For the second time in two years, kids attending the Fort Myers Beach School will be shuttling to San Carlos Park after Hurricane Milton caused just enough damage to their school to warrant extensive repairs.
Lee County School Board Chairman Sam Fisher tells Beach Talk Radio News that remediation at the building started this week. “This does not look like it will be a quick fix. How long it will take is not known yet.” The 64 kids attending the school will start going to San Carlos Park tomorrow.
There was hope the kids from the Fort Myers Beach school could attend Sanibel, however, that school was also damaged. The Sanibel damage was not as severe as Fort Myers Beach.
Kids from Fort Myers Beach attended San Carlos for over a year when Hurricane Ian nearly closed the school, the damage was so bad. The School Board gave serious consideration to shutting it down until an ad hoc committee of parents and the Fort Myers Beach community rallied to save the school. A portion of the school had been designated as historic which also helped keep the school from closing. The district was required by law to repair the historical building.
In May of 2023 the School Board voted 7-0 to make repairs to the Beach School. A plan was also put in place to increase the number of students that attend the school. Years ago the school had as many as 150 kids attending. The inter-local agreement includes a plan to increase enrollment at the school, which includes children of employees of island businesses, recruiting students who live off the island up to Summerlin Road and San Carlos Boulevard and creating a magnet school with specialty curriculum.
The agreement states that if student enrollment at the Beach School meets the threshold that Fort Myers Beach Elementary can sustain itself at the same level as the other barrier island schools (Pine Island Elementary and Sanibel), the district will continue to operate the school. The annual cost calculation will be based on the annual cost per student report submitted to the Department of Education at the end of each fiscal year.
The agreement states that after fiscal year 2026-2027, if there are not enough students enrolled for FMBE to financially sustain itself, the school board may close the facility.
The original ILA says the Historic Building can hold about 52 students, which was the starting enrollment number. By 2024-2025 the district will build additional facilities on the campus to accommodate a permanent kitchen/cafe. Also, by 2024-2025 the district will improve the Historic Building with additional classroom space to accommodate up to 80 students. After that, the school board will design and construct additional facilities to accommodate no more than 150 students.
The ILA goes on to say that if the Beach School is unable to financially sustain itself at the same level as the Barrier Island Schools, or if the Town is unable to provide a financial contribution to cover the difference, the Town may assume the responsibility for the full operation of the Beach School by turning it into a Charter School.
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Question ❓ why is this structure not torn dn and rebuilding, did it not sustain more than 50%
It is a historical building. They had to fix it. Still, it did not sustain more than 50% anyway. In fact, none of the buildings did. At first, the district said they had more than 50% damage. They were block buildings. They could have easily been scrubbed out and new electric, AC, and plumbing run.
When pushed for actual numbers (building values and bids), they admitted that they just wanted to tear them down because they wanted to build more elevated buildings to avoid this in the future. They even tore down a perfectly good gazebo. All of the buildings could have been saved. But they chose to just save the historic building.