High schools bursting at seams; middle schools have empty seats

District relieves crowding at two schools but has few options in most cases.

The boundaries for next school year are now set in Palm Beach County, with changes in place to relieve crowding at Calusa Elementary in Boca Raton and Forest Hill High in West Palm Beach.

Those changes involved shuffling hundreds of students at 10 schools. No more changes can be made until the cycle begins anew next year. And the challenges are plenty.

Short of building or closing schools, boundary changes are the most expedient way to balance enrollment among campuses. The moves will provide a little more breathing room at the district’s two most crowded schools. But that still leaves most high schools in a pinch to take in any more students, while several middle schools sit half-empty.

How crowded are those high schools?

Forest Hill is so packed that at least 24 teachers don’t have their own classrooms. The school has more than 2,460 students in buildings designed to hold 1,837. The boundary switch will send 182 students living north of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard to a school closer to home — Palm Beach Lakes High. Still, Forest Hill will be beyond capacit y and no other nearby school has room.

The count y ’s high schools are so full that when open enrollment was announced, more than one parent griped that only three high schools — two of them in the Glades — had enough room to take students from outside their boundaries.

Nine of 23 high schools are filled beyond capacity; five more are at 95 percent capacity or beyond.

Two new high schools are slated to be built with money from the sales tax increase approved in November. One would rise west of Royal Palm Beach, the other on Lyons Road between Lantana and Lake Worth roads. But they are years in the future.

Meanwhile, eight of the county’s 33 Get more news every day about Palm Beach County schools at the Extra Credit blog, middle schools have at least one-third of their seats empty. Six are closer to half-full: Bear Lakes in West Palm Beach, Carver in Delray Beach, Crestwood in Royal Palm Beach, John F. Kennedy in Riviera Beach, Lake Shore in Belle Glade and Odyssey in Boynton Beach.

The reason? Charter schools and other choice options, said Jason Link, the district’s enrollment expert.

The di s t r i c t has made moves to address these matters. Some middle schools received grant money to beef up choice offerings and attract more students. It’s a plan that worked almost too well for Forest Hill High, which was losing students until it opened an International Baccalaureate program and several other magnets.