- March 12, 2025
With Flagler Palm Coast High School about 130 students over its capacity and having a desire to better diversify the area’s two high schools, the Flagler County School Board on Wednesday began rezoning discussions.
“This is just the very beginning of the discussion,” Superintendent Janet Valentine said. “We know that we need to provide some relief to Flagler Palm Coast High School.”
According to officials, FPC’s overcapacity wouldn’t normally be a problem, but because Matanzas has more than 300 open seats, it makes sense to rezone to balance out the student population.
Mike Judd, senior director of school operations, presented two rezoning options. The first would relocate portions of the W-section. This plan wouldn’t impact any of the elementary schools — only the middle and high schools. Because these students are already being transported, there wouldn’t be much more transportation costs, according to Judd.
The downside to just rezoning parts of the W-section is there there would be very little impact to the demographics at the two high schools, Judd said.
The second plan would rezone the western portions of the W- and R-sections, which would also slightly change the demographics.
“If we’re going to move forward with this, we’d like to take a look at the demographic balance of our schools,” Valentine said. “We believe we can do socioeconomically and with ethnicity.”
The board also discussed at an earlier workshop changing some of the elementary schools to K-8 (kindergarten through eighth grade) schools. Indian Trails was a K-8 school when it first opened.
“That creates smaller learning communities and acceleration and remediation options,” Valentine said Wednesday.
Flagler Schools has been working on an application for a federal grant worth $30 million over a four-year period, and those costs could help the transition of schools into K-8 centers, Valentine said.
Toward the end of the workshop, School Board member Trevor Tucker questioned the financial benefits of one rezoning plan over the other, but Valentine said neither of the two plans would have a “significant impact on the budget.”
The School Board will continue rezoning options and plans at a future workshop.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do in this district is maintain a clear feeder pattern,” Valentine said. “The research really shows that it’s better for the students.”
Flagler Schools awarded $90,240 for energy efficiency
The Flagler County School Board on Wednesday was presented with a $90,240 check by the Association of Energy Engineers — Sunshine Chapter.
The check was presented to the district as part of this year’s regional energy efficiency award for energy management. The association is an international association of certified energy managers recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Flagler has been recognized for its innovative building automation systems and its use of the internal storage for the chiller systems at Flagler Palm Coast and Matanzas high schools.
In the last two years, districtwide energy management strategies have resulted in the reduction of about $1.5 million in electrical costs. The check presented Wednesday night was an energy rebate.
