School may open ahead of schedule

Negotiations underway in Boca

Boca Raton’s popular public schools are about to become less crowded, two years ahead of schedule.

Under the plan, still being negotiated by the city and the Palm Beach County School District, Boca Raton would get a new elementary school in 2020 on land owned by the city.

The new school, which would be built on Spanish River Boulevard next to Don Estridge High Tech Middle School, would be used initially as a campus for students from Addison Mizner Elementary, whose 50-year-old school is set to be demolished in 2020. When Addison Mizner students return to their campus or to a new one, the school would become a neighborhood elementary school, Boca Raton city council member Scott Singer said.

The school district is still looking for a site for a new Addison Mizner campus, which many say is too small to accommodate the district’s plan to make it a combined elementary and middle school, said Wanda Paul, the school district’s facilities chief.

“We will move students

from Addison Mizner into this school while we build Addison Mizner somewhere,” Paul said. “It gives us time to vet another site.”

If the district can’t find a new site for Addison Mizner, construction of a K-8 will proceed on the current site, with completion scheduled for 2022, according to the school district.

The district was looking at a parcel in 132-acre Sugar Sand Park but faced legal restrictions as well as opposition from the site’s neighbors.

When voters approved the sales tax increase last year that is helping to pay for new school construction, officials began searching for new sites for several schools, including Addison Mizner, which was set to add grades six, seven and eight to relieve nearby Boca Raton Middle School.

Mizner, at 199 SW 12th

Ave., now sits on 11 acres in a residential neighborhood. School Board member Frank Barbieri said there are few available sites nearby large enough to accommodate a K-8 school, which typically needs at least 20 acres.

The proposed new elementary school site, on 13.5 acres near De Hoernle Park, is on city-owned land that has not been designated for any specific use, Singer said. The City Council voted unanimously early Wednesday to support negotiations with the school board.

City officials wanted to help the school board solve the problem of overcrowding in Boca Raton schools, Singer said.

The school district had planned to place Addison Mizner students on the campus of Verde Elementary, which is also set to get a new campus in 2020. Parents had expressed concerns about traffic and other issues related to placing two schools on that site, albeit temporarily.

“How this impacts Verde and Addison Mizner remains to be seen,” said Michael Maynes, Addison Mizner PTA president. “But it would be good for our kids and Verde kids if it relieves overcrowding.”

Addison Mizner parent Brian Sternberg said new and less-crowded schools will improve quality of life in the city.

“One of the goals the city of Boca Raton has is to allow students to stay in the city and go to school,” Sternberg said. “This certainly does that.”

If the plan is approved by the school board, the city would provide the site at a nominal cost or no cost, Singer said.

“I looked through every site in Boca Raton and kept coming back to this one,” Singer said.