Rising tide of students

Portable classrooms are shown at College Park Elementary School in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

Marion County may need to add between six and 10 new schools over the next 15 years to accommodate the current and projected student population growth, according to a school district committee.

Looking at current Marion County population growth projections, the committee found the county can expect housing units to increase between 2,800 and 3,500 annually for the next 15 years. The school district, already struggling to meet the challenges of rapid population growth, is looking for ways to find spaces for these new students.

The Marion County Public Schools (MCPS) Growth and Development Task Force Committee was created last fall by Superintendent Diane Gullett to study population growth in the county and bring options to the school board on how to accommodate the growth. The committee includes business leaders who examined the district as well as projected housing developments in Marion County.

The findings in the Long-Range School Plan include facility recommendations through 2038.

“The rapid growth that we are experiencing and our responsibility to move forward and address all of these items is complicated, but we are committed to doing what is best for our students,” Gullett said during the school board’s May 18 work session.

Nilgun Kamp, an employee of the consulting firm Alfred Benesch & Company, which worked with the district committee, presented data to the board at a May 30 special work session. The study found Marion County is 19^th in population out of 67 counties in Florida and is continuing to grow above the state average. The county also is 21^st in projected population growth rate and 19^th in absolute growth in the state.

District enrollment in 2022-2023 was the highest ever, at 43,199 students.

Kamp explained the firm estimated the increase in housing units with an accompanying rise in residents. After ascertaining the number of incoming families, and the generations of students stemming from these newcomers, the firm created its estimates for the numbers of elementary, middle, and high school students the district can anticipate over the next 15 years.

Using statistics from Marion County Residential Permitting, the experts said the county will average between 3,500 and 2,800 housing units annually.

If 3,500 housing units are added per year for the next 15 years, seven to 10 schools would need to be built. Whereas 2,800 housing units, in that same time period, would require six to nine new schools. The need for more elementary school spaces exceeds that of middle and high schools.

The Long-Range Plan identified potentially developable land in the county where six future schools could be built.

School Site A could be built in Winding Oaks, Site B in Northwest Marion Oaks, Site C in Southwest Marion Oaks, Site D in Southeast Marion Oaks, Site E in East Marion Oaks, and Site F could replace Lake Weir Middle School. Site F is included in a list of unfunded ongoing school projects. The replacement of Lake Weir Middle is accompanied by five new classroom buildings and two new cafeteria projects districtwide.

The committee also examined the cost of this new construction. With 3,500 units, the evaluated high-end cost is $652 million and the low-end cost is $413 million. The high-end cost for accommodating 2,800 new units of housing is between $369 million and $592 million.

The district has 21.64 acres of land as well as offices and warehouses potentially available as assets to help fund these costs. Another funding resource is the Capital Outlay Millage, a property tax utilized by school boards, allowing 75% of dollars to be legally levied and applied for lease payments from a maximum of 1.5 mills. These borrowed funds can cover construction, technology, transportation, and more necessities to complete school expansions, but take 15 years to pay off.

Additional revenue sources considered for MCPS are reinstating school impact fees, a local government infrastructure surtax, and a school capital outlay surtax. The impact fees are suspended currently and are pending discussion by the school board and the Marion County commission, while the surtaxes require countywide voter approval.

At the moment, the district is making do with portable classrooms to handle the overflow of students. At the elementary school level, there arere 848 students in portables outside of the permanent classrooms. At the middle school level, 604 students are in portables, while 1,028 high school students are in portables.