Coral Springs Vice Mayor Encourages New Push To Relocate City Charter School

CORAL SPRINGS, FL – With the building upkeep costs going up, the Coral Springs vice mayor urged the city to find a new home for the Coral Springs Charter School.

Joshua Simmons made the request just before city commissioners unanimously approved an additional $498,690 for roof repairs at city buildings, which will include $348,690 for repairing the school’s roof.

“We will continue to have these issues with the maintenance and repairs to the current location to the Coral Springs Charter School,” Simmons said.

City administrators have looked at other sites for the school over the years, but they couldn’t find a location that was suitable.

Simmons’ comments didn’t get a public response from other commissioners or city administrators.

But moving the school is a priority for the city.

It’s among the 40 projects in the Strategic Plan Highlights Fiscal Year 2022 report that officials are expecting to work on in the coming fiscal year.

The report said: “In an effort to maintain the Downtown aesthetics, staff is researching other suitable locations for the Charter School.”

Simmons said at some point it won’t be feasible to keep repairing the school building, which is at 3205 North University Drive.

“It’s like a car, and you keep dumping money into it, keep dumping money into it, or are you going to try and get a new one to stave-off all the different repairs?” he said. “Until the time being, we’re going to see these large amounts of repairs coming back to us.”

He added that moving the school has been controversial for some people, but the relocation has to be done.

“I know in the past, whenever we talk about a new place for the charter school or relocation or anything like that, people get up in arms and, rightfully so, we love our school. But it’s important to know that we’re going to have to take a look at this again at some point,” Simmons said.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the commission approved a change order for the city’s roofing contract with Fort Lauderdale-based Advanced Roofing, adding $498,690 to the original contract of $177,000 for a total of $675,690.

Much of the additional money will go to roof repairs at Coral Springs Charter School, officials said.