Duval County Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier will recommend that a 108-year tradition of educating elementary students on the Eastside end.

Long Branch Elementary has educated students Out East since 1917. The intention to consolidate it into Richard Lewis Brown Gifted and Talented Academy has evoked questions from Eastside residents and concern from education advocates.

School’s out forever

An official decision is expected from the Duval School Board during its Dec. 1 meeting.

Their worry is the proposed consolidation follows a trend of closing schools that are predominantly Black and Latino.

The intention to consolidate Anchor Academy into Mayport Elementary — which will also be considered in the Dec. 1 School Board meeting — is one of the rare mergers where a plurality of the students at both schools are white.

The National Center of Education Statistics notes that 76.2% of Long Branch students in the 2023-24 academic year — the most recent data available — were Black. R.L. Brown had an even higher Black population at 83.9%.

Nikitra Bradwell questions why the district is closing schools that are over-represented by Black students. Bradwell is a Long Branch parent. She also has a niece and nephew who attend R.L. Brown. The idea of consolidating the two schools angers Bradwell to tears.

“I was heartbroken because we’re not thinking about the children,” Bradwell says. “We’re just thinking about numbers, numbers, numbers.”

Making decisions make cents

Corey Wright, the Duval County Public Schools chief of accountability and assessment, told more than three dozen people at a community meeting at R.L. Brown on Nov. 18 the district spends $11,071 per student at schools with fewer than 700 students. It receives, Wright says, approximately $8,500 per student, regardless of campus enrollment.

Wright told people this month, as he did during an Academic and Community Excellence meeting Oct. 14 at Long Branch Elementary, the district had to consider options that will reduce costs.

“The rationale, R.L. Brown is recently remodeled and significantly underutilized,” Wright said at the Nov. 18 meeting. “Long Branch is a small, aging building not large enough to become operationally efficient without some capital upgrades.

“Assigning the Long Branch attendance boundaries to R.L. Brown will provide upgraded, appropriate learning space for students enrolled there and better utilize the facility, reducing operating costs, while maintaining gifted and talented choice options for students across the area and across the district.”

Duval Schools’ decision was contrary to what the Academic and Community Excellence working group suggested in October. They advised the district to keep both schools open; convert Long Branch into a dedicated science, technology, engineering, arts and math magnet; and create a health science and zoology program at R.L. Brown. The working group believed that creating the additional programs would attract students to both campuses.

Wright said on Nov. 18 the district could not afford to invest additional dollars, if its goal is to reduce expenses.

Decision-makers consider community objections

School Board member Reggie Blount listened to Bradwell and more than a dozen people inside R.L. Brown speak out against consolidation. He considers school consolidation and the intention of charter school operators to open campuses in those shuttered buildings separate issues.

Blount did not announce this week how he intends to vote on the proposed consolidation of schools in his district.

Meanwhile, Wright’s explanations about consolidations have not always been well received. His remarks about “right-sizing” the district in October annoyed attendees. One longtime Eastside resident listened, then turned to School Board member Tony Ricardo to express her dismay.

This month, Wright noted the possibility of Long Branch students walking to R.L. Brown. The suggestion was met with shock because that would mean Duval County Public Schools would ask young children to walk underneath an expressway overpass and cross frequently used railroad tracks in order to arrive at the school named after the famed local architect, builder and legislator.

Wright did say the district learned from previous consolidations. That’s why it will provide mental health support for students, encourage collaboration between the school communities sooner and encourage teachers at the closing campus to move to the new school.

Closed schools, open wounds

What irks parents like Bradwell, as well as educators at R.L. Brown and Long Branch, is that R.V. Daniels Elementary in Grand Park was consolidated into R.L. Brown after the 2025 academic year.

Now, within the first semester of the consolidated R.L. Brown, the district has proposed another merger.

Jacksonville NAACP President Isaiah Rumlin says consolidation has not worked.

“We feel that this closure doesn’t make any sense at all,” Rumlin said this week. “Long Branch needs to remain where it is. And, R.L. Brown needs to remain. Promises (made), promises broken, and we intend to meet with the superintendent, and with the board, to make sure that this doesn’t happen.”

Consolidation conundrum

Duval Schools proposed consolidation as a way to lift enrollment at R.L. Brown. District data shows enrollment increased 23.2% to 265 students for current academic year. However, that is well below the students it anticipated as it proposed the closure.

One reason may be that 53.4 students from R.V. Daniels transferred to R.L. Brown, according to data shared during last month’s Academic and Community Excellence meeting.

Of the five Duval campuses that closed at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, only 61.6% of those students transitioned to the merged school. In all, 82.3% of students from closed campuses remained with traditional schools, while 6.0% transitioned to charter schools. The remaining 11.6% of students transferred out of the district — either to a private school, homeschool or another school district.

Making space for growth

Wright says the district wants to reduce the number of seats within the district in order to raise its fund balance. Doing so, he says, will allow the district to devote more toward education, than facilities and overhead.

A district analysis found that schools with 700 students have enough capacity where the overhead and operational costs are completely covered by state allocations. Currently, there are 98 schools with fewer than 700 students. The district shared that 29 of those schools — including both Long Branch and R.L. Brown — have fewer than 300 students.

Over the last decade, Duval Schools reports that its enrollment has declined by 11% from 116,602 students in the 2015-16 academic year to 103,286 students in the 2024-25 academic year. At the same time, the total number of available seats at district schools has declined 4% from 138,907 to 133,232.

Florida law requires that school districts have 3% of their operating budget in a fund balance, which is essentially a reserve fund. The School Board was told in an Oct. 21 workshop the district’s fund balance was 5.02%.

