UPDATED: Town halls set to explain how new ‘proximity plan’ will affect students

Oct 13, 2023 By MEGHAN BRADBURY 4 min read

**Please note: The South Zone town hall has been rescheduled for Monday. Nov. 13. It has been updated in this story.

Parents of middle schoolers have an opportunity to see how new school zones might affect their child.

Town hall meetings are scheduled for each existing zone to share information about the new middle school proximity plan, on which the Lee County School Board is expected to vote in November.

Planning Growth & Capacity director Dr. Adam Molloy presented the draft middle school proximity zone plan, which would go into effect for the 2024-2025 school year, to the board on Wednesday.

“It isn’t a stand-alone solution, it’s a pivotal continuation of our efforts,” he said.

The new plan will decrease the size of the attendance zones while creating zones capable of accommodating anticipated student growth over the next decade, Molloy said.

As with the elementary proximity plan put into effect this year, the purpose is to assign students to schools closer to home and so save on transportation costs to the district. Parents will have fewer school choice options.

“Currently our families have an average of 5.3 middle school options. To provide a personal perspective, our current system allows my wife to rank five schools. Our furthest school is 13.5 miles away from home,” he said.

The average zone is 154 square miles.

The proposed middle school proximity zone decreases the average number of choices from 5.3 to 2.2 with an average zone of 87 square miles.

Those zones include:

• AA – Mariner Middle School and Trafalgar Middle School

• BB – Challenger Middle School and Gulf Middle School

• CC – Caloosa Middle School, Diplomat Middle School and North Fort Myers Middle Academy of the Arts

• DD – The Alva School

• EE – Fort Myers Middle School and Paul Laurence Middle School

• FF – Cypress Lake Middle School and Lexington Middle School

• GG – Bonita Middle School and Three Oaks Middle School

• HH – Lemuel Teal Middle School, Lehigh Acres Middle School and Veterans Park Middle School

• JJ – Harns Marsh Middle School, Oak Hammock Middle School and Varsity Lakes Middle School

The immediate impact of this will affect incoming sixth grade students, middle school students new to the district and rising middle school students living outside of their current school’s proximity zone and needing transportation.

Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said the proximity plan will affect sixth grade students going into seventh and seventh graders going into eighth grade. Rising seventh and eighth graders living outside of the new proximity zone can continue at the school if they provide their own transportation.

There is a total of 19,402 sixth through eighth grade students with 12,541 living within their proximity zone and 6,861 outside of their zone. The displacement of sixth through eighth grade students is projected at 35.4%. The kindergarten through fifth grade displacement was 38.4%.

Molloy said displaced students residing outside of their proximity zone will have the option to continue at the school, but district transportation will not be provided. Transportation is available for sibling preference, as long as they are within the next proximity boundaries.

Self-contained ESE programs and students with disabilities will maintain their current enrollment and district transportation.

Molloy said that arts application programs will continue at the current sites and transportation will only provided if the school is within the student’s proximity zone. He said all 21 middle schools, including Sanibel offer band and visual arts.

“Fifteen have chorus programs, 10 provide dance programs, 12 offer drama and 10 feature orchestra,” Molloy said.

Various town halls will be held throughout the community to share the redrawn boundaries for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students.

**• South Zone, Monday, Nov. 13, 5:30-7 p.m., Bonita Springs Middle School, 10141 Terry St.

• West Zone, Monday, Oct. 30, 5:30-7 p.m., Challenger Middle School, 624 Trafalgar Parkway

• East Zone, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 5:30-7 p.m., Oak Hammock Middle School, 5321 Tice St.

The school board is expected to vote on the middle school proximity plan at its Nov. 21 meeting.

To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com