Editorial: New Year’s resolution for local, state leaders to open Fort Myers Beach Elementary

This past year has seen some significant achievements for Fort Myers Beach three years out from Hurricane Ian. There has been the return of a number of businesses and the start of new ones. More folks are getting back into their homes and completing rebuilds. More people are returning to visit Fort Myers Beach. A new Big Carlos Pass Bridge (many thought it was not needed) is almost complete. A beach renourishment project was finally finished (after delays), and now the latest news this week that the town has regained its 25% National Flood Insurance Program discount for property owners.

Yet the town still doesn’t have its elementary school back and the state has still not forgiven an $11.9 million loan given after Hurricane Ian that the town will be hard-pressed to pay back. The town’s finances are such that town leaders elected to scratch any fireworks to celebrate New Year’s Eve on the town’s 30th anniversary after incorporation.

For 2026, we want to urge local and state leaders to add on to their new year’s resolutions to work towards reopening the school, and forgiving the burdensome loan.

Fort Myers Beach Elementary School

An elementary school is the backbone of a community and there has been one on Fort Myers Beach in one form or another for more than eight decades.

Fort Myers Beach had to fight to have the School District of Lee County repair and reopen the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School after Hurricane Ian and is still fighting to reopen the school more than a year after flooding from Hurricane Milton closed it again. Students were first sent to San Carlos Park Elementary School and now this year are attending Heights Elementary School.

The town is engaged in a standoff with school district Supt. Dr. Denise Carlin and the Lee County School Board over funding to turn the closed down public elementary school into a municipal charter school operated by the Town of Fort Myers Beach. The two sides are locked in a dispute resolution process that has included one mediation meeting and subsequent negotiations between leaders from the two sides. The most recent meeting between Fort Myers Beach Manager Will McKannay and the school district’s chief strategy officer Ken Savage (Dr. Carlin did not attend) made no progress.

A guest column from Dr. Carlin that ran in a recent edition of the Fort Myers Beach Observer touting the superintendent’s successes, made no direct reference to the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School aside, perhaps, if you count the savings she said was realized through reorganizing “district functions” to pay for teacher raises (raises that were well deserved and didn’t require shutting down Fort Myers Beach Elementary School).

In the column entitled “A year of fulfilled commitments,” Dr. Carlin wrote “This has been a year of rebuilding trust and real progress. Together, we have made our schools safer, our classrooms stronger, and our district more accountable to the people we serve. We are also planning for the future, investing in new schools, modernizing aging facilities, and creating the foundation for long-term success.”

Members of our community took issue with the summation as do we.

Dr. Carlin has not met with the community to talk about the loss of the school. Her actions have disappointed many on Fort Myers Beach who supported her in her campaign last year for superintendent. Some wrote checks after a local fundraiser in which attendees were impressed by her stated dedication to keeping the school open.

Meanwhile, Dr. Carlin has rejected interview requests about the elementary school and objected to holding the mediation session with the town last month on Fort Myers Beach.

Going off course

Looking back at 2025, it seems the fight for the future of the school went off the rails at some point. It seems clear that some school leaders had no intention of reopening the school, though it didn’t always seem that way.

Frustrated by delays from school district administrators to open the school and a pending report commissioned through a consultant by Dr. Carlin that town leaders correctly anticipated would make the case for the school’s closing, the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council passed a resolution in May calling on the town attorney and town manager to contact school district administrators. They specifically asked they communicate the town’s expectation that the district live up to an interlocal agreement which requires the school to remain open through at least 2027 as a public school, including the construction of a new cafeteria building the district budgeted $6 million to build this year.

Town councilmembers then walked out after the meeting from their temporary trailer chambers with town staff and members of the community to the elementary school to stand on the steps of the historic school (which is protected on the National Register of Historic Places) to bring attention to the school’s plight.

Fast forward to the next school board meeting and the district’s unflattering consultant’s report which produced contradictory numbers for how much it would cost to repair and reopen the school (the new figures were much higher than ones produced by the school district a couple months earlier). The report was blasted by community leaders, including the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce, for questionable data. The report recommended closing the school.

The school board at the meeting, in turn, showed hesitancy in wanting to reopen the school with school board member Bill Ribble saying he didn’t want to “throw good money after bad” in reopening the historic school. However, Mr. Ribble did say he was interested in potentially a new building for the school. School board member Armor Persons, too, said he thought the answer was to construct a new building. The school board chair at the time, Samuel Fisher, gave an unclear commitment. While not eager to reopen the historic school, he appeared to keep an open mind. School board member Melissa Giovannelli said the school board should reach out to the community in the county for feedback, including Realtors.

