A draft plan to place children at schools closer to home was presented to the school board last week.

While students could continue to attend their current school, the district proposes to address transportation issues with a “bold recommendation” to not provide transportation for elementary students whose current school is not within the new proximity boundaries.

This aspect deals with grandfathering, which would be the ability for a student to stay at the current school if they are now residing outside of their new zone. The proposal and approach would go into effect for incoming kindergarten students and elementary students new to the district.

“All rising elementary students (would have the) option to continue at school, but transportation is not provided unless the current school is within the new proximity boundaries,” Superintendent’s Office Coordinator Dr. Adam Molloy said, adding that those students who live outside of the attendance zone would participate in a lottery using proximity maps with school choice. “Transportation will strictly be provided within the new proximity plan map.”

Molloy said if a student lives outside of the new zone, the parent would waive transportation and provide their own if they want to keep their child at the same school.

“It does honor a parent’s choice, it just reduces our responsibility to transport,” he said.

School District of Lee County Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said the district has to do something about the 2023-2024 school year.

“Part of the solution is to ensure they (students) are in place on time,” he said.

Students are missing “vital instructional hours because minutes add up quickly,” he said of the approximately 2,000 students who are late to school every day due to issues with busing.

Bernier said the district has to help the community understand they are at a crossroads.

“The 2000-plus could be 4,000 to 6,000 students late every day. We have to get them to school on time and maximize the instructional day that we have,” he said.

Board Chair Armor Persons said the system they have now is not sustainable.

“If we do nothing it will be total disaster. I look forward to getting this to its fruition,” he said.

The proximity plan presented addresses both transportation and grandfathering.

Molloy said part of addressing transportation issues is reducing the size of the district’s attendance zones by using the GSI study areas, which compile group study areas to make an attendance zone.

One of the aspects the proximity maps deal with is the reduction of routes and size of zones.

“We are trying to reduce the size and ease the responsibility of transportation for the school district,” Molloy said.

Proximity map one, which was formerly map one, would reduce the number of elementary school choices from 12 to four and reduce the scale of transportation by more than 100 square miles on average.

“It’s a large-scale system change as it relates to elementary schools,” Molloy said.

In years two and three, middle school choices will be a goal, also aligned with proximity maps with the transportation moving to a three tier system. Molloy said there will be an ability to adjust high and middle school start and end times.

Molloy said if the proximity draft proposal goes into effect it will take a large amount of monitoring year after year and quarter after quarter.

“We have to stay on top of it because we are setting the table for our schools. We are hopeful we can move the map and procedures forward for the upcoming year for elementary schools,” he said.

Bernier said this will not impact ESE students and their parents. The routes and abilities to have the services and accommodations regarding IEP will stay in place.

“We wanted to bring forth our best thinking,” Bernier said. “Our best thinking is not a decision. These are very tight discussion points.”

School Board members all shared they are in favor of the plan, but had concerns about academies, as well as before and after school care for students. Time a student spends on buses was also addressed.

Bernier said transportation is currently set on a four-tiered system with the first tier consisting of high school busing, followed by tier two and three being elementary busing and then the final tier addressing middle school. What the proximity plan will do is shorten the elementary bus runs because buses would not have to go as far and wide as they are currently covering.

By eliminating a tier, the district can look into changing the start time and end time of high school and middle school, he said adding this aspect would help with the bus driver shortage but would not reduce the bus driver force needed.

“There are more than enough routes to go to drivers that we already have,” Bernier said.

Board member Debbie Jordan said all parents do not have the same ability to transport their child to school, which forced her to address before and after school care. She said it is vital that options are available, so they can continue to go about their workday.

“We are looking at a larger system that provides before and after care for elementary and middle school students,” Bernier said, adding that it should be an affordable option. “Can I promise that for a 23-24 school system, I don’t think I can.”

With that said, he said many elementary schools do offer before and after school care and they will look into the affordable aspect.

The plan will come before the board again in late January or the beginning of February.