The school on Fort Myers Beach has been an empty building since October 2024. There’s hope that someday a Charter School run by the town will open. Town Manager Will McKannay and his staff, at the direction of the Town Council, have been aggressively pursuing what it would take to open a Charter School.
Town of Fort Myers Beach staff members, and the Lee County School District, have been meeting for months trying to hammer out an agreement that would turn the beach school and the property it sits on over to the town. They are working out details on the length of time, the cost, and what restrictions the town would have on the property if a future school closed. If there is ever an agreement, the town would get the property, the building as is, and submit an application with the School District to create a Charter School.
6 committees were created by the town to help with the application. They dissolve in 6 months. Those committees are: Education Program Committee, Governance Committee, Finance and Business Operations Committee Information, Community Engagement Committee, Facilities, Safety, and Operations Committee, Operations and Human Capital (HR)
The Facilities, Safety, and Operations Committee was the first to meet on Thursday. The members of that committee are John Koss, Albert Dambrose and Patrick Vannesse. They mostly discussed getting into the current building to see the damage. Nothing has been touched or fixed in the building since Hurricane Milton closed the school in 2024.
At the meeting, Assistant Town Manager, former Beach School Principal, Traci Kohler said the district is proposing to turn the building over as is. She said, “I have great hope that ILA will be done in December.”
Putting the Charter School application together is expected to take 6 months. The plan is for Kindergarten through 5th grade.
Assistant Finance Director Jeffrey Newman told the committee that start-up costs for a Charter School are estimated to be approximately $1.5 million (see chart below). He also said staffing would come in at about $1.2 million and non-staff operating costs would be $481,000.
While it’s public knowledge that if a Charter School was ever approved the School District would have to kick in some funding. There has been no public discussion about how the town would finance a school moving forward. In addition to property tax reform which kicks in next year, the town may also have to pay back an $11.9 million state bridge loan by 2033. In other words, money isn’t growing on trees right now for the town.
A school district report estimated repairs to the current building would cost somewhere between $3 million and $6 million. Committee member John Koss does not believe that number is accurate and would like the town to be able to get into the building to get more accurate estimates. He said the report the School District conducted was done with a hidden agenda.
It’s unknown how many K-5 children live on the island, how many might travel to the island to attend, or how many island employees might bring their kids to the school. Perhaps one of the 6 committees will be tasked to come up with that number. Before it closed, the Beach School could hold up to 90 children.
Koss said, “We need to get a school back on this island to enable parents to move to this island with their children. People don’t want to move to an island without a school”
The Beach School was built in 1947–1948 and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on July 8, 1999. Over the decades, the school added wings, a cafeteria (1955), kindergarten rooms (1972), and converted its auditorium into a media center/library.