CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The Brevard County School Board on Tuesday discussed a controversial proposal to shut down a decades-old elementary school.
The district is considering closing Cape View Elementary School in Cape Canaveral because of a decline in enrollment.
If shuttered, the nearly 300 students at Cape View would be moved to Roosevelt Elementary School, about 7 miles away.
“It’d be a far drive, and I think it’s just an inconvenience for a lot of people,” a Cape View parent said.
The proposal has drawn pushback, with more than 2,200 people signing an online petition to keep the school open.
Some parents at Roosevelt are also against the move.
“(The move would) just overcrowd what we have here,” a parent said. “It’s nice the way it is. If it gets overpopulated, it may not be as nice.”
The school board took up the plan at a 1 p.m. workshop and then again at a 5:30 p.m. school board meeting.
During the workshop, board chair Gene Trent said if the merger is approved, at least the 500 combined children will be in the same classrooms together from Kindergarten until they graduate high school.
All of the elementary students wind up at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School where Trent used to work as a teacher.
“That would be wonderful for the continuity, discipline, academic achievement,” the board chair said.
The Cape Canaveral mayor and city council members do not support merging schools.
“Cape Canaveral, at large, supports Cape View,” Mayor Wes Morrison said at a town hall meeting Nov. 4.
The mayor backed families, saying he doesn’t want Cape Canaveral to lose its only school, either.
Board member Katye Campbell argued that merging schools would mean students would get a better education, and the district would save millions that are currently needed in repairs at Cape View.
The school opened in the early 1960s.
“That could go into paying our people more and providing services to our children,” Campbell said.
Morrison responded to the possible educational perks of merging schools.
“But it does not change the livelihoods of what Cape View means to our families,” he said. “There’s no getting around the convenience of Cape View.”