New attendance-boundary advisory committee will focus on underutilized north-end schools

Deputy Superintendent Ben Whitehouse told the oversight committee that an 11‑member attendance‑boundary advisory committee has been formed to review enrollment and utilization at underused north-end schools and to recommend adjustments to attendance boundaries.

"It's an 11 member committee, and the goal of this group is to look at how we're utilizing our schools and our current attendance boundaries that determine the school's enrollment numbers and be able to give recommendations to the superintendent on an annual basis for any adjustments that need to be made," Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse said the committee’s initial focus is north-end schools, including Reddick Collier, SPAR, Anthony, Fessenden, Ocala Springs, Oakcrest, Wamina Park and Fort Miller Learning Academy (the former Evergreen School). The goal is to move schools toward roughly 80% capacity where possible and to consider more cost‑efficient configurations, including building larger elementary campuses rather than maintaining multiple small campuses.

He said the committee met before Thanksgiving and will meet two more times in December with the hope of making a recommendation in January for the North End schools that the superintendent could then bring to the board. Whitehouse also described the community engagement work required: public forums in affected neighborhoods and significant backend database updates to reassign student addresses to new schools if changes are approved.

Whitehouse said shifting construction timelines is a possible outcome: at a recent work session the board recommended moving up the Spar Elementary timeline, which could postpone the Donella Middle/High School project by a year so resources could be redirected to a combined Spar/Anthony campus.

The committee approved the 2026 meeting schedule later in the session and adjourned.