FELLSMERE – Fellsmere city leaders are talking with school district officials, trying to come up with a way to expand land-locked Fellsmere Elementary to address chronic overpopulation at the school.
While plans are merely in the discussion phase, one option that seems to have promise is relocating the ball courts that across the street from the school to allow for off-site parking. “We didn’t know the city owned them,” said Susan Olson, the district’s director of facilities planning and construction, of the handball and racquetball courts.
Now that the district is aware, the possibility appears promising.
Fellsmere City Councilman Joel Tyson made just such a suggestion at a recent council meeting after City Manager Jason Nunemaker broached the subject.
Fellsmere Elementary was built for 546 permanent student stations. It currently has an enrollment of 588, according to Olson. The school is at 108 percent capacity.
While the school isn’t the district’s most overcrowded, it is the most chronic, Olson said.
“It’s full,” Olson said. It’s usually full. It’s been full for years and years.”
The school district does have plans to open a new elementary school somewhere in North County, which should address some of the overcrowding at Fellsmere Elementary, Olson said. However, those plans might not come to fruition until 2014. Where exactly the new school would be located is not yet known, though Olson expects it to be close enough to Fellsmere that Fellsmere students could be bused to it.
Nunemaker has expressed interest in keeping the Fellsmere kids at the Fellsmere school, which is why the city and school district are considering ways to expand the school.
Olson said the current ball court property could help do just that. However, the property could not be constructed for student use. Citing building guidelines, Olson said students would not be allowed to cross the street to utilize the new expansion on the property.
However, the district could use the land for parking to free up what is currently being used as parking on the school’s campus for classroom or cafeteria expansion.
“We’re always looking at our options,” Olson said.
