Rezoning for new schools in SJC

2 new schools to alleviate overcrowding in St. Johns County

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – Tuesday evening, the St. Johns County School Board is scheduled to vote on two proposals outlining the zoning for the two new kindergarten through eighth grade schools being built to help alleviate some overcrowding.

The re-zoning will affect people living in the Nocatee area, where one of the new schools is being built, and people living in the Durbin Crossing area, where the other school is opening.

The highly desired St. Johns County School District continues to grow and right now, the district is trying to keep up with that growth and stay on top of overcrowding issues.

Two brand new schools will open in time for the 2014-2015 school year in the two fastest growing areas: The Northwestern and Northeastern parts of the county. Tuesday evening, the school board will decide which students will fill those schools.

"The process is such that we had parent input community input through town hall meetings. The school board then took that input and took the proposals that were provided by the staff and then it was advertised for a 30-day period," said Deputy Superintendent for Operations, Tim Forson.

The district goes through this rezoning process about every two to three years. That's how often new schools are opening because it's just a fast growing district.

Forson said it's a good thing, but is well aware it can be disruptive to families and students, so they'll try to keep students in their last year at their current school.

"Eighth graders will stay at their middle schools so we're only going to open up those schools as kindergarten through seventh grade, that will allow students to finish their last year at the middle school where they were," said Forson.

The school board has the final say on that, but the recommendation is to open the two schools with about 7 to 900 students. Each has a capacity of 1144.

"The zoning really is an important benchmark for us because then a lot of tasks have to follow that once we know how many students it is and where they're coming from. Transportation will begin working on bus routes and things of that nature for next year, the number of students help us make decisions about equipment and programming," said Forson.

The board will discuss and vote on the zoning proposals at their meeting Tuesday night which begins at 6:00. There will be a chance for some more public input.

Once the zoning is figured out, Superintendent Dr. Joyner will name the two new principals some time before the first of the year, and then it will all start coming together.