- December 20, 2024
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Ormond Beach city leaders are disappointed in the Volusia County School’s Board unwavering decision to close Osceola Elementary in favor of building a new school at nearby Ortona Elementary, and a group of parents are weighing whether a case could be made that the board committed a Sunshine Law violation.
At the Ormond Beach City Commission on Tuesday, Feb. 16, Osceola parent Travis Sargent said all they wanted was for the School Board to host a “properly noticed, fair hearing” to discuss the closure of one of the schools for the merger. He claimed that the Aug. 25, 2020 meeting, where the board decided to close Osceola Elementary, was improperly noticed, and therefore gave no indication to the public that a decision on a campus would be made.
“It was clear that the board gave defective notice of the purpose of the meeting of Aug. 25th to be listed as K-5 or K-8 decision,” Sargent said. “Not as a decision to close a school.”
The School Board did admit at its Feb. 9 meeting that the vote to choose a site shouldn’t have happened for transparency’s sake, but its district attorney expressed that nothing illegal had happened since the meeting was noticed. With the exception of School Board member Carl Persis, the board did not express a desire to revisit the decision, and money has already been spent to build a portable city at Osceola Elementary to house Ortona students during construction.
Sargent said public participation in the meeting was difficult due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the School Board’s meeting were livestreamed and public participation was possible by calling in, though at least one person, a teacher at Osceola, experienced technical issues on the district’s end that night, as mentioned at the Feb. 9 School Board meeting.
Sargent indicated that some parents, all who have signed a petition to save Osceola Elementary started by Ormond-by-the-Sea resident Kathleen Miksits, intend to seek legal counsel if necessary to pursue a Sunshine Law violation in court. As of Feb. 8, the petition had been signed over 600 times, according to Miksits. It is not known how many of those individuals would be involved if a legal suit moves forward. Three requisites of the Sunshine Law include that meetings be open to the public, reasonable notice of such meetings be provided, and that minutes be taken.
Sargent asked the City Commission to keep the $2 million it previously set aside to give to the School Board for stormwater improvements and portables should the decision be revisited in the near future. The commission agreed.
Mayor Bill Partington scorned the treatment he said Ormond and Volusia residents received at the Feb. 9 School Board meeting, where School Board member Jamie Haynes accused the city of trying to buy their vote.
“We were accused of buying the school and, I think, being bullies, which I thought was outrageous,” Partington said. “We were presenting information, trying to get the board to follow their own policies.”
City Commissioner Troy Kent, who voted for the resolution to commit funds, said the idea "never excited him," but that he did so because he was more bothered by losing Osceola, Ormond's only beachside school.
The criticism due to the funds is something to keep in mind, said City Commissioner Dwight Selby, who expressed he was surprised when he saw the narrative emerge from the public.
“I’m not trying to buy a school," Selby said. "We’re just in a position where we’d like to keep a school we have, and we have some economic resources that we want to provide to make that one of the best campuses possible in the area.”
