Putting students last
To the editor:
In spring of 2026 the School District of Lee County Superintendent and Board “suddenly” found that the School District was $92.4 million in the red. They tried to explain away the deficit by saying it was because of vouchers, school choice programs, inflation, the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief funds, and legacy spending as if these were all a surprise. Then they used creative bookkeeping to split up the deficit by putting $45 million of losses under Capital budget, and $47 million of losses in the Operating budget. Subsequent to finding the deficit and trying to make it go away, the Superintendent with the School Board’s acquiesce has gone on a staff and teacher firing binge, and school consolidation schemes.
One such scheme is to close the Buckingham Exceptional Student Center and combine it with the Royal Palm Exceptional School. On the surface this might seem like an innocuous plan, but when one digs deeper there are a lot of unanswered questions.
Royal Palm Exceptional School serves students with emotional/behavioral issues. It has about 100 students in Pre K-12, with a student to teacher ratio around 5-1, about 73% of students are economically disadvantaged, and 63% Black, Hispanic and Asian. The school provides specialized programs for students requiring behavioral intervention, autism spectrum disorder or similar educational needs. The school offers college-level coursework, and extracurricular activities like sports and clubs.
The Buckingham Exceptional Student Center serves students with medical special needs that far exceed students with emotional/behavioral issues. This means many of the students are confined to wheelchairs, and have cognitive, physical and medical challenges.
It has about 60 students in Pre K-12, with a teacher to student ratio of about 7/1, about 59% of students are economically disadvantaged, and 60% Black, Hispanic and Asian. Buckingham Exceptional Student Center serves students with documented high intensity care needs that cannot be met on a typical school campus. The school offers full-time registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, vision/mobility instruction, and adapted physical education.
Royal Palm Exceptional School and Buckingham Exceptional Student Center are very different in their student population and programs they offer. One is like a typical Lee County school, the other is a resource intensive educational institution serving unique students and their specialized needs like a medical care facility inside of a school. For instance Royal Palm is designed with classrooms existing directly out to courtyards. That is OK for the students the school currently serves, but not OK for students with mobility and health issues. The district’s plan is to establish what it calls a state-of-the-art flagship Exceptional Student Education center on the Royal Palm campus. They say they will modify Royal Palm to accommodate students from the Buckingham Exceptional Student Center. That is an over simplification of what will be required to accommodate equally students with very different needs.
Lee County School Board chair Armor Persons gaslit parents concerns saying, “The schools are not combining but co-locating in the same building. They will be two separate schools. All the support for the Buckingham students is following the students. This includes teachers, staff, classroom furnishings and equipment, playground and even the garden.”
But he misses the reality, Royal Palm Exceptional School was designed as a typical Florida school, and no amount of reconfiguring and gerrymandering will change that.
The Lee County School Superintendent and Board are using the most vulnerable students to compensate for their fiscal incompetence.
Keep Royal Palm Exceptional School and Buckingham Exceptional Student Center separate and stop trying to put square pegs in round holes.
Daniel Becker
Fort Myers