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Summm- Minmes: Rewlar Cin Commission Nleetine October 16, 201 i Cm of Sunnp Isles Beach, Florida <br />Nlayor Edelcup said that leads him to the third thing that we are trying to do and that is <br />taking into account the fact that the first two have not been such great successes because the <br />school is overcrowded. We have a lot of those who own property here in Sunny Isles Beach <br />that only reside here for part of the year but they are the tax payers and so when they do come <br />here and brine their children to the area. they can enroll them in the school for the short <br />period of time that they are here. Ms. Mathews said then that a person does not have to be a <br />Florida resident to go to that school? Mayor Edelcup said no. <br />Ms. Mathews said what she is mainly discussing is the students that are using addresses that <br />they don't live at. The fact that you took out 40 kids that is wonderful but the number that <br />she has been quoted is about 600. NIavor Edelcup said that number is way high. When we <br />went through the system at that time we were able to identify what we thought were around <br />200 and of the 200 only 40 or 60 of them were actually removed from the school. We would <br />be foolish to think that we have purified the system and that it is working fine because we <br />know it isn't. The only thine we can do in the end is to work with the Countv to try to <br />convince them that thev need to work in the same direction that we are working. At the same <br />time we know that the City is still adding in a number of apartments, there is 1.500 under <br />construction right now, there is probably another 1,500 that will come in in the next couple <br />of years and so we are working with the School Board and we are on their budget list for an <br />expansion of this school. That expansion hopefully will resolve itself in the next couple of <br />years and he hopes that the Commission that is here will work with the School Board to <br />identify a site in the City to expand the school facility so that we can add more classrooms <br />because he doesn't really believe in the end that the problem will resolve itself by just <br />removing the out -of- district kids out of the school because we do have such an influx still <br />coming in from new apartments that will be built in the future. and we do have the situation <br />.where the foreign residents can bring their children here. He spoke to the Principal yesterday <br />and we are at 1;980 students, and the expansion itself is to be just 1.980 and we are hitting it <br />right now and the winter season hasn't even come which means there will probably be <br />another 40 or 50 children that will be trying to be enrolled for the short period of time that <br />they are here with their parents. It is a problem that he sympathizes with her and it isn't that <br />this Commission hasn't worked diligently to tr_y to resole and come to a better solution but <br />it is eoing to take time. <br />Commissioner Scholl said the practical implications are we have leverage when they want <br />money. So four (4) years ago when they wanted to build the addition on the top of the <br />parking garage we had leverage because they wanted money. When they don't want money <br />we have a hard time telling them what to do because we don't control them, it is a separate <br />body. And so what we did was we made basically a donation to the School Board in order to <br />induce them to build the school and then we let them use the Park. We have invested a lot of <br />money from our City to have that facility but they are an independent body and they work on <br />their own and unfortunately the mindset is not very sympathetic to moving kids out of the <br />school. and it has been a problem. The last time they came for monev he was very vocal <br />about it and said we are not giving you money unless you deal with this problem. To the <br />Mayors point. they placated us, they didn't really eo after it. What he hears from the <br />parents. 10% to 20% and so if there are 2.000 students. populating between 200 to 400 kids <br />that is a lot of classrooms. If you have 40 kids in the classroom now that is 10 classrooms <br />that would seriously relieve overcrowding. To the Mayor's point, he agrees. the City <br />continues to grow but it is insult to injury if we don't do anything about the core problem. If <br />21 <br />