Lee County School district officials in talks for charter school at Beach Elementary
Classes started on Monday for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School students similarly to the way they ended the last school year – in another building off the beach.
This time the school is Heights Elementary School, where Beach Elementary students will be attending this school year.
Despite more than $29 million of Fort Myers Beach taxpayer money going into the Lee County School District’s coffers each year for an elementary school that costs less than $1.5 million to run each year, the school board and school administration officials appear in no rush to get those students back into their historic school on the beach.
In fact, discussions at their most recent meeting now center on bringing in a charter school operator to run the school as school board members and administrators spoke at a recent school board meeting about their apprehensions in investing in the school following some flooding the school took on last fall during Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
For now Fort Myers Beach Elementary School students are attending Heights Elementary, which is located about six miles from Fort Myers Beach. The location is closer than where students were previously attending last year at San Carlos Park Elementary School – which was nearly an hour-long bus ride for students. Students attended San Carlos Park Elementary School beginning in October after Hurricane Milton left some flooding in the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. The extent of that flooding and the delays in making repairs at the school have been the subject of scrutiny from parents as to whether it was enough to shut down the school for the rest of the year as parents complained about delays by administration officials in repairing the school. The school has still yet to be fully repaired by the district after Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin instead asked for a consultant’s report on what to do with the school which has led to further delays.
Based on a grim school board meeting last week, students appear to be no closer to getting back into their former school now than they were two months ago when the school board last met to discuss the future of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and heard the consultant’s report – which was largely chastised by both the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parents and the town’s business community.
At that time, school members were split between those willing to rebuild a new school, to those considering repairs or those without any plans or sense of urgency about restoring the school.
That followed the passing of a Town of Fort Myers Beach Council resolution in May calling on the town manager and town attorney to work with school administrators on reopening the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and enforcing an interlocal agreement which requires the school to remain open as a public school through at least 2027. Town councilmembers, town staff and community members symbolically walked from the town hall to Fort Myers Beach Elementary School to bring attention to reopening the school.
The last school board meeting a week later that followed the town council’s resolution was followed by a private call between Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers, Congressman Byron Donalds, Carlin, School Board Chair Sam Fisher and other school administrators about the future of the school in which the charter school option was heavily discussed. Allers said Donalds set up the meeting and asked the school about whether they would make Fort Myers Beach Elementary School a charter school.
Since the meeting Allers and Donalds had with school district officials, talks have developed between school administration officials and an unnamed charter school operator for a charter school option at Beach Elementary School being considered by school district administrators and school board members. School board member Bill Ribble, whose district includes Fort Myers Beach and Estero, disclosed he had met with private interests seeking to turn Fort Myers Beach Elementary School into a private school, though he would not say who they are.
Allers has met with most of the school board members privately to discuss the school’s future and said he has stated his desire to keep the school open as a public school though he said he has remained engaged in discussing “all possibilities.”
At this past week’s school board meeting, Fisher said he wouldn’t support the school district building a new school for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School while school board members Armor Persons and Ribble said they want to see a new school built there. Persons, who said in June he wanted to build a new public school for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, said this past week that he now envisions it as a charter school.
“The best idea is to get some kind of a charter in there,” Persons said. Persons said he may even support a K-12 charter school eventually replacing Beach Elementary.
At the previous school board meeting in June, Persons hadn’t mentioned anything about a charter school and instead had argued for the school district to build a new public school for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School that would be built to withstand future hurricanes.
“I would say start off with a K-5 (Charter School),” Persons said this past week. “I think it is a great opportunity for the island.”
Ribble, who said two months ago that repairing and reopening the school would be “throwing good money after bad” said this past week that he supported building a new school and said he has been in private talks with individuals about the future of the school but wouldn’t disclose who he was speaking with.
“I think we are all in pretty much agreement, we are going to put a structure up there,” Ribble said. “I am looking forward to being able to disclose some of the things that we have been talking about with some folks that is confidential. People say ‘well geez, why can’t you disclose it?’ It’s like a negotiation, it’s like anything else. When you are negotiating, you have to be patient. You have to trust that we are going to do the right thing. We are going to have a structure on that beach I can guarantee you that and it’s going to be a school.”
Fisher said he would not support putting any more school district funds into the historic Beach Elementary School. “For me personally, I know Mr. Ribble had talked about putting a structure out there. For me, if we want a structure out there, I don’t know if I am on board with Lee County School District putting a structure out there,” Fisher said.
Fisher said he is curious about a charter school. “That’s kind of where I am looking at the moment or some innovative opportunity. I am telling you that I am not fully in agreement with putting a Lee County School District specific structure out there,” Fisher said. “I am currently not in favor of putting anymore dollars into the current structure at the moment.”
Following the school board meeting, Fisher responded to questions from the Fort Myers Beach Observer by expanding upon his thoughts. “I have not yet decided whether I support SDLC (School District of Lee County) building a new school there. I was simply clarifying a previous discussion point that had been raised. As I’ve stated before, I remain open to a range of possibilities for Fort Myers Beach, including a charter school,” Fisher said.
School board member Vanessa Chaviano, who said she has met with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers, said that as a former charter school student, she supported a charter school.
School board member Melisa Giovannelli said that a charter school would allow for a facility to be used as not just a school but as a shelter or emergency center.
“I don’t think hurricanes are going away,” Giovanelli said.
According to Kenneth Savage, the chief strategy officer for the district has been in talks with an outside company about potentially running a charter school at Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. Savage told school board members this past week that he could not release the name of the company he has been in talks with. It is not clear if that would lead to Beach Elementary becoming a private charter school or some form of public charter school.
