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Should the site for the alternative school be centrally located, close to Withlacoochee Technical Institute or near the county jail? Price, safety and image will play a role in selection.
By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 13, 2002
INVERNESS -- School officials are still gathering details the School Board needs before board members can decide where to build a permanent home for the Renaissance Center.
Among the issues still under discussion with property owners and other agencies: price, utility costs and road construction requirements.
When discussing the topic Tuesday during their regularly scheduled meeting, board members asked about location: Should Renaissance be centrally located or close to the Withlacoochee Technical Institute, where students would have access to technical programs.
Renaissance principal David Cook said he currently had no students using the technical institute, but some have attended in the past.
Board member Pat Deutschman said the district should look at the long-term goals for the school and, even if the technical institute does not now have programs that would attract a large number of Renaissance students, that might be a consideration in the future.
Board member Patience Nave noted that she saw some real benefits to a proposed site near the Citrus County jail because it was centrally located and was in an area that wouldn't see much development at least on two sides.
Members of the committee charged with site selection examined 28 properties countywide before settling on three to examine in detail and rank.
The committee members looked at such details as price, utility availability, road access and environmental concerns.
The initial scoring of the properties had the 22-acre site adjacent to the Citrus County jail in Lecanto and the 19-acre parcel just south of First United Methodist Church on County Road 581 near Inverness with the same scores.
The third property is a 19-acre Lecanto site just east of County Road 491.
The committee had also discussed location and issues such as the safety and image issues associated with placing the alternative school so close to the county's jail. The committee reportedly did not discuss any conflict issues related to the CR 581 site that is owned by board attorney Spike Fitzpatrick and local businessmen Charles Davis and David LaPerle.
Fitzpatrick said Tuesday that he is not representing his property although he has spoken with the representatives of the parcel beside the jail.
The new Renaissance Center will be designed during the next school year and is expected to be open within three years. The school has existed in a collection of portable classrooms on the campus of Citrus High School since it first opened in 1997.
Recently the School Board voted to expand the facility when it moved to its permanent new quarters. Not only will the capacity be more than doubled, but a new program will be added to serve students who commit nonviolent offenses, such as first-time violations of the zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol. Those students now face expulsion.
The Renaissance Center will continue to serve the population it serves now, which are the disinterested and disruptive students from the county's four middle schools and three high schools.
The School Board also approved the facilities list for the new Renaissance Center, which is the official description of the spaces and uses for the new school. The list sets the student capacity at 239 and lists labs, vocational rooms and storage areas, which are all spaces the existing school does not currently have.
In other activity:
In a closed session, the board expelled nine students bringing the total for the year to 57.
Those expulsions included: an eighth-grade female student from Citrus Springs Middle School, a ninth-grade male from the Withlacoochee Technical Institute, six female Lecanto High School students, four in ninth grade, one in 10th and one in 11th grade, and one 10th-grade female student from the Academy of Environmental Science, all for violations of the zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol.
One eighth-grade male student from Citrus Springs Middle School was also expelled from the bus for the rest of the school year for vandalism and disorderly conduct. He is the second bus expulsion of the year.