Boca to get school upgrades in 3-year plan

Aging, decrepit buildings and overcapacity top complaints

Boca Raton families, frustrated with aging and crowded schools in the city, are set to get a new school, a renovated school and an expanded school campus in the next three years under plans to be considered by the Palm Beach County School Board next week.

The plans accommodate a transforming city, where residents who have owned their homes for decades are selling to young families demanding highly rated schools in good condition that are not crowded.

“We desperately need the classrooms for families moving into the older neighborhoods,” School Board member Frank

Barbieri said. “The older neighborhoods are becoming neighborhoods of young families.”

The demolitions, renovations and expansions will be paid for with a penny sales tax approved by voters in 2016. The plans, scheduled for approval by the School Board on June 20, include:

$31,742,592 to rebuild Verde Elementary, which will transform from a K-5 school to a K-8 to relieve crowding at Omni Middle School. Students will stay on the property during construction, said Wanda Paul, the school district’s facilities chief. The rebuilt school is scheduled to open in 2020.

$18,556,660 for a new elementary school next to Don Estridge High Tech Middle. The school will have room for 970 students and is set to open in 2020. The architect will design the school to allow it to expand in the coming years if needed.

$493,000 to buy a house next to Addison Mizner Elementary to expand the campus. The price includes the cost of demolishing the home, at 201 SW 12th Ave., for $25,000. It’s one of four neighboring homes that have been bought or will be acquired to accommodate the school’s expansion to a K-8, with a projected opening of 2021.

Addison Mizner currently has an abundance of maintenance issues and desperately needs replacement, said PTA president Mike Maynes. He said the PTA supports expansion of the property and the temporary moving of students, but worries about a plan to reduce the school’s entrances from two to one.

“I’m concerned we’ll have brand new traffic issues on 12th Avenue,” which backs up daily from parents dropping off and picking up their kids when school is in session, he said.

Paul said the school’s traffic patterns haven’t been set yet.

The School Board had sought a larger property for the rebuilt Addison Mizner, which is currently on 11 acres in a residential neighborhood. But a proposal to move the school to Sugar Sand Park drew protests from neighbors, who pointed out several legal restrictions that could impede construction.

Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said he is excited about the new, still unnamed school to be built next to Don Estridge on Spanish River Boulevard. The school district is using money that had been planned for a proposed new West Boca elementary school that the school district decided not to build.

“We hustled to find the land,” Singer said. “We are getting a brand new school for Boca Raton when we weren’t slated for any.”

Most of the schools to be rebuilt or relieved in the plan have more students than they were designed to hold.

Verde is projected to have 1,061 students next year but was designed for 926.

Boca Raton Middle is expected to have 1,654 students next year but was designed for 1,417.

Addison Mizner has a capacity of 996 but projections call for only 825 next year.

Barbieri said the poor condition of the school may be spurring some parents to send their kids elsewhere.