Board member Darryl Willie asked, during the October workshop, whether the district’s consolidations are working. Bernier says the district’s fund balance is in flux until it receives additional information from the Florida Department of Education.

“We have too many small schools,” Bernier responded. “We still have over 70 that are less than the necessary number of 750. I would love to tell you the 5% fund balance is the real fund balance, but without a fourth calculation from the state, I can’t. … I know its frustrating to you and to the public.”

Bernier said moving from an eight-period day to a seven-period school day as well as the reduction of staff at central office has helped improve the fund balance.

Willie continued to pepper the superintendent with questions.

“We can take hard numbers and say, ‘If we do this, it will do this.’ But, if students don’t come into that new school, and we lose those students, those are dollars we also don’t have,” Willie stated.

Bernier says five years of history is needed to get an understanding of the attendance shift following a consolidation.

Creating community through education

Nevertheless, the closures continue.

George Washington Carver Elementary in Magnolia Gardens, Hidden Oak Elementary in Cedar Hills and Don Brewer Elementary in Arlington are all scheduled to close at the end of this academic year. All three schools have a majority Black student body and overwhelmingly serve students from under-resourced families.

Jacksonville historian Rodney L. Hurst attended Tuesday’s NAACP press conference outside R.L. Brown. He contextualized the mistrust between some Black parents on the Eastside and the school district dates back generations to when facilities were promised as part of desegregation.

“You cannot expect a community to exist when you have taken the institutions out of that community,” Hurst said this week, as he looked westward toward Matthew Gilbert Middle School, on land that was once owned by Richard Lewis Brown.

“All around us, from Matthew Gilbert on over. Matthew Gilbert was a senior high school. It was closed, then changed to a seventh grade center. Now, it’s a middle school. But, it is not a graduating center. The burden of integration in the school system has been put on the backs and the shoulders of the Black community. It did not just start. It just continues.”

Three of the five elementary schools that closed in May 2025 — R.V. Daniels, Annie R. Morgan and Susie Tolbert — had more than 80% Black students, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Another, Kings Trail Elementary, had 55.5% Latino students. A plurality of Windy Hill Elementary students (45.1%) were Latino, while 33.4% of its students were Black.

Building anew

With most of the closing schools serving an over-representation of Black or Latino students, community members and advocates have asked aloud what will happen to the buildings.

Back in May, on the last day of the 2025 academic year, Melvin Williams finished his job as a janitorial specialist at R.V. Daniels Elementary. He expressed at the time a belief the district listened to parents and community members in the Beaches communities — but never planned to do the same for Black people from majority Black neighborhoods.

“They don’t talk about it because most of the people who went to these schools were African American and not white,” says Williams, who attended R.V. Daniels and Carter G. Woodson Elementary — both of which have since been closed.

“What are you going to do about these schools,” Williams says. “You can open up a recreation center or a Boys & Girls club. You can do something to keep kids out of trouble, or make it a nice park.”

Williams is not alone is trying to turn the buildings into third spaces. The Magnolia Gardens Community Development Corp. has organized meetings for months to spur community members to speak out against the closures.

Magnolia Gardens CDC President Robert Flornoy was passionate about preserving Carter G. Woodson Elementary before it was inadvertently torn down earlier this year. In a September community meeting, Flornoy said preserving other closed schools could benefit both the district and the community.

“They are there to make money,” Flornoy said. “That property could be used for a community center. It could be used for a training center. It could be a place where seniors could come in and train on how to control their diabetes.”

My Village Project, a nonprofit that works with more than 300 organizations statewide, attempted to purchase Carter G. Woodson. However, the school was torn down this spring before the $2 million contract could be finalized.

My Village Project CEO Ronnie King says the organization remains interested in the property. He envisions a space where students can understand the latest nuances in artificial intelligence and remain updated on the latest technologies.

“I think that if it doesn’t fit down into the budget and the business model for the district, that doesn’t mean learning should not take place in those spaces,” King told Jacksonville Today. “I think we should be actively looking and actively making sure that at these community-based schools — I know with school choice, and these other things, folks can go everywhere — but at these schools that are localized, allow those in the surrounding community to convert those into learning institution spaces.”

Utilizing community investment

Carter G. Woodson was showcased as an example of what is possible when the community steps forward. The NAACP believes there are others who can and will do the same at other school buildings.

LIFT Jax, a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting the Eastside, has invested time, talent and treasure into Long Branch Elementary for nearly five years.

Through the Eastside Institute of Technology, students at Long Branch Elementary have additional access to information about science, technology, engineering and math. LIFT Jax has raised private dollars to invest in technology for students, training for educators and tutoring services.

This academic year, LIFT Jax helped bring the Children’s Home Society to Long Branch and Matthew Gilbert. That partnership provides medical services from Agape Family Health, a food pantry with goods from the Corner at Debs Store and more.

LIFT Jax leadership views its role as a community partner who can augment the work Long Branch principal Wayman Franklin Graham II has done to convert the school into a B-rated school for the first time since 2012.

LIFT Jax CEO Travis Williams challenged attendees at R.L. Brown to attend the Dec. 1 School Board meeting so all seven members — not just Blount and Willie — hear the Eastside’s objections.

Bradwell plans to attend. She hopes the School Board will hear what she and others have said in support of Long Branch and R.L. Brown.

“Now is not the time to think about numbers. I just really hope that they take the community into situation, take the kids into consideration, take the parents into consideration,” Bradwell says. “Once again, it’s not about the number; it’s about what’s best for these children and their future.”