The Palm Beach County (Fla.) School District has decided to rebuild an elementary school on its existing site in Boca Raton after objections surfaced to a plan to build a replacement school in a nearby public park.
The Palm Beach Post reports that the district decided against moving Addison Mizner Elementary School to Sugar Sand Park after the public pushed back against the proposal.
The district had been considering a constructing replacement school on 24 acres of unused land at the park because the campus needed more classroom space and traffic congestion at dropoff and pickup times has become an issue.
In addition, building an expanded Addison Misner on the existing 11-acre site will leave little to no space for athletic fields and outdoor land, school district officials.
But public push-back — from some parents of Addison Mizner students and from frequent visitors of the 132-acre Sugar Sand Park — was swift and overwhelming.
“This puts a lot of concerns to rest,” Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie says.
Most of Boca Raton’s public schools have above-capacity enrollments and the city has offered to donate land to the school district for a new school.
Don Estridge High Tech Middle School will take on about 14 acres of city-owned greenery surrounding the school and may expand into a kindergarten through eighth grade. That project is expected to conclude in 2020.
The Addison Mizner rebuild likely will last until 2022. During construction, students will temporarily move to a school planned on land near Don Estridge High Tech.
