick Canan, this district’s school board member, has said he’s in favor of exploring more solutions. Several potential solutions have been presented and now we are investigating them.
We also have an issue in Nocatee, where Pine Island Academy is overcrowded and getting more so due to new neighborhoods coming online. Another K-8 school is scheduled to be built nearby, but there is no funding for it yet, so in the meantime, our planners proposed moving some students from Pine Island Academy to Valley Ridge Academy until this new school is built. We received a lot of feedback on this and it seems there are more students affected than we originally thought, so Kelly Barrera, the school board member for this district, asked our planners to try to find another solution.
In conclusion, I’d say we’re honing in on a final solution to populate the new schools and working hard to find a solution to the issues at the existing schools.
Q: How can our readers contact you?
A: They can email me at beverly.slough@stjohns.k12.fl.us or call me at (904) 547-7510.
