INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Citing the down economy and financially tight times, the Indian River County School Board voted 4-1 to relocate Osceola Magnet School to the Thompson Lifelong Learning Center. The move will displace both voluntary pre-Kindergarten and adult education students.
Parents and teachers poured out of the County Commission Chambers after the vote, some in tears and distraught.
Diane Parentela, a 22-year kindergarten teacher at Osceola, was visibly upset when the vote came down.
“I love my room,” she said of her current classroom at Osceola’s campus on State Road 60 in Vero Beach. During meetings with architects as late as last July, she began to picture what her brand new classroom would look like and what it would have. Top on her list was kitchen equipment in her office, as she has now, to cook with her students once a week.
“It’s something they look forward to every week,” Parentela said.
Thompson isn’t set up the same way and Parentela said she fears her class won’t be outfitted like her current one.
After the School Board meeting, Susan Olson, director of facilities and planning for the School District, said it is too soon to know whether Parentela’s new classroom would be equipped with kitchen gear.
Osceola parent and member of the PTA Jessica Hawkins said the School Board made the wrong decision if it was truly concerned about fiscal responsibility.
She said it would have been a better financial investment for the School District to spend $20 million on a brand new magnet school that would bring in more students than pump $2.8 million into a 30-year-old school.
Resigned to the move, Hawkins said she wasn’t sure some of the fundraisers Osceola has had would translate to the new campus, including the Fall Festival.
“It just would not be the same,” she said. “It’s really not fair.”
Prior to the vote, 17 people from the public spoke on the proposed relocation. All but one spoke against it.
Walter Geiger told the School Board that he believed making the move would be the best option in light of the economy and financial hardships the district is facing. He reminded the board that student enrollment is on the decline and there are existing open student stations that should be filled before a new school were built.
His comments were met with “boos” from the audience.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Fran Adams presented the relocation recommendation to the School Board and audience, telling them they “can’t ignore” the impact the economy has had on the School District’s finances and that they have to rethink the wisdom of borrowing $13 million to build a new school.
She said moving Osceola to Thompson would not require rezoning area schools, nor would it necessitate building additional permanent classroom wings at other schools. And she reminded the board that when Thompson Magnet was repurposed to the Thompson Lifelong Learning Center, it was done with the understanding that if the district found itself in need of an additional elementary school – Thompson could be reactivated.
The voluntary pre-Kindergarten students currently at the center will be relocated to Vero Beach Elementary once the elementary school’s new campus opens. Adults enrolled in the adult education will likewise be relocated.
As for the ESE administrative offices at Thompson, Dr. Adams said after the meeting staff would need to find them a new home.
To address some speakers’ concerns that moving to Thompson could kill the school, Dr. Adams said Osceola would still have its “same excellent education” with the same staff and programs.
Parents, teachers and students would continue to work together as they have before.
“We’re not taking that away,” she told the audience. “We’re simply moving into a new house” 10 minutes away.
“Yes, you are,” one woman murmured in the crowd.
Dr. Adams urged Osceola’s parents and teachers to give the transition a chance before deciding to transfer elsewhere.
It was a request echoed by several School Board members.
“Osceola is not the building,” School Board member Matt McCain said, explaining the school is the teachers and staff and the families and students.
Member Karen Disney-Brombach reminded Osceola’s families that the school wasn’t always so desirable, which is why it became a magnet in the first place. She said it became the school it is now because of parental involvement.
“I think you’re school will do really well,” she said of being relocated to Thompson.
School Board member Carol Johnson was the lone vote against the relocation. She told her fellow board members that she could not agree to moving forward without more information.
She said she wanted to wait for district staff to bring back a comprehensive study of student enrollment and a plan for addressing the open student stations.
“We need to look at the bigger picture,” Johnson said.
The future of Osceola’s current site remains unknown. The School Board has referred the site to the district’s Land Use and Acquisition Committee for review.
Osceola is expected to be moved into Thompson in time for the start of the 2012-13 school year.