Over community objections, the Duval County School Board voted unanimously Monday to close two more elementary schools — but later than originally proposed.

Instead of closing the schools at the end of this school year, as Superintendent Christopher Bernier recommended, the board postponed Anchor Academy’s consolidation with Mayport Elementary until the 2028-29 school year. Long Branch Elementary will consolidate into R.L. Brown Gifted and Academically Talented Academy for the 2027-28 school year. 

In the meantime, school board members said they would continue to consider alternatives that might be more palatable to the schools’ communities — including the possibility of a new federally funded school to replace Anchor Academy. 

Bernier has said, over his 18 months as superintendent, that Duval must close schools in order to balance its budget — though the district is in better financial shape now than officials forecast a year ago. Still, Bernier says small schools are not financially efficient; to break even, schools need at least 700 students. 

Anchors away

Mayport Elementary and Anchor Academy both serve military families stationed at the nearby Navy base. Anchor Academy has been at half capacity for several years, but this year dropped to 38%. Mayport also sits at about half capacity. Anchor Academy’s location is better — it has a military-secured gate that connects the school to the base — but Mayport’s building is bigger and can hold all the students from both schools. 

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District 2 rep April Carney told the board she’d been working for months, amid “ad nauseum conversations with the Navy,” to find a way to keep Anchor Academy open because of its proximity to the base. On Monday, she said that with the help of U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, R -FL5, she may be able to secure a grant from the Department of Defense to renovate or rebuild Anchor Academy and instead close Mayport Elementary.

“I look at this as an opportunity for us at DCPS to have a true partnership with the Department of Defense, where we can provide a state-of-the-art facility to our naval community — not at the taxpayer’s expense,” Carney said. “And hopefully, bring families that have left our traditional public schools that live on base or near base that are going to private, taking the voucher, or going to charter to come back to that new facility. That’s my hope.”

The uncertainty of the federal funding made a vote for consolidation on the shorter timeline impractical. If the grant doesn’t come through, Anchor Academy will merge into Mayport Elementary in 2028.

Losing Long Branch

With 265 students enrolled this year, Long Branch is one of Duval’s smallest schools and one of the district’s oldest. 

Long Branch — School No. 106 — opened during World War I as a school for Black children. Even today, 80% of its students are Black, and 6% are white. Many of the schools that have closed in recent years have been within the parts of Jacksonville that have more minority residents — a fact that has not escaped their communities’ notice.

Two city council members, Jimmy Peluso and Ju’Coby Pittman, addressed the board Monday and asked them to reconsider closing Long Branch.

Peluso asked the board to consider the neighborhood’s potential for growth. 

“As we’re about to pass the (EverBank Stadium) community benefits agreement, as we’re about to see millions upon millions of dollars going to East Side, into Phoenix, into Long Branch, we’re going to see more families, more young families with children, moving into the community,” he said.

Pittman said her grandmother was a student at Long Branch.

“This district has been left behind,” she said. “A lot of broken promises, displaced students.”

“What I’m most concerned about as these school closures happen in urban communities and neighborhoods that need resources, is that we lose the historical aspect of these schools that have been a part of Jacksonville history,” she said. 

During Monday’s meeting, many community members spoke in passionate support of keeping Long Branch Elementary open. 

“I appreciate all the comments,” school board member Darryl Willie said. “We have to be both fiscally responsible with where we are, but in addition to that we also have to listen. Listen loudly, is what I’ll say.”

Long Branch is a long walk from R.L. Brown, though not so far that all children would automatically be eligible for the bus.

At a meeting last month about the consolidation with families from Long Branch and R.L Brown, district officials suggested children could walk — something that was not well-received by the community. 

“I will die on the hill of traffic safety if I have to. I am terrified at the thought of these kids crossing MLK Parkway, the railroad, all those things,” school board member Melody Bolduc said on Monday. 

Carney, too, questioned the safety of asking children who live near Long Branch walk to R.L. Brown. 

“If you even just do Google Street View and do the walking path, the sidewalks on Phoenix Avenue are overgrown. And as an adult, I personally would not choose to take that path, as a grown person — it’s not safe,” Carney said.

R.L. Brown already consolidated with R.V. Daniels this school year while keeping its dedicated magnet status. The new consolidation will keep the magnet program but make the school a neighborhood school too. 

School board member Cindy Pearson called the consolidation decisions “a mess.”

“I think that the district perhaps made a mistake in renovating R.L. Brown and putting money into R.L. Brown because now we have a renovated building with a capacity of 725 and not a clear pathway on how we’re going to put 725 students in that building,” Pearson said. “But we’re not going to close a newly renovated building.”