What happened next turned the discussion from reopening the public school or rebuilding a new public school, into another phase.

Change in direction to charter school

In a surprise and unanticipated move, Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers took part in a conference call with Dr. Carlin, Mr. Fisher and U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds (R-Naples) during a break in the middle of a town council meeting in June to discuss the elementary school.

From what has been discussed of the meeting publicly by Mayor Allers and Dr. Carlin (Congressman Donalds has never spoken publicly on the meeting involving the school in his district), the subject of turning the public school into a charter school was repeatedly discussed.

Since then, the talks of a new public school for Fort Myers Beach grew dim. At a school board meeting in August, Mr. Ribble said he had been in talks with unnamed interests in turning the school into a private school. Mr. Persons, who had said in June he supported building a new public school, now said he would support building a new charter school.

Never before or since that June meeting has the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council ever publicly debated, discussed or held a meeting to talk about whether the town should be operating a charter school. Never has the town held a meeting with the community to discuss the costs of operating a charter school, nor how it might be able to afford it.

Town officials estimate town taxpayers send $29 million to the school district each year. If a charter school is built and operated by the town, those funds won’t go back to Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. Instead, the town will rely on state funds (the town would get a portion of funds the state sends to the school district per student) and public funds from town taxpayers to make up the cost of running a school. In 2024, the estimated cost of running the school was around $1.2 million.

The town and school district have shared differing figures publicly what the state revenue would look like. Neither the town nor the school district have publicly stated what the gap in funding would be and how much would need to be raised by town taxpayer dollars.

Mediation

Frustrated by nonaction from the school board, the town voted to initiate mediation in October as the first step toward potential litigation over the school in order to enforce the interlocal agreement which requires it to remain a public school through at least 2027. The school district administration promptly responded the next day by asking the school board to vote on submitting a report to the state which would allow the school district to raze the elementary School campus (a move that would need town, state and federal approvals). The school board approved the report without any comment.

At the mediation that followed in November, Mr. Allers in a surprise move called on the school district to hand over the property for the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and give the town $12 million to build a new charter school.

Dr. Carlin said she would think about it. She spoke with school board members and came back to the town with an offer to turn the school over to the town but without any money. The school district’s administration, armed with a $2.9 billion budget (up from $2.4 billion in the 2022-23 school year), has told the town there is no money for the school.

Through the school district’s spokesman Rob Spicker, the district won’t even acknowledge whether the $6 million for the cafeteria building is still budgeted or has been set aside. The town has been asking the district questions about how it spent funds from the state that it was given for the school in lieu of FEMA money after Hurricane Ian, and whether those funds were misdirected. Town officials believe a full accounting of how funds were used has still not been made by the district.

A fully transparent accounting of what the revenue sources would be for a new town charter school needs to be shared by both the town and the school district, and the state.

In addition, a full and complete account of how the school district has spent funds it received for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School after Hurricane Ian needs to be shared.

State of affairs

Now the town is negotiating against itself. After Dr. Carlin denied the $12 million request, and a subsequent meeting between McKannay and Savage this month bore no fruit, the town is requesting the school district send $9 million to build a new school.

Even if the district sent the $9 million, can the town afford to run its own school and does it have the resources to do so?

An honest conversation needs to be had with the community about this. The town needs to openly lay out the financial consequences of such a decision for the community.

Mr. McKannay recently did a walk-through of the historic school and said it was in bad shape, and potentially not even repairable. He is scheduled to go on a second tour with professionals who can give an estimate on the cost of the repairs.

The charter school might be the only option at this point for the town though it’s not clear that was always the case. In light of the intransigence of the superintendent and school board, perhaps the town has no other choice now aside from litigation against the school district to enforce its interlocal agreement. Quite frankly, this should have been done in June when the school board balked at reopening the school.

In June, Mr. Allers appealed to Gov. Ron DeSantis to save Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. The office of DeSantis has never publicly responded to this request nor answered questions if the governor would intervene.

For the governor, who will likely run for president again after his term in office ends in November, he could use this opportunity to show how he saved a community devastated by one of the worst hurricanes in American history by rescuing an elementary school and rescuing a town. There is a lot the governor could do to support the reopening of the school and he could immediately give the town breathing room by forgiving the $11.9 million loan.

For Donalds, who is running to be the next governor, there are also measures he could take as a congressman to support the town and school.

Both DeSantis and Donalds can point to their experiences in helping save Fort Myers Beach as they seek new offices. They can prove their leadership by taking a stronger interest in Fort Myers Beach and the children of its community.

For Dr. Carlin, it is time to meet with the community face to face.

Fort Myers Beach Observer editorial