SANTA ROSA BEACH — Two years after building a new middle school and a year after moving fifth-graders out of elementary schools to accommodate growth, schools serving the district’s youngest are bursting at the seams.
“We’re completely full, but we’re getting everybody in,” said Butler Elementary School principal Tammy Smith. “Any place that we can find, we’re making an educational space.”
In addition to gaining classroom space at the former Emerald Coast Middle School two years ago, which shared a campus with the elementary school, Butler has converted an office into a computer lab and a former science lab into a third-grade classroom.
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They’ve added an eighth class of fourth-graders already this summer and with a new apartment complex opening down the road, it’s likely other grades will see similar growth.
Smith said her staff is posting fliers requesting parents pre-enroll their children, but they won’t know until the first few weeks of school if their efforts were successful or not.
“I’m nervous about the children who are out there, that we don’t know about,” Smith said.
It’s a phenomenon not limited to Butler, according to Mark Gardner, the facilities director for Walton County schools.
Nearly 80 percent of the district’s growth is centered in the southern portion of the county and the families arriving seem to all have young children, he said.
In fact, according to data collected by his staff, the county has about 100 new construction homes hitting the market a month.
Gardner said he was looking into moving portable classrooms out to some of the schools but emphasized it wasn’t a permanent solution.
Instead they’re trying to track the growth and react accordingly. For example, Freeport Elementary School is slated to have additional classrooms built in the near future and the district is considering building at least one more school in the next five years.
“These numbers have done nothing but validate those needs,” Gardner said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.
