NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – Parents and teachers are fighting to keep an elementary school in New Smyrna Beach open. Read-Patillo Elementary School has been open for decades but now, the district is considering closing it as part of attendance zone changes.
The matter is set to be discussed Tuesday night by the school board, however, parents told News 6 they feel blindsided because they weren’t given a heads-up. They even created a petition that as of Tuesday afternoon had over 1,400 signatures.
Other schools in the county had been in the school board’s discussions for rezoning for the past few months but the potential closure of Read-Patillo Elementary is something even board member Jessie Thompson called shocking.
“The interesting thing is that when the agenda went out last Tuesday, it did have that slide on it but then you saw the closure to Read-Patillo which I believe was news to all of us,” said Thompson.
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Thompson said the proposed closure of the school coming via the board’s agenda just a week before the board was set to discuss it did not give parents or school staff a fighting chance.
The agenda item lists seven safety concerns as reasons to close.
“It’s one thing to jump from repairs, safety and security, which was the initial talk, to closure. That’s a big jump,” said Thompson.
Parents told News 6 they learned about it from social media and still haven’t heard anything from the district.
“Parents deserve the right, and our school district needs to be transparent. How it came out, I’ve lost sleep over it,” said Christi Franz.
Franz was a student at Read-Patillo herself and now has children in attendance and family members teaching at the school.
She was among the parents who said the school, which was built in 1958, has been in need of repairs but they feel went ignored.
“The maintenance repair requests were little, but now because of the lack of maintenance, now they’re big,” said Franz.
The school’s PTA president, Danielle Sandhagen, pointed to a capital projects list approved by the school board in 2014 that listed eight schools in need of repair.
“Every single school listed on this list has either gone through a major renovation or a complete rebuild, except for Read-Patillo Elementary,” she said.
The presentation that discusses the closure attached to the agenda item states the projected 357 students who would go to Read-Patillo in the 2024-2025 school year would go to either Chisolm or Edgewater Elementary. Both of those schools already have over 500 students.
We’re seeing massive growth in Edgewater and Oak Hill that’s going to shift a lot of families north. So, we’re going to need a school to absorb all of that growth, too, and I believe Read-Patillo is going to prove to be the answer to that,” said Thompson.
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