Oak Hill to Be Kindergarten Center As Board Shuffles Grades

By Rachel Kyler, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach

Jan. 23–Oak Hill Elementary School will cease to be a K-5 school at Eglin Air Force Base as the Okaloosa County School Board shuffles grades around to address declining enrollment.

“We are realigning. We are not closing a school,” said Okaloosa County Superintendent of Schools Alexis Tibbetts. “This is about helping kids and helping schools.”

The board voted Monday night to turn Oak Hill, which serves 488 students, into a pre-k and kindergarten center next year.

First through fourth grades will move to Cherokee Elementary, which has 374 students, while fifth grade will move to Lewis Middle School.

Cherokee, which is two blocks from Oak Hill, was chosen because it’s a newer facility.

By combining campuses, school district officials predict a savings of more than $700,000 per year in personnel cuts.

“People will not be going home without a job,” said Mike Foxworthy, the district’s chief officer of human resources, adding the savings will come from jobs that will be refilled.

Enrollment at elementary schools in Niceville and at Eglin has been steadily declining since 2004. Numbers have decreased from 3,888 students to about 3,373.

School officials say future projections look grim as more airmen and their families move off base.

“It’s going down, and there’s nothing else I can tell you about it,” said J.C. Connor, the district’s chief officer for information management. “Rezoning was absolutely not going to stop any issues.”

“(And) we don’t want to cripple any other schools,” Tibbetts added.

Although there will be final tweaking to the proposal, Tibbetts said it was important to move forward “to let everybody know where they will be going to school next year.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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