Emergency meeting over Beach School
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council will be holding a special meeting Wednesday to discuss the status of repairs and the future of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. The meeting is being held ahead of a June 3 meeting of the Lee County School District Board in which a vote is expected to take place on repairing or rebuilding the school. The building has been closed since it incurred flood damage from Hurricane Milton in October.
The meeting will take place at the town council chambers in the temporary trailers at 2731 Oak St. at 9 a.m. Parents and community members are expected to walk over to the school and hold a moment of silence to demonstrate unhappiness about the lack of repairs to the school by the district since Hurricane Milton that has left island students traveling to San Carlos Park Elementary for classes since last fall.
District officials have proposed five different options for repairing or rebuilding the school at a cost of $1.3 million for repairs to up to $15.9 million for a rebuild.
A consultant’s report on the school is also expected to be heard at the June 3 meeting. The school district released a copy of documents relating to a consultant’s proposal for services over the weekend that had been requested by the Fort Myers Beach Observer two weeks ago as part of a public records request.
According to school district records, The Miami-based consulting firm Anser Advisory Consulting LLC of Longwood was was hired by the school board in 2023 to coordinate and manage facility repairs in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. The school board awarded the firm a three-year contract that pays them $2.33 million contact in the first year, after a request for proposals in which they made the second-highest offer of four proposals. That firm was later acquired by Accenture and last year received an extension from the school board for a $2.58 million contract. This past March the school board renewed their services for $1.3 million.
The firm took on a new scope of work after being requested in March by Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin to conduct a facilities review of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. On May 8, the firm proposed doing the work for $185,000.
The school district also released a letter to Accenture in April from the Doral-based VIA Design Studio to Accenture which identifies a “facility and life assessment” and cost analysis report to be done which includes studying repair and rebuilding options, analyzing previously completed structural assessments, county demographic considerations and school population projections, a survey of the Lee County community for “their perspective on growth and need for the school,” comparing the rate of growth on Fort Myers Beach to other faster-growing areas and comparing the Lee County community to Fort Myers Beach.
The documents released by the school district do not include communications from Dr. Carlin, who declined to be interviewed.
According to Rob Spicker, spokesperson for the school district, “This contract is utilized to manage and coordinate the permanent facility repairs sustained to District facilities from Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Milton, and FEMA compliance,” Spicker said.
“The third-year renewal provided up to $1.3 million in funding. The cost for the consultant’s report is included in that figure. School Board approval of a contract authorizes the Superintendent to execute all related documents, so the Board does not have to approve the scope of work,” Spicker said.
Spicker said the district expects the final consultant’s report before the June 3 workshop to be able to provide a complete presentation to the board.
Since Hurricane Milton, Spicker said the district has conducted remediation of damage to carpet, drywall, and subflooring at the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. There has been an assessment and remediation of water damage. Repairs to damaged Electrical Transformer were conducted. The district also removed and remediated storm-driven sedimentation and debris in crawl space.
Still, parents have been unhappy that the school hasn’t reopened and no contracts have been put out to bid to repair the school so that it can open or for a second building that was scheduled to open this year for a cafeteria and auditorium.
Parents and community members, including Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt, had been in regular talks with school officials about the repairs and future of the school for months as part of an ad-hoc committee. In recent weeks, some members have become distraught with a lack of answers about the future of the school and a timeline for repairs and rebuilding.
Atterholt said Wednesday’s council meeting will be “an emergency meeting where information will be presented by the parents from the Ad Hoc Committee to make our case for the Beach School.”
Atterholt said he hopes “this information makes its way to the Superintendent as well as the elected School Board members. The walk to the school after the meeting for a moment of silence should also send a powerful message of the strong community support for our school. We are basically asking for the Lee County School District to keep its word to Fort Myers Beach and honor the promises made in the inter-local agreement signed after Hurricane Ian.”
Under that interlocal agreement, the school district agreed to build the additional building for the cafeteria and auditorium, with further decisions for the school’s future to be made in 2026 and 2027 based on school enrollment data.
Town of Fort Myers Beach attorney Nancy Stuparich said the town would have multiple legal options in the scenario that an attempt to break the interlocal agreement was made.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parent Monica Schmucker, who is also the town’s magistrate, attended the most recent ad-hoc committee meeting with school district officials last week and continues to be unhappy with what she and others are hearing from the district.
“It wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought, but really a lot of talking and not a lot of answers. They went through the five options and threw in a few more things that could be done, such as raising the floor of the historic building,” Schmucker said. “There was the results of the viability study, but it’s not complete. So we don’t have the report.”
Schmucker said the committee also discussed with school officials how the school has cut costs and increased enrollment since Hurricane Ian while attending classes at San Carlos Park Elementary School. The Fort Myers Beach Elementary School reopened in December of 2023 before closing last fall after Hurricane Helene. “They were very unapologetic about it being eight months (since the elementary school closed) and they’ve got nothing. But they seem to think that they will have more direction very soon,” Schmucker said.