Does Riviera Beach need its own high school? One school board member is on a mission

More than 2,000 high school-age students live in Riviera Beach, but only about 230 attend public high schools within the city's limits.

That's why Edwin Ferguson, a school board member who represents Riviera Beach and several majority-Black neighborhoods since his election in November, has been at times unrelenting in his case for the school district to build a new public high school in the city.

Currently, Riviera Beach is not scheduled to get a new high school campus in the school district's five-year capital plan. The district's newest high school is Dr. Joaquín García High, which is located in the western Lake Worth Beach area. The school cost the district more than $100 million and is set to open this fall.

The next high school planned for Palm Beach County will open in fall 2028 in the western part of the county near The Acreage.

Ferguson and other board members made the case that a Riviera Beach High should open around the same time.

But it's not that simple.

District staff and other board members say that there aren't enough students to attend the new school, nearby schools aren't bursting at the seams with students, and they question whether a new school in Riviera Beach would deepen racial and economic divides.

"I don’t think it’s a case of ‘If we build it, they will come.’ I want to do some studies to see, if we build it, will they come?” board member Karen Brill said at the workshop Wednesday.

More on the options:Where would a new high school go in Riviera Beach? Here's a rundown of the options

2010 Post opinion:No high school for Riviera? Promised eight years ago, squabbles have stymied it

Suncoast move:Suncoast High School in Riviera Beach closes the books on a storied past as it prepares move to a new campus

Ferguson, who has repeatedly stumped on the project, said the district needs to make good on decades-old promises to Riviera Beach to build a new school.

He has pitched marine and boat-building choice programs at the new school as ways of guiding students into careers at nearby boat manufacturing companies such as Michael Rybovich & Sons Boatworks.

And at least one resident backs him up.

"I am here today in support of constructing a school that reflects my community," Riviera Beach native Malcolm Sommons, who is also a legislative aide to State Sen. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, told the board. "This new school is a necessity because we need an institution that will preserve our culture while pushing our future leaders to strive for educational excellence."

Just 123 of Suncoast's 1,592 students live in Riviera Beach

Ferguson's campaign for a new high school in Riviera Beach is based on what he sees as a broken promise that dates to 2002 — when the school board told the city it would construct a school in the city limits so students wouldn't have to take the bus to Palm Beach Gardens, William T. Dwyer and Palm Beach Lakes high schools.

"If you look at any other city of any size in Palm Beach County, they have at least one school inside their municipality that a great majority of their students are zoned to go to," Ferguson said at a Feb. 1 school board meeting.

Some argue the vacuum for Riviera Beach students began when Suncoast became a magnet school in 1989. Students apply to specific programs and are accepted into the school based on a selective lottery based on their academic performance after the top 10% of applicants are admitted. Students from anywhere in Palm Beach County can apply to attend the school.

Suncoast was converted into a magnet school following an 1987 investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights prompted by complaints of parents that the district had allowed Suncoast to become majority Black and let enrollment and education quality decline.

As a result, the school board approved making Suncoast, Atlantic High and S.D. Spady Elementary the district’s first magnet schools, designed to draw white students to these mostly Black schools in 1988.

That's resulted in an influx of competitive students from all around the county. So much so that in 2008, the district began giving priority to neighborhood students who apply to Suncoast after complaints that the magnet school had displaced nearby Riviera Beach students, The Palm Beach Post reported.

This year, only 123 of Suncoast's 1,592 students live in Riviera Beach, according to district enrollment reports.

Ferguson argues that a new school would bring students back to their home city to attend high school. Of the city's 2,063 high school-age students, 41% attend Palm Beach Gardens High School and 24% attend Dwyer.

District enrollment reports show 6% of Riviera Beach students attend Suncoast and 5% attend Inlet Grove, a district-run charter school on Suncoast's old campus on 28th Street just north of Blue Heron Boulevard.

What are the options for a new high school in Riviera Beach?

Before the district could build a new school, it would need approval from the state Department of Education.

To get approval, the district would need to prove that a new school is necessary — which was difficult for the district to do on behalf of Dr. García High. That school is located in a densely populated and growing part of the county and surrounded by high schools that are over capacity.

None of Riviera Beach's schools are currently over capacity, school district staff said at a Feb. 1 meeting.

The district staff presented four options to school board members at Wednesday's workshop:

• Existing plan: No new high school in Riviera. The school board previously approved a plan to renovate Inlet Grove. Cost: $69 million

• Option A: Build new high school on Inlet Grove's campus. Move Inlet Grove to Lincoln Elementary's campus and move Lincoln students to West Riviera, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and perhaps Washington elementary schools. Cost: $100 million

• Option B: Build a new high school on the Inlet Grove campus. Move Inlet Grove to its old campus on Gardens Road, which now houses the North Technical Education Center. Move North Tech students to the new high school's campus. Lincoln Elementary students stay put. Cost: $131 million

• Option C: Build a new high school on the Lincoln Elementary campus. Divide Lincoln students among other schools. North Tech and Inlet Grove students wouldn't be affected. Cost: $75 million

Ferguson favored Option A, which would provide the most space for a new high school. Board members Marcia Andrews and Frank Barbieri also said they supported the idea of a new high school.

Board members Brill, Alexandria Ayala and Erica Whitfield said they were skeptical about the need for a new school.

Whitfield echoed Brill's concerns. She said resources used to build a new school in a part of the county where there are not crowding issues could be used to bolster resources and programs at existing schools like Boynton Beach High.

"If you can prove to me that we need a high school and that we can afford a high school, then I will change my mind on all of this," she said. "But I don’t like the idea of just spending money so that we can appease one board member who has an idea of something that he would like to do."

Would a new Riviera Beach High School increase segregation in Palm Beach County?

Underscoring many of the board members' comments were concerns about whether building a new school in Riviera Beach would result in a nearly all-Black school.

Per school board policy, school attendance zones cannot be drawn based on race and must not "promote inequitable student assignment as related to transportation time and distance," between all racial and ethnic groups of students.

In his presentation to the board, Chief Operating Officer Joesph Sanches said building a new high school in Riviera Beach and moving students who live in the city from Palm Beach Gardens and Dwyer would likely leave the schools in the northern part of the county more racially and economically segregated.

Board member Barbara McQuinn, who represents north county on the school board, formerly worked as a principal at Palm Beach Gardens and Suncoast high schools, said the county's schools have "re-segregated" in the years since Suncoast opened.

"With Gardens and Dwyer High Schools, you have communities in Palm Beach Gardens that would just as soon support a Riviera Beach High School because they would be just as happy not to have Black students," she said at the Feb. 1 meeting.

Ferguson said a majority-Black high school would be a nonissue.

"The question of what the racial demographics of the school is honestly not relevant at this point," he said. "If you say that Riviera Beach, which is 65% Black, will have a school that is primarily Black, I say to you, ‘So what? That’s just the way that it is.’ You should be able to attend school in the city that you live in."

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work, subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New Riviera Beach High School: Could Palm Beach County schools do it?