ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Two St. Johns County School Board members were in Tallahassee last week and took the opportunity to lobby local lawmakers for additional funding to help deal with the explosive growth in the county.
Board member Beverly Slough told News4JAX on Tuesday that she and board member Kelly Barrera had productive discussions with state Sen. Travis Hutson, R-Palm Coast, and state Rep. Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, about the potential for more money under what’s called the “high growth allocation.”
The money, which comes in the form of a grant, would help ease some of the financial burdens that come with building new schools in the county, which is happening nearly every year now.
“There have been a couple of years when we’ve gotten a high growth allocation to help us with the stresses of the very rapid growth. This year, our growth rate is 7.26%, so we are really bursting,” Slough told News4JAX.
Slough said Hutson said he and state Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, plan to look into getting more money to St. Johns County and other districts seeing an influx of new students.
“I told Rep. Renner about [the high growth allocation] just to garner his support for the budgeting process, and he fully understands it. Because, you know, he lives in Flagler County, and they’re beginning to grow a lot too, so he sure understands the dilemma that we face,” Slough said.
On Tuesday night, Slough will also lead a town hall discussion at Freedom Crossing Academy, a K-8 school in the northwest part of the county that was built for 1,500 students and now holds more than 2,200.
“I was hearing from parents at the school about their concern about what were we going to do because it was just growing so rapidly, and the reason for that is houses came faster than anybody anticipated in this hot housing market,” Slough said.
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Stakeholders in the area will get a look at the St. Johns County School District’s growth plan, which includes adding more portable classrooms, small-scale attendance rezoning and a new K-8 being built in the Shearwater neighborhood.
St. Johns County Superintendent Tim Forson will also be at the town hall, which is open to the public and begins at 6 p.m.