When the Waldo Community School closed its doors permanently in 2015, residents were devastated. The varsity was obviously a staple inside the town and gave Waldo a very close community feeling.
The Alachua County School Board chose to shut the university almost four years ago because enrollment was too low, they usually didn’t feel it was actually less expensive and keep it open, said Kim Worley, Waldo City Manager.
The approximate 200 Waldo children who helpful to attend the neighborhood school are now divided among 10 different schools, said Kristen Jacobs, Waldo resident, and mother of two children, ages 7 and 9.
Jacobs’ oldest son is at kindergarten when the school closed 36 months ago. He was the 5th generation of her family to attend the Waldo Community School.
“You really lose that communal feeling as soon as the kids aren’t learning together and playing together,” Jacobs said. “Additionally it is affected the recreational side of the usb ports since the kids return home so late now.”
However, this tends to all change. The location of Waldo proposed to begin a charter school with what was once the Waldo Community School building. The brand new school would be kindergarten through fifth grade and would serve 100 students.
One Room Schoolhouse is Gainesville’s first-ever and longest-running charter school and it’s looking to help establish the charter school in Waldo.
“It might be great,” Worley said. “The kids that happen to be here may actually walk to high school again like before.”
“If you have a superb school, people move regarding their kids. Thus if there is also a good school to offer, workers will possibly be planning and we can grow this way,” she said.
The charter school will require on the main building, consisting of eight classrooms, from the Waldo Community School. The executive building will likely be used by Waldo’s city hall, that is certainly relocating for the community school building to acheive off from 301. The high-traffic, fast drivers and lack of crosswalks makes?city hall’s 301 address dangerous, Worley said. The other administrative building will likely be used as a possible incubator program to begin with up businesses.
“We actually already have some tenants,” Worley said, “We have Finchberry Soap, which is made through Waldo, and we all have AHA Soups, and they’ll wear the kitchen area. With all the incubator program, we will create more jobs, which happens to be another need.”
Since many stores and businesses in Waldo closed in the past, the incubator program will encourage start up company growth and increase job availability. In accordance with Worley, city hall is utilizing FDOT to reduce the two-lane road downtown to a single lane as a way to slow traffic, make it safer for pedestrians, and as a consequence, encourage new businesses to open up.
“We’re trying to get the leading street likely to redo downtown to discover the shops reopen,” Worley said. “When we get one lane, I think it would help price range reopen as it would get parking, plus it would slow traffic down.”
In order for any school board to approve the proposal, they have to make sure 100 kids have shown interest in attend the charter school by April 18. In accordance with Worley, roughly 40?students who may have listed thus far, and she is working diligently to have the word seem to surrounding communities and families.
Students do not strictly must live in Waldo to visit to the college, anyone is welcome and encouraged to enroll.
“We have the need for the kids,” Worley said. “If we do not possess the kids, we will not have the school.”
If the teachers board approves the charter school, it will probably be supposed to open August 2019.
Neil Drake, Project Director and advisor into the Board of your One Room Schoolhouse, said to acquire the college authorized by the school board they must show an exceedingly detailed strategic business plan, educational plan, the steps that is to be taken to ensure both state and federal mandates like special education and title programs are followed, together with the curriculum and testing plans.
“[Neil Drake] provides presentation to your school board. It takes almost a couple of years to make it all approved, but it might be faster since he’s already had a board together,” Worley said. “It looks like they could start as soon as August of 2019, that is certainly faster than when we were seeking to start one over completely from scratch. Goal, after we grab the signatures and we get everything going, to generally be open by August 2019, but it surely all has to be licensed by the school board.”
“For Waldo community school, I might take advantage of the identical curriculum that the school board is certainly,” Drake said.?”We contain the STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] program along at the One Room Schoolhouse, recommendations something that Waldo would love to adopt then it’s there to take on. If that’s something of curiosity to them therefore it couldn’t survive a lot of work to get it over.”
The school would incorporate one classroom for each and every grade level, Drake said. So about six or seven teachers might be hired.
“I get a decent relationship with the school board,” Drake said. “There’re very willing and supportive of Waldo getting their school back- several individuals there failed to want Waldo to get rid of their school, it turned out just a question of economics.”