“This really wasn’t something we contemplated in our initial report,” Savage said. Savage said there could be hybrid programing. Savage said one of the “unique ways” a charter school could leverage resources would be through the charter school’s network of staff at other schools.
“We are engaging with one group right now. We are really digging in to try and look if there is a creative solution. We are very excited by the preliminary work with that party,” Savage said. “We’re not ready to talk about more specifics on that.”
Rep. Donalds, who discussed the charter school option during private discussions with Supt. Denise Carlin and Fisher, has not responded to multiple requests for comment on his involvement in the matter regarding the charter school. Donalds has not held any public meetings with the Fort Myers Beach community or attended any meetings of the Lee County School Board or the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council to discuss the school situation.
The district spent $641,000 on remediation and stabilization efforts on the school (the majority of which was covered by insurance) after Hurricane Milton, though it has not done the necessary repairs to reopen the school now.
School administrators had estimated the cost of the repairs to reopen the school at a low of $1.3 million to slightly more depending on the repairs, up to $13 million if a full rebuild was chosen.
Yet consultants hired by the district said they believe the lowest cost to reopen the school would be $7.2 million, without offering any data to support their estimates. The consultants referred to a “third party” who works with Miami-Dade schools and cited permit fees, design costs, furniture and contingency costs for repairing the school.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parents and the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce heavily criticized the consultant’s report issued in June for a number of inaccuracies about the school and questionable data.
The district is planning to use those same consultants for another study to be sent to the state regarding the school’s future and to explore future options, Savage said.
After Hurricane Ian, the school district spent $6 million to repair and reopen the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School in a project that was far more extensive than what would be required to reopen the school now. That project also included tearing down several buildings.
Under the terms of an interlocal agreement between the Town of Fort Myers Beach and the Lee County school district, a charter school could not be instituted in place of a public school until after 2027 if the town was unable to meet enrollment increases at the school.
Those enrollment hopes have been dashed by the closure of the school since last year, with the district saying there are only 39 students enrolled for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School classes at Heights Elementary.
According to school board members at this past week’s school board meeting, a majority of the board has met with Allers privately about the future of the school.
“The discussions I have had with the Superintendent and School Board members have been ongoing to support keeping the school on the beach,” Allers said,
“Our conversations have focused on the school’s 80-year history, its importance to the community, the interlocal agreement, and options for reopening and reopening the school as soon as possible. I have not met with any charter schools or held discussions outside of staff regarding charter school options. Until the School Board reaches a decision about the school’s future, it may be premature to explore those options,” Allers said.
“Our preference is to adhere to the interlocal agreement and continue supporting the school as a public institution, with a focus on growing enrollment. Ultimately, the decision rests with the School Board, but we remain engaged in discussing all possibilities,” Allers said.
“I have not directly met with or discussed with any charter school provider outside of staff conversations. The provider referred to was discussed in the context of options, but no further meetings have occurred on this matter, and we are waiting for the School Board to decide on the direction they wish to take,” Allers said in response to questions from the Fort Myers Beach Observer.
“I do not know who they are talking to, and no information has been shared with me to this point,” Allers said.
Rob Spicker, spokesman for the School District of Lee County, said “All options remain under consideration. We are engaged in an Advanced Plant Survey to provide to the Florida Department of Education for guidance on renovating the existing structure of allowing for new construction.”
Spicker said the current plan is for Beach Elementary School students to continue attending Heights Elementary. “Due to the small enrollment in some grades, we have partnered with parents to choose the best method of instruction,” Spicker said.
Spicker declined on what the nature of the talks were with a potential charter school company and who that company is. “The conversations with a potential partner are in the very early stages,” Spicker said.
School Board Vice Chair Jada Langford-Fleming said she is “very hopeful to the future of what is going to happen at Fort Myers Beach with the families and the students.” Langford-Fleming said the school district needs to focus on the students. “They have had enough taken from them as is,” Langford-Fleming said. “These poor children have been moved from a beach to a home school environment back to San Carlos, which is very far from the beach to Heights.” Langford-Fleming said she is hopeful the students will have a more traditional learning environment at Heights Elementary School. “It’s a great school and I am very confident those kids are going to have a great year,” she said.
John Koss, a Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parent who had been working with the ad-hoc committee of parents and community members for months to get the school open, reminded the school board that there had been an offer of $5.9 million for portable classrooms from the school district but instead the parents pushed for those funds to be used for an elevated building with a cafeteria. That building was never built despite an interlocal agreement which required it to be build this year. “That original agreement has just fallen by the wayside,” Koss said. Koss said “there is zero excitement on our island about Heights.”
Koss said the delays by the school district in reopening the school have driven families and students away from the school, cutting the population by about half down to 39 since last school year before the hurricane. The school district loosened residency requirements to allow more students to attend Beach Elementary School last year.
Persons asked school district staff to check on how much the town taxpayers are paying into the school district.
Allers said the town’s taxpayers paid more than $29 million into the Lee County School District tax coffers.
Allers, who said he has met with most of the school board, said he thinks there is a path to get students back into the elementary school and to “never have to do this again.”
School District of Lee County Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin told the school board that “being good fiscal stewards of taxpayer dollars” and working through “some innovative options so that everybody has some skin in the game and that we have some opportunities to think differently on this solution” were among her priorities for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School dates back to the 1940’s and is in the National Register of Historic Places.