Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
New campuses fill school needs
Vacant land in Boca Raton helps meet demand for more space.
A wooded area off Military Trail in Boca Raton will become the home of two elementary school campuses — one permanent, one temporary — in the coming years.
The state has approved a new elementary school on the site, about 14 acres next to Don Estridge High Tech Middle School, at 1798 Spanish River Blvd. But first, the Palm Beach County School District is using the land for a temporary campus for two Boca Raton elementary schools that will be demolished and rebuilt from 2019 to 2021.
The entrance to the permanent school will be on Military Trail just south of Don Estridge’s ballfields. The entrance to the temporary campus will be near the city’s dog park on Banyan Trail, which feeds into Military, Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said.
Boca Raton’s elementary schools are filled to capacity. The school district needed temporary space to educate students from two schools, Verde and Addison Mizner, as they await the demolition of their aging buildings and expansion of their campuses to accommodate the growing number of students who want to attend school in Boca Raton.
Palm Beach County School Board chairman Frank Barbieri Jr. said the board will discuss expediting the process for clearing the land for the temporary campus at its next meeting Jan. 23. He hopes work will begin in February.
He said a plan will be worked out if construction needs to begin on the permanent school while students are still attending school in the portables on the temporary campus.
Plans call for about 1,000 students from Verde to move to the temporary site next year. The district plans a $43.9 million renovation of the Verde campus,
which will add a middle school to relieve crowding at Omni Middle in Boca Raton.
The school is scheduled to be rebuilt in one year, with students returning to their home campus in August 2020.
But about 800 students from Addison Mizner then would replace them at the
temporary site. Addison Mizner students would return to their campus, which will be rebuilt as a K-8 for $38.5 million, in August 2021, according to the plan.
Most of the construction on the permanent elementary school is planned for 2022. It would have room for about 1,000 students and is expected to cost about $28 million. The architect will design the school to allow it to expand in the coming
years if needed, according to a school district plan announced in June.
All these projects will be paid for with a penny sales tax approved by voters in 2016.
Barbieri said young families are moving into older homes in Boca Raton and are demanding high quality schools that are not filled to capacity. The city is home to the most crowded elementary school in the county, Calusa, which was built for 836 students but has 1,129 this year.
Boca Raton offered the land at almost no cost to the school district as city officials noticed crowding problems exacerbating over the past few years.
“Parents can take comfort that we are taking care of the growing needs of the city,” Singer said.