Newberry Elementary Fifth Grade Now Going To Be In Oak View Middle
The Newberry Elementary fifth grade will attend school at Oak View Middle School for the 2008-09 school year. Just weeks after the idea had been dropped for the upcoming year by the School Board of Alachua County, Newberry Elementary principal Lacy Redd (in photo) and others from the elementary school asked the Board to revisit the issue.

In a letter addressed to Alachua County schools superintendent Dr. Dan Boyd, Redd detailed that the school had at least 116 students more than the facilities could handle. “I will need three additional portables for the fall to meet the mandated class sizes with our current numbers,” said Redd. “Our cafeteria, clinic, office, bathrooms, playground, computer lab and parking are all negatively impacted by our growth.”

Redd said that the Newberry Elementary faculty showed 100 percent support for the plan to move the fifth grade to Oak View, where there is enough room for the additional students.

“My fifth grade teachers all want to go with the students over to the middle school to teach and my faculty believes that these teachers can help parents feel assured that their children will be treated like fifth graders and kept safe,” she said.

Newberry Elementary Parent Teacher Organization president Sandy Paquette and Student Advisory Council president Kyra Purvis also addressed a letter requesting the Board to move the fifth grade to Oak View Middle School.

According to Alachua County schools public information officer Jackie Johnson, the Newberry Elementary teaching units will move and efforts will be made to keep the fifth graders separated from older students. Johnson says details, such as busing and after school programs, have not been worked out yet.

Newberry Looks At Impact Fees For Transportation & Recreation
The Newberry City Commission is researching the possibility of implementing impact fees for transportation and recreation funds.

“Those impact fees would be assessed against residential or commercial units,” says Newberry city manager Keith Ashby. “That’s a political decision the commission has to come to terms with.”

Ashby says the commission will have to assess whether it wants to impose the fees, how much money the fees will be and whether this is the right time to impose the fees.
“You don’t want to hurt your construction industry by imposing impact fees,” says Ashby. “Now, all we’re worried about is process. How do you implement the impact fee? How long does it take?”

Ashby says one of the issues that will be measured will be whether developers decide to build parks in their developments. “If you’re a developer building a 500-home community with a park in it, how much of a recreation impact will your 500 homes have on our city’s recreation facilities,” Ashby explains. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out and that’s not easy.”

Ashby stresses that the city is not targeting a certain amount of recreation or transportation funds through impact fees. “We’re not talking about money yet,” says Ashby. “We’re talking about the process.”

The city’s staff is looking into the issue to make a recommendation to the city commission. When the staff brings a recommendation on how the commission should or should not execute impact fees. “When we’re done with that, then we’ll talk about money,” says Ashby.