School board votes to submit report for demolishing Beach Elementary School

In a move that caught the leadership of the Town of Fort Myers Beach off guard, the School District of Lee County School Board voted Tuesday to move forward with a process that could potentially be the first step in an attempt to raze the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School campus and the historic elementary school building.

The board voted to approve submitting a 141-page Castaldi Report, which is the first step in any attempt by the school district to take down the school building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The vote came one day after the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted to initiate mediation proceedings with the school district over what it considers to be the district’s failure to honor an interlocal agreement that requires the school to stay open through at least 2027. It has been closed since Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene flooded the school in the fall of 2024. The mediation process is the first step in litigation in order for the town to force the school district to abide by the interlocal agreement which requires the school to stay open and for a cafeteria building to be rebuilt on the elementary school campus.

Dr. Kenneth Savage, Chief Strategy Officer for the School District of Lee County, delivered the news to the school board on Tuesday that the district’s administration was seeking the school board’s approval to submit the Castaldi Report to the state. The report calls for razing the elementary school campus and three school buildings, including the historic 1947 building that is protected under the National Register of Historic Places.

Savage painted the submission of the report as being a required process for the district to move forward with plans for the campus, similar to other rebuilding projects. Except those cases didn’t include closing a school, or a federally protected building, at that.

If the district was to pursue the razing of the historic building, it would appear to be an arduous process which would require state and federal approvals, in addition to permits from the Town of Fort Myers Beach.

Savage, addressing school board members Tuesday, said he had heard through the district’s communication channels questions about “What is this? What are we talking about?”

Savage said in an August workshop there was a slide in a presentation by administrators to the school board that the district would submit the report. To submit the report, the district’s administration needs school board approval which was unanimous Tuesday as part of a larger consent agenda in which there was no discussion by the school board members.

“Contrary to what is being circulated, it does not mean the site would be bulldozed,” Savage said. “That is how it’s being construed that this is an automatic bulldozing of the site and that of course is not exactly accurate. Just to kind of clarify again, this is something that we have been anticipating. It’s a report. It’s a necessary step if we wanted to do a complete rebuild of any campus. Any of the options that we want to do to build a completely new building or destroying the prior building.”

Savage said the report would undergo a state review before the district and school board makes a decision about whether to completely rebuild the school building or raze it as it is requesting under the submission of the report signed by School District of Lee County Chief Operations Officer Donald Neese.

School district Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin was not in attendance for the meeting and has repeatedly refused interviews over the past several months.

“Tonight is not a vote to demolish the school, as it is being referred to,” school district spokesman Rob Spicker said. “It is simply a vote to submit the report.”

The 141-page report submitted by the district to the state relies heavily on the work of the consulting firm Accenture, which is on a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract with the district. The firm was asked in April to conduct a facilities report on the elementary school.

The report cites cost estimates for repairing the school from the Miami-based Drakon Group LLC and VIA Design Studio in Doral, which are far higher than the original estimates for repairing the school that the district announced previously.

District staff, in an earlier assessment conducted with the assistance of locally-based Castellanos & Tramonte Architects, provided the district’s administration with five options that would range from $1.3 million on the low end to $3.5 million for more extensive repairs, $5.4 million for further work, $6.6 million to raise the floor and building above flood elevation to $15.9 million for a new school.

The report that followed through Accenture and the Drakon Group and VIA Design Studio, put the lowest cost at $7 million to $9.8 million for the first three repair options and estimated a new structure at $13 million.

A copy of the Castaldi Report posted on the district’s website makes no mention of the earlier and less-expensive assessments for repairs.

Spicker said “the report is not a request to raze the campus. The report provides a comprehensive estimate of the costs of rehabilitation versus replacement.”

The cost estimate report by Accenture that is cited in the district’s submittal to the state also calls for closing the school as a K-5 school.

Not on his Bingo card

Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers took to social media to state that he hadn’t been contacted regarding the district’s decision and said the change in the agenda was done Tuesday morning. He was alerted shortly before the meeting and rushed to the school board meeting to speak out against the move.

“I’m here to represent a community that has lost a lot of its history and I find it unimaginable that you are willing to sit up there and do it willingly,” Allers told the board. “You are willing to take away potentially a school building that has been there for 80 years.”

Addressing Dr. Savage, Allers said “I don’t know what your background is or what your degree is in but based on your comments at the beginning of this meeting it’s clearly not land planning or development.”

Allers said the school district could build another school building on the property without touching the historic school.

Allers called on school board member Bill Ribble, whose district includes Fort Myers Beach, “to stand up for your constitutents and be our voice.” Ribble has previously called for rebuilding the school rather than repairing it. The district has also seen support from board member Armor Persons in the past, who supported a rebuild. Neither board member commented at Tuesday’s meeting.

Allers said the town would oppose any effort to demolish the historic school. “Please do not mistake kindness for weakness. We are small but we are mighty. We will be at every door that you go through to try and take that building down.”

Allers said “this wasn’t on my Bingo card.”

Allers told the board “I will be at every door smiling at you so you are going to get used to seeing this ugly mug.”

Jenny Tardiff-Paradiso, president of the Fort Myers Beach Parent Teachers Association, said Fort Myers Beach Elementary School is “Everything that you say you want in a school.” The school has been an “A-rated school time and time again. Maranzano high-reliability school levels 1 and 2. Check, check,” Tardiff-Paradiso said. “Parents and teachers who care, advocate and show up for our kids. Community entities that help support the school so the kids get to have great opportunities that don’t come out of your tax dollars. We have always had businesses supporting our school.”

Tardiff-Paradiso said local businesses have supported the school, with workers sending their children to the elementary school and accommodations being made for employees by businesses so students can get to school.

“We have Bay Oaks, which is an amazing facility that takes care of our kids,” she said.

John Koss, a Fort Myers Beach Elementary School parent who has been heavily involved in discussions with school administrators through an ad-hoc committee seeking to reopen the school, said the school board needed to follow the numbers.

He said the school’s cost per student for the year was estimated at $15,000 per student down from $23,000 before Hurricane Ian, after extensive cost-cutting efforts at the school.

At a budget of less than $1.5 million at the start of the last school year, the elementary school had the lowest budget in a school district with a budget of $2.9 billion.

“The messaging is totally horrible on this,” Koss said.

“Nothing has been for good reasons. We are not communicated with. We are lied to. The messaging is all to shut our school down. It is ludicrous,” Koss said. Koss pleaded with school board members to “understand the numbers.”

Parents and town councilmembers have expressed frustration over the past five months that it appeared the district’s administration lacked any urgency to reopen the school. The population has dropped from around 80 students before Hurricane Ian, to close to 70 before Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, and more recently down to 39 students after students were moved to San Carlos Park Elementary and now to Heights Elementary School.

The district had expanded the borders for students to attend and had welcomed the children of Fort Myers Beach workers.

The school board’s only comments on the school on Tuesday was to assign Ribble to attend the mediation session on Nov. 5 with the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council and Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin and other staff.