In January of last year, Hernando County’s school board voted by consensus to move forward with a multi-phase plan to expand school capacity district-wide. On Jan. 14, the board held another workshop regarding this plan.
Originally recommended by the Planning and Growth Management Committee at a meeting on November 20, 2024, Mr. James Lipsey and Mr. Brian Reagan presented the updated plan to the local educational leaders on Tuesday, Jan. 14.
As part of the previously agreed upon expansions in phase one, 20 classrooms are set to be added at Eastside Elementary, while another 30 classrooms are planned to be completed near Winding Waters K-8 in 2026.
In addition to housing 440 additional students at the new Eastside expansion, a new cafeteria will also be built. This will allow the original eating space to be converted into a “larger, more functional administrative suite and create a better-defined public entry to the school,” said Lipsey.
Between 660 and 750 extra students will be able to enroll at the westward addition. This “flexible school,” which will be situated between Winding Waters K-8 and Weeki Wachee High School, will vary based on each school’s annual enrollment numbers.
Phase two is further out and is planned to be finished by 2027. The proposal has also received some revisions from the committee since the previous workshop. The adjustments call for:
– The unassigning of 15 of 30 of the classrooms in the new Winding Waters building proposed in phase one. This will deduct 330 of what Lipsey called “student stations.”
– Adding 462 student stations by constructing a new 21-classroom, 3-story building at Winding Waters.
– Reassigning the previously mentioned 15 classrooms from the phase one building at Winding Waters to Weeki Wachee. This would add 375 student stations.
– Adding 500 student stations at Endeavor by building a 20-classroom, 2-story structure.
– Adding 350 classrooms by reassigning 14 of 27 classrooms in Building 30 from Endeavor to Central.
– Adding and remodeling the kitchen and dining areas to accommodate the increase in students.
– Adding and remodeling Building 30 by increasing the number of classrooms by 12 and getting rid of a quartet of portables. This will increase Central’s student stations by 200.
Phase three involves several more steps, including the construction of a one-story building that contains 14 classrooms at Moton Elementary (308 student stations). The plan also looks to remove three portables, which would reduce that number to 80.
Hernando High would also receive a new 12-room, 2-story building that would add 300 student stations. The grandest part of the proposal calls for the construction of an all-new technical high school with 1,250 student stations.
This would be situated on an 80-acre parcel of land on McKethan Road that is already owned by the district. However, due to half of the property lying within a 100-year flood plain, building on those portions of the land would be inadvisable.
Why a technical high school? With only 40 acres remaining, the board noted that there would not be enough room to build a full-sized educational complex with athletic facilities. This is an interesting point, considering Springstead High sits on 31.4 acres.
In Lipsey’s estimation, it would cost $20 million to create the 21-classroom addition at Winding Waters and $28 million for the expansions at Central and Endeavor. The total phase three bill is projected to cost $153 million, with $125 million going towards the new school.
Building, whether it be additions or new schools, is crucial despite the exorbitant costs considering the number of students in the county. That is not just down the pipeline but right now. Half of the county’s public elementary, middle, and high schools are already over capacity.
Lipsey and company broke down categories for the board on Tuesday with an interesting look at resident forecast and resident utilization numbers. These deal with where they live in the county, not where they are currently enrolled “because where they are enrolled today may change over time,” he said.
Their calculations included factors such as birth rates, population migration, and their assessment of student generation rates from different housing types. Lipsey noted that enrollment is generally good for looking at trends when considering staffing within the next year or so but not so much when discussing facility planning in the long term.
“You really need to understand where your students live.” Lipsey continued that their numbers seem to suggest that “we are having people move into the county buying existing homes that are not just contributed by new developments. So, our county really is growing.”
There is no specific timetable on when shovels will be put in the dirt, however, and phase one will not be complete until the spring of 2026. Despite the plans and the expansions set to take place, Schoolboard member Mark Johnson did not feel that it is enough considering the growth Hernando County will be facing over the coming decade.
“We’re behind the eight ball,” said Johnson. “We need three or four schools. We can’t just be adding extensions onto what we have. We need new schools in new locations. That’s my take […] If we had a high school or middle school open on the east end of the county, we could save a lot of money on fuel, the kids would have more free time because they would not be spending half of their life on a bus.”
After a great deal of back and forth, the board agreed to stick with phase one as it is and discuss phase two further at the next school board meeting on Jan. 28. In addition to potential redistricting and shifting of students to schools with lower numbers, it appears the later phases could be subject to change as well as they look to do more than just kick the can down the road.
