My household has always felt a call to students: I teach high school science online, my husband and two housemates are on staff with a college campus ministry, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and my kids attend local schools. When we decided to move here just over 5 years ago, we specifically felt called to the students (VPK – college) and the rich history of the Midtown neighborhood of Daytona Beach.
Before we even moved in to our home, we saw the zoning maps for Midtown, sending elementary students out to 12 different schools and middle school students to five schools around the area. We bought a house mere blocks from Bethune-Cookman University, and yet were zoned for Pine Trail Elementary in north Ormond Beach and then Silver Sands Middle down in Port Orange. We quickly learned that most of these zoning choices were made in the ‘60s as schools were being integrated. Students from the historically Black neighborhood were bused out to various schools in an attempt to make all things equal.
The Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education, deemed that “separate but equal” schools for children of different racial backgrounds are inherently not equal. Unfortunately, while bussing students to different schools may try to equalize student numbers, it does not give students an equitable learning experience. Some students must spend hours per week on a bus to attend a school that is too far for even their parents to be involved. And the students that get to stay at the last neighborhood school, Turie T. Small (after Bonner Elementary was closed) are left with a school building that has fallen into disrepair and a harder time recruiting high quality educators.
Knowing all of this, my family still made the decision to move into Midtown, send our children to Turie T. Small Elementary, and get to work meeting with stakeholders within the district to change zoning. I remember meeting with then school board representative, Ida Wright, about looking into converting local schools to Magnet schools, as I had seen down in Brevard County, to increase funding and attract families to the neighborhood. I didn’t even think of the idea of building a brandnew school and have been so delighted as those plans have moved forward and the new Turie T. Small Elementary is currently being built!
I am proud to have joined my voice with the many in the Midtown neighborhood asking for changes from the district over the years. Because of the community, just this year, a large number of students in the area were rezoned to stay closer to home at either Westside Elementary or Beachside Elementary. When the new Turie T. is completed next year, the rest of the 32114 students will come back “home” rather than continuing to be bused to schools in Port Orange. This has been one of the topics of the ongoing district sponsored rezoning meetings.
For middle schools rezoning, students in Midtown (like my girls) will now get to stay at Campbell Middle School instead of riding a bus right past it into Port Orange. While I have heard most residents excited for our new elementary school, there have been concerns that the middle school plan will cause overcrowding or re-segregate the school. I attended one of the rezoning meetings where the district discussed that the current demographics are 57 percent Black students and 24 percent White students. If every student that lives in the new zoning area for Campbell Middle actually went there, then the demographics would change to 58 percent Black and 23 percent White.
As for overcrowding, if every student moved (which some likely won’t due to home school, virtual school or private school), then the school would be at 103 percent capacity. While that sounds high, the state does not consider a school to be overcrowded until they hit 115 percent capacity.
There has been a long history of zoning in the Midtown neighborhood of Daytona Beach harming rather than helping students. I have attended town halls where community leaders such as Daytona Beach Commissioner, Paula Reed, and Daytona Beach Leisure Services Director, Keith Willis, shared their experiences of being sent to integrate schools rather than attending the one in their neighborhood. I, and I hope others, are happy that positive changes are being made to both the zoning and the physical buildings within this historic 32114 area.
