On October 30, 2006, the Orange County School Board held the latest in a series of workshops focused on "unitary status." Due to court orders dating from as early as the 1960s, the Orange County School Board has been working towards obtaining unitary status for all its schools to eliminate all vestiges of discrimination and inequality in the areas of school assignment, faculty qualifications, transportation, facilities, educational programs and extracurricular activities. The focus of their discussion at this workshop was the area of facilities.

Previously, the OCSB adopted an "ideal" elementary school size of 830 students and a goal of having all elementary schools within +/- 25% of that size. OSCB staff listed all schools with under 700 students and then grouped them geographically to see if there were opportunities for "mergers" of some of the smaller schools. A total of 21 schools were discussed for possible merger. Smaller schools were grouped geographically for discussion of closure possibilities. Pershing, Pinecastle and Conway Elementaries were grouped with the discussion being that one of the three could close. Six schools in west Orlando (Eccleston, Washington Shores, Richmond Heights, Orange Center, Ivey Lane & Grand Avenue) were also discussed with one of the six to possibly close. Another grouping of schools included Hungerford, Killarney, Lake Sybelia and Lake Weston. For the remaining 8 schools (Kaley, Lake Como, Dover Shores, Ferncreek, Hillcrest, Lake Silver, Princeton, Rock Lake) the staff proposed several possibilities for up to three schools to close.

The October 30^{th meeting was a workshop session and no votes were taken by the School Board. However, they did consider and discuss five different options presented by staff. One of the options was to keep the status quo and leave the schools alone. Part of the discussion centered around the fact that the OSCB does not have the money to make all of the improvements that were listed when the community voted to assess a half-cent sales for school improvements. The staff pointed out that eliminating or "merging" low enrollment schools would assist OSCB in meeting its fiscal obligations.}

All five options developed by staff and present to OSCB on 10/30 were:

1.Renovate Schools to Current Capacity using sales tax timeline finished in 2017 (this represents the status quo)

2. Renovate Schools to Current Capacity but move up schools in the facilities equity study (relates to unitary status)

3. Rebuild to Prototype Capacity of 625 or 727 students by merging, building magnet programs or choice clusters and move up the timeline for schools in the facilities equity study.

4. Merge and Rebuild to Prototype Capacity and move up the timeline for schools in the facilities equity study.

5. Merge and Rebuild to Prototype Capacity and move up timeline for affected schools—both schools in facilities equity study and the small school study.

This is a very important issue for our community and if you provide us with email contact information at Save_Community_Schools@yahoo.com,or visit the website www.savecommunityschools.com we will share additional information and details with you as they become available. The OCSB is expected to hold another workshop on this topic in early 2007.