After 2024-2025 contracts, such as personnel salary schedules and “safe school” agreements with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and Key West Police Department were approved, Monroe County School District Attorney Gaelen Jones shared a Trumbo affordable housing update at the June 25 Monroe County School Board meeting at Coral Shores High School.
In Key West, district-owned land near Trumbo Point aims to help alleviate the shortage of affordable housing for district personnel. The 150-unit project will be done in phases, said Jones.
In November 2023, the school board approved a building agreement with Integra Solutions, and in February, Jones completed the initial comprehensive agreement, which it provided to Integra and the Vernis & Bowling law firm for review. At the end of April, Jones received feedback from Integra, and in May, a partial review from the law firm.
The groups agreed to a proposal that district educators are to be given leasing preference for the rental housing followed by district non-instructional staff, and then charter school educational or instructional support personnel. To ensure educator preference, at first the units will be advertised and leased only to local educators up until 90 days before the expected occupancy date. When at least 100 units are occupied by local educator households, the educator preference will cease to be applied, the proposal says. In the future, 50 annual units must be made available to educators.
Jones said the project’s reviews will continue until an expected school board lease approval is completed, tentatively in spring of 2025. After the fully developed site plan is approved, the City of Key Westwill issue planning and building permits, and a ground-breaking event will follow in spring or summer of 2026.
The construction is to take place in three phases. First, Integra will take partial possession of Trumbo Property’s 3.8 acres for housing development. Then, upon expiration of deed restrictions, Integra can utilize the abrogation lot of about .4 acres for developing community amenities such as a gym. Lastly, upon the district vacating its administration building, Integra will take full possession of the remainder of Trumbo Property of about 1.6 acres for development of additional community amenities and any remaining housing units not fitting into the site plan during the first two phases. Jones said the district will have some oversight of the leasing management company. Board member Mindy Conn said, “Having veto power is good since we’ve seen who does this well.”
In the Rex Weech field closeout presentation, Patrick Lefere, executive director of operations and planning, said the Key West High School stadium project is complete at a cost of $19.66 million and removal of excess soil will be done for about $120,538.
The school board then approved a Performance Matters platform provided by Powerschool Group that focuses on student data through data warehousing, assessment creation, administration and scoring of assessments at a cost of $120,000. This purchase aims to allow teachers to evaluate formative testing.
School Board Chair Sue Woltanski shared that the community need not be too concerned about school grades received this past school year given the way calculations were determined. She said variations across grade levels and graduation criteria affected the grades. “This will be the fourth time [the graders] go through this [calculation evaluation].” Woltanski said. Last year, “learning gains” was not included in the grades, and schools such as Key West High and Treasure Village Montessori received “B” grades. As for upcoming letter grades for schools, she said, “I’ve confidence we’ll do great; learning gains are demonstrated every day.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0