School closing to affect hundreds

Odyssey Middle students head for new assignments

The shuttering of a Boynton Beach middle school, the first school closure in the Palm Beach County School District in 25 years, will prompt one of the biggest attendance zone changes in the county’s history.

But despite the enormity of the change, the district wants to hold a public hearing and take the proposal to the School Board quickly, so families who don’t want to attend their newly assigned school can apply to a magnet school or other application program, officials said on Tuesday.

The Advisory Boundary Committee, which makes attendance zone recommendations to the School Board, voted unanimously on Tuesday to seek community input on the proposal on Oct. 26, tentatively at 6:30 p.m. at Odyssey Middle School, the school that is set to close.

The proposal sends Odyssey students to five other schools, but it’s a short-term fix. The district wants to build a new middle school west of Boynton

Beach in the next three years next to Sunset Palms Elementary School. Before the new middle school opens, the district would have to create new attendance zones once again.

Only 685 students currently attend Odyssey, at 6161 Woolbright Road, making the campus less than half full. Many families have avoided the school, which has struggled for the past 16 years because of low test scores, lack of magnet programs and discipline problems, and sent their kids to charter schools, private schools and magnet programs.

The proposal calls for 378 Odyssey students to transfer to Congress Middle in Boynton Beach next year. The rest of the student body would be spread out among Carver Middle in Delray Beach, Christa McAuliffe Middle west of Boynton Beach, Woodlands Middle west of Lake Worth and Lantana Middle.

The Odyssey campus will have a new occupant: South Tech, a charter school that will lease the land for its middle and high school students.

Boundary committee member Nellie Titcomb said she was concerned some of the schools receiving the Odyssey students would be pushed near their capacities.

“I really don’t like the size of these middle schools,” Titcomb said. “They’re just way too big.”

Under the proposal, Christa McAuliffe would grow to 1,469 students, Woodlands 1,378 and Congress 1,290.

Superintendent Robert Avossa told her the district has little control over the size of its schools, which are determined by state funding. He said an expanding number of K-8 schools in the district will help reduce the size of middle schools.