Education

There may have been a time when schools on one side of the county could take comfort in knowing a new subdivision being built on the other side probably wouldn't affect them. Well no longer.
School concurrency requirements means Florida school districts must find classroom "capacity" where it's located -- either within the school boundaries a development is in, or in "contiguous" school boundaries. That means a project like the 3,200-acre Governor's Park near Green Cove Springs will impact nearly every student in Clay County if, or when, the development begins adding homes and multi-family units.
Something to note though: The developers won't take the first step until the Outer Beltway is built and a Green Cove Springs bypass is there, too, along with an interchange. They realize the enormous financial impact the Beltway will have on the area and are even willing do donate hundreds of acres inside the proposed development for right-of-way to make the Beltway happen.
The earliest the highway could be open is 2013. However, other observers say the highway could be 20 years or more away if there are delays caused by lawsuits, environmental concerns or difficulty getting other right-of-way property.
Unfortunately for the school district it can't wait for all that to play out. Under concurrency regulations, the school district has to provide comprehensive plans on how it would handle the influx of students from homes inside the district.That inormation is part of the developer's application process that goes to county and state officials.
That process is only now beginning and could itself take years.

A proposed new residential and industrial development near Green Cove Springs that could bring thousands of new residents if it's completed is posing a challenge for the Clay County School Board.
Governor's Park would be built on thousand of acres where the former Gustafson Dairy property was previously located.
The project poses a challenge because this is the first development to approach the board since concurrency went into effect.

The Clay County School Board will hold its monthly meeting Thursday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. at Fleming Island High School's Teacher In-Service Center. The agenda appears to be fairly routine, although there's one item that could generate some interesting conversation.
School Board staff are scheduled to discuss how Governor's Park, a proposed development of regional impact (DRI) near Green Cove Springs, could impact Clay County Schools. Initial plans call for thousands of homes, periferal businesses and a possible golf course in this massive project that sounds similar to OakLeaf Plantation.
While residential development currently is nothing close to the boom days of just two years ago, it appears the developer is planning to move ahead with the project.
Unfortunately, few Clay County residents appear to care about these discussions, which potenttially have a major impact on the county's infrastructure, schools and government's ability to provide adequate services.
It's a shame more people don't attend the Clay County School Board's monthly meetings where they can learn more about these projects.

One reader had a very good question about why a Fleming Island junior high had not been built.
It's certainly not that the School Board didn't talk about the idea. However, given the demands for elemenary schools, limited funding and uncertainty about exactly how the school's attendance lines would be drawn the school board tabled the idea.
Now that state funding is drying up and the population boom overruning Clay County has subsided, it could be a long time before Fleming Island ever sees such a junior high.

One of the topics that's generated a lot of discussion is the cost of the new Oakleaf High School at the corner of Plantation Oaks Drive and Branan Field-Chafee Road. The structure, which will hold 1,600 students, will cost at estimated $50 million and be the county's first three-story high school.
Of course planning for this school started long before the current economic downturn, at a time when OakLeaf Plantation was booming with residential growth.
Construction started this summer and is expected to be done in 2010.
What do you think? Is the Oakleaf High School still a viable project? Is $50 million too much or is just simply the cost of doing business today?