2014-1016 Regular City Commission Meeting

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summary Minutes: Regular City, Commission Meeting October 16, 2014 Cin. of Sunm- Isles Beach. Florida 13. CITIZENS' FORUM: REQUESTS, PETITIONS & OTHER COtMNIUNICATIONS 13A. Caroline Mathews to Discuss three Issues: 1) Overcrowding in School; 2) Supervision needed in Pelican Communitv Park for after school; and 3) Soap is needed in Bathroom Dispenser on First Floor. Action: Carolina Mathews said she has three issues: 1) Overcrowding of the School: It has come to her attention that there are many students there that do not live in our District. and there are also mane students that are children of people who are not even Florida residents. She would like to know what is being done to rectify this situation. our classrooms are overcrowded, the garage doesn't even house enough spots for all the teachers, and this is absolutely unacceptable. The floor that was just built there is inadequate for the amount of students in the school. Mayor Edelcup said it is an ongoing work in the City to work with the Miami -Dade County School Board for expansion of the school. and we are working in that direction. Ms. Mathews said expansion is great however unless you stop these other children from other areas coming in; von can expand all you want. Mayor Edelcup said he would address that as well because that is something we have been working on for a number of vears. In fact the Citv volunteered and paid for the cost of a Special Inspector to vouch for each student who was eoine to that school as to whether or not they lived here in the City. In fact Commissioner Scholl even recommended that he would spend time in setting up a computer program to try to accomplish the same goals. The school system is run by the County although the City does have some influence because we did make a significant donation to the County for the school. We are continuously trying to monitor to get the children that are not in our district out of that school but it takes the cooperation of the school district themselves_. unfortunately the school district has not been as aggressive as we would like them to be. They get paid for each student that goes to that school on a head count basis. and they don't really care if somebody is coming in from Broxvard County- because all of a sudden they are getting these extra dollars because that student is there. Mayor Edelcup said in answer to your question, yes it is an ongoing discussion that we have with the County. again it is out of our hands. we can't force the County to do anything. We can volunteer our services to make it easier for them to police it, and we can try to influence them to do that. We have done it, two years ago by the time we finished the program with them there were some 40 children that were taken out of the school because they lived outside the district. Mayor Edelcup said the other thing that we did accomplish with the County was when the school district was originally set. it was set to include the area that is known as Eastern Shores in North Miami Beach. By the second year of the school's opening we all realized that the school was going in the direction of over- crowding and we convinced the County to redraw the district to eliminate the Eastern Shores students. We made a provision though that. those that were already in the school can finish their eight (8) years because we didn't want to pull them out. It did not include siblings that hadn't been enrolled. Again, if the Principal does that it is not part of the original deal that we made with the County. The deal that we made with the Countv was if a sibling was not enrolled in that school they could not come to that school. but the child that was in the school could finish. Again, it is up to the County to enforce that particular agreement. and again, we keep reminding them of that and trying to prod them to do it. 20