At a regular meeting on Tuesday night, the School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) voted 3-2 to keep Irby Elementary School as a Pre-K-2 school for all students in the Alachua area, with all students moving to Mebane Middle School for third through eighth grades. 

The vote came nearly a week after the SBAC held a workshop on April 29 to discuss potential restructuring and consolidation options for Alachua schools, specifically Irby and Mebane.  

The board approved a right-sizing plan in March that includes new school attendance boundaries for all elementary, middle and high schools for the 2026-27 school year and beyond. Right-sizing was an important part of ACPS’s “Our Schools – Future Ready” planning initiative, which launched in November 2025 to address key issues such as enrollment and school capacity, transportation and educational programs. 

In addition to boundary changes, the approved right-sizing plan by the SBAC included the closing of three elementary schools – Alachua, Foster and Williams – and the expansion of two current middle schools – Lincoln and Oak View into K-8, or Pre-K-8, schools over the course of the next two years. 

Foster will close at the end of this school year, with Alachua and Williams’ closures projected by the end of the 2027-28 school year. It was originally proposed that Irby would close at the same time as Alachua and Williams, but the SBAC asked district staff to bring back options for restructuring Irby.  

Four options for Irby were presented at a community meeting in Alachua on April 13, as well at the April 29 board workshop. At the workshop, staff were directed to keep Option 1 and bring back a new option for consideration.  

In Option 1, students living to the south of State Road 441 would be zoned to a Pre-K-5 Irby and then move to an expanded Pre-K-8 Mebane for middle school. Mebane currently serves as a sixth-eighth-grade school.  

Meanwhile, students living to the north of SR 441, as well as the Turkey Creek area, would be zoned for the Mebane Pre-K-8. 

In this scenario, the anticipated enrollment at Irby would be 509 students and 1,029 at Mebane, according to a presentation given by Kim Neal, ACPS’s director of full-time enrollment (FTE) at Tuesday’s meeting. The current capacity at Irby is 525 students, not including Pre-K, while Mebane’s capacity is 788.  

The cost of Option 1 would be roughly $65 million, according to Neal’s presentation, with renovations at Mebane costing $31 million and new construction costing $34 million.  

Neal said the construction at Mebane would include a new elementary building for Pre-K-3. 

The new option – Option 2 – which most of the board members favored at the workshop, would see all students in the Alachua area attend Irby for grades Pre-K-4 and then move to Mebane for grades fifth-eight.  

In this option, anticipated enrollment at Irby would be 865 students – 225% more than its existing enrollment – and 675 at Mebane, according to Neal’s presentation.  

Neal noted that the enrollment figures for both options consider concurrency with a 75% attendance estimate. 

According to Neal’s presentation, the cost of Option 2 would be $78 million and includes $31 million of renovations to Mebane and $47 million of renovations and new construction at Irby. 

In her presentation, Neal noted that staff had some “site concerns” with Option 2, including increased traffic, limited car drop-off and pick-up space, possible roadway improvements and loss of field for physical education and play space. 

Neal said another concern with Option 2 was space constraints, including limited space for evacuation and staging areas during emergencies.  

At the workshop, Board Member Sarah Rockwell suggested the idea of making Irby a Pre-K-4 school. But after seeing what that plan could look like, she said at Tuesday’s meeting that it doesn’t seem “viable to add a large addition to Irby.” 

Rockwell made a motion to keep Irby as a Pre-K-2 school for all of the Alachua zone, with Mebane becoming a third-eighth-grade school for the entire zone.  

Board Chair Thomas Vu said Rockwell’s motion “deserves a vote” and passed the gavel to Vice Chair Leanetta McNealy to second it. 

Board Member Tina Certain said that by keeping Irby a Pre-K-2, the board was setting itself up to “repeat the errors” that past boards have made. She noted that she was originally in favor of Option 1. 

“It keeps Irby as a standard Pre-K-5 elementary school and keeps us [the district] aligned and not having that broken matriculation or configuration,” she said of Option 1. 

McNealy said she was still in favor of Option 2, calling the Irby Pre-K-4 model “the best possibility.” 

She added that she was certain that the district and board could work together to address the site concerns previously mentioned. 

“Please do not divide [the] Alachua community, families and students into divisional pieces,” McNealy said. “They don’t deserve it.” 

Board Member Janine Plavac suggested reversing course and keeping all three Alachua schools open.  

“We could leave the [attendance] boundaries the way that we’ve already voted on,” she said. “We would just vote not to close Alachua, and then we could have staff see what kind of money we would have to put in to get Alachua to where we want it to be.” 

Vu said in his opinion that the status quo isn’t good for students. He added that the current model, with Alachua and Irby separated, has caused Alachua to have poor school grades. 

“Part of it is just structural issues that we created as a school district when we went [Pre]-K-2 [and] three-five,” he said. “Going three-eight to Mebane and consolidating there removes a transition that would allow more continuity of education.”  

Vu said he was willing to vote for the Pre-K-4 model. However, “with a lack of feasibility,” he noted that he would accept a Pre-K-2 at Irby and three-eight at Mebane.  

“Ultimately, we need to do what’s best for kids academically,” he said.  

After further discussion, Rockwell’s motion passed 3-2, with McNealy and Plavac dissenting.  

Nick Anschultz is a Report for America corps member and writes about education for Mainstreet Daily News. This position is supported by local donations through the Community Catalyst for Local Journalism Fund at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.