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Renaissance Center: Where to build it?

The search for a permanent location for the center has brought School Board members back to the idea's beginning and earlier issues.

INVERNESS - After months of back-and-forth votes and discussions, the School Board today will try to decide where to go from here with its plans to find a permanent home for the Renaissance Center.

Board members plan to talk about many options for a site, as well as the bigger picture of alternative education in the county. They will review what alternative programs already exist in the schools and what should be done about students who have behavior problems but are too young to attend the center, which serves middle and high school students.

That full agenda includes issues this board and several before it have hashed out over the past decade.

For an exasperated David Cook, principal at the Renaissance Center since it opened in 1997, that list of topics for today's 9 a.m. workshop is disturbing. He wants the board to focus on just one thing: where to locate a new Renaissance Center, now that the School Board has rejected the idea of building beside the Citrus County jail.

"I don't think these are the issues," Cook said. "I don't think we need to justify the need for this center."

He said his staff has done what they have been asked to do, which is working to get disruptive students to focus back on their lessons.

Such a specific focus from the board may be optimistic thinking on Cook's part. Board members, who have changed their minds and explored other possibilities after picking the Lecanto site, now have a variety of ideas on where to go from here.

Board Chairwoman Sandra "Sam" Himmel has maintained from the beginning that she would like to see the Renaissance Center close to the Withlacoochee Technical Institute in Inverness because vocational programs could be exactly what some Renaissance Center students need.

Still on the table is the 19-acre tract partially owned by School Board attorney Richard "Spike" Fitzpatrick on County Road 581. Fitzpatrick, who has been negotiating to get the board out of its contract to buy the site by the jail, said at the last board meeting that he wasn't sure if the County Road 581 tract was still available.

Fitzpatrick said he would check with the state Ethics Commission to determine whether he could offer the property to the board. When the School Board selected the Lecanto site, the County Road 581 parcel was No. 2 on its list.

Board member Pat Deutschman asked for information on alternative programs now available in the schools for a broader discussion of alternative education. She has said that she has seen some value in exploring new sites, possibly even the old Heritage Hospital/Brown Schools site, which the board toured recently.

Board member Patience Nave said she simply wants to find a new site and move forward with building a new school. "We're already considerably behind," said Nave, a board member and a member of the committee which chose the site by the jail.

She said the discussion of that site as a safety hazard "was absolutely blown out of proportion."

While Nave agrees that the school should be near businesses for any students who are involved in work-study opportunities, she said Inverness is not the only place in Citrus County where there are businesses. She believes a centralized site is what is needed.

Nave is upset that the district spent so much time and money to buy a property, only for it to be rejected at the last minute. Cost estimates show the district may have spent $50,000 to study and prepare the purchase and Nave said she'd double that figure because of all the hard work of the Site Selection Committee and district staff.

But mostly, Nave said, she is frustrated with the board's indecision.

"Five times to vote for something. I think there is an integrity issue there, and I don't know how to deal with it," Nave said. "I think the integrity of this board is dramatically damaged."

"It saddens me because I feel that we have taken two years to research a program, to do our task as directed by the board, and it's all for naught," superintendent David Hickey said. "So now we have to pick up the pieces."

His task is to offer the board the information they need about whatever options they decide to explore. "Whatever option, they're going to have to accept that we're still talking about two to three years," Hickey said. Just studying an option could take up to six months, and Hickey intends to put the committee that selected the Lecanto site back to work again.

Cook believes that the same kinds of site location issues that the selection committee discussed months ago are still valid.

"Now we have to go through this whole thing again," he said.

Like Nave, Cook believes a central location is essential. Students already spend a significant amount of time on a school bus, first traveling to their own school and then being transported to the Renaissance Center. Cutting down that time would be a positive thing for students, he said.

"That sets the tone for the day," he said.

He also still believes that the center needs to be on a site apart from other schools. "Part of the program is to allow them to be their own people, separate," Cook said. The Renaissance Center is now located on the campus of Citrus High School.

Before the Renaissance Center opened, alternative classrooms were put in place on school campuses, but principals and county school administrators said that didn't work. That was part of the motivation of pulling all the portables together on one site to create a cohesive educational program.

"They need to feel an identity of their own," Cook said.

Cook said he is ready to move forward, and he blames much of the delay on media reports of a site by a jail and neighbors who didn't speak out publicly until far into the site purchase process. "Where were all these people when the decision was just made?" he asked.

Some blame also rests with the board, but Cook is diplomatic as he explains his frustration with that. "There were four votes taken," he said. "The School Board has a right to make any decision it wants, but there was the number of votes . . ."

Regardless of what happens from here, Cook said the program will continue to serve students. "The school is not the trailers or the new building; it's about the kids and the staff," he said. "I'm very comfortable with what the staff has done here to help kids. We have no control of other things."

- Barbara Behrendt can be reached at 564-3621 or behrendt@sptimes.com

Spring 1997: After years of debate about how to provide an alternative education for students who are not successful in their home schools, Supt. Pete Kelly proposes building an alternative campus behind the district's headquarters using portable classrooms. The School Board approves the plan in March.

June: The School Board names the new alternative school the Renaissance Center.

August: The Renaissance Center opens its doors.

April and May 2001: The School Board discusses expanding programs offered by the Renaissance Center; the district's planning consultant suggests the center should be moved to a permanent site.

April 2002: The School Site Selection Committee chooses a 22-acre parcel beside the Citrus County jail as its pick for a new site for the center.

May 14: The School Board accepts the committee's recommendation and ranks the site in Lecanto as its top pick.

October: Complications with the land purchase force school officials to change the opening date of the new Renaissance Center from August 2004 to January 2005.

November: Donna Jean De Simone, a neighbor of the Lecanto site school officials are considering, raises safety concerns about the site. She worries that the jail and the hunters who frequent the nearby Withlacoochee State Forest present a safety concern.

Dec. 10: Faced with residents who oppose the purchase and a stack of petitions, the School Board decides to delay a decision on purchasing the new site.

Jan. 14, 2003: The School Board votes 4-1 to begin the purchase process for the site beside the jail. Board member Sandra "Sam" Himmel is opposed.

July 8: Three members of the School Board say they want to explore all options before settling on the site beside the jail. Board member Lou Miele and Pat Deutschman, who were previously in favor of the site, said safety concerns from the community had caught their attention. They joined with Himmel, who has been opposed to the site by the jail.

July 29: A divided School Board votes 3-2 to continue with the purchase of the Lecanto property despite public safety concerns.

Aug. 15: Ansel Briggs, candidate for school superintendent and longtime advocate for alternative education programs, proposes that the School Board consider the former Heritage Hospital/Brown Schools site as a possible home for Renaissance.

Sept. 4: The School Board tours the Heritage/Brown site as a possible home for Renaissance.

Sept. 9: School Board votes 3-2 to end all further debate on the Renaissance Center site in Lecanto and move forward with purchasing the parcel.

Oct. 14: After board member Lou Miele, who had previously voted to end debate, asked for the topic to again be discussed, the School Board rejects the Lecanto site beside the jail in a 3-2 vote.