New attendance‑boundary committee will recommend north‑end school changes; report due in January

The oversight committee heard from Deputy Superintendent Ben Whitehouse about a newly established attendance boundary advisory committee that will assess how the district uses school facilities and recommend boundary adjustments.

Whitehouse said the 11‑member advisory group was formed under a prior board resolution and met for the first time before Thanksgiving. The committee’s initial focus is the district’s north‑end schools — Reddick Collier, SPAR, Anthony, Fessenden and nearby campuses such as Ocala Springs and Oakcrest — as well as the former Evergreen School now called Fort Miller Learning Academy. The group will analyze building capacity (student stations), current enrollment, the location of student residences within attendance areas and other data to identify shifts that could raise utilization toward the committee’s target of about 80% capacity.

Whitehouse said one option under review is moving up construction of a new Spar Elementary campus and combining campuses to replace two smaller schools with a single, larger facility to achieve economies of scale. He warned that implementing boundary changes requires community engagement (forums) and several months of back‑end administrative work to update student address data and enrollment assignments.

The advisory group plans two more December meetings and hopes to provide recommendations to the superintendent in January, at which point the superintendent may bring proposals to the board for the north‑end schools only. Whitehouse said the committee is intended to review boundaries annually after the initial north‑end focus.