JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Duval County School Board voted to push back one school closure to the fall of 2027 and push back the closing of another to the fall of 2028.
Action News Jax has been telling you for more than a year about the budget issues that have put Duval County Public Schools in a situation where school board members say that certain schools closing is an ‘inevitable’ reality.
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Two of those schools, Anchor Academy and Long Branch Elementary, are now set to close at different times. The district had originally planned on closing Long Branch ahead of the 2026-2027 school year, which the school board voted to delay by one year. The school board also decided to push back the closing of Anchor Academy to the 2028-2029 school year, instead.
School board member April Carney, who represents District 2, made the push to delay the closing of Anchor Academy while the district waits on a possible grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. Carney said she’s hopeful that DCPS may receive money from the department’s “Defense Education Activity” grant that may allow enough money to support a renovation or rebuilding of the Anchor Academy building.
If this happens, the school board brought up the possibility of closing Mayport Elementary, instead, and sending those students to Anchor Academy. But the board anticipated that parents should know whether the grant has been awarded sometime in the fall of 2026. Many of those parents asked for the school board to keep both schools open during Monday night’s board meeting.
“You have heard families from Anchor Academy beg you to not erase their school’s history,” one parent told the board during the public comment period.
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But Anchor Academy is a school that the district says has been struggling with low student enrollment for more than 10 years. Board members argue that whether Anchor Academy or Mayport Elementary closes, neither will be able to stay open because of the cost to the district to keep running the under enrolled schools.
The same argument was made for the closing of Long Branch Elementary into the R.L. Brown Talented and Gifted Learning Academy, which the board voted to happen next year. School board member Darryl Willie tried twice to convince the rest of the board to delay the decision to merge the two schools, but both of those attempts failed.
Most of the parents who spoke at the meeting had hoped for a different outcome.
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“This all feels really rushed and I feel like our community has not fully been heard,” one parent told the board.
One of the reasons the school board urged for both of these decisions to be made for the 2026-2027 school year is over a concern that a charter school may decide to move in and take the empty seats, rent-free, because of a recent change in Florida law that allows for “Schools of Hope” to co-exist inside of underperforming or under enrolled public schools.
The school district still has eight other school consolidations planned for the 2026-2027 school year, but many of those possible mergers still need a final vote from the district.
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