Oak View Middle School in Newberry will expand into a Pre-K-8 this fall as part of the Alachua County Public Schools’ (ACPS) “Our Schools – Future Ready” planning initiative. But the plan has drawn concern from the city of Newberry, particularly as it relates to traffic, stormwater management and enrollment capacity.  

ACPS launched the “Our Schools – Future Ready” initiative in November 2025 to address key issues such as enrollment and capacity, transportation and educational programs. As part of the three-phase plan, the district worked with Gainesville-based JBrown Professional Group, or JBPro, to create draft school rezoning maps that would balance out enrollment across ACPS and reduce the overcrowding and under-enrollment at schools within the district – a process referred to as “right-sizing.” 

After months of discussion, input from the community and School Board of Alachua County (SBAC), as well as revisions, the SBAC approved finalized rezoning maps at a special meeting on March 12, which, for now, will see three elementary schools close and two middle schools, including Oak View, expand into K-8, or Pre-K-8, schools over the course of the next two years. 

According to a March 13 ACPS press release, Oak View, which currently serves fifth through eighth grade, will take in most of the students in the current Newberry Elementary School (NES) zone. NES is converting to an independently operated charter school this fall, “requiring the district to provide a traditional public-school option for families in the area,” the release said. 

To accommodate the increase in students, “modular buildings used to house students during previous facilities projects will be moved to the Oak View campus this summer, and plans will be developed for a new elementary building at the site,” the release said.  

In an email reply to Mainstreet on Monday, Jackie Johnson, spokesperson for ACPS, said the projected timeline for completion of the new Pre-K-4 elementary school is fall 2028, with “layout and location to be determined.” 

Johnson said the modular buildings being moved to Oak View are the same ones that were used to house students during revitalization projects at Bishop and Westwood middle schools, as well as Littlewood Elementary School.  

Johnson confirmed that the modular buildings at Oak View will be placed where the current soccer field/track is located behind the school.  

“The soccer field is currently being relocated and will have new goals,” she said. “Any decision about relocating the track will be made at a later date.” 

Johnson added that the soccer field is moving to the southeast corner of campus and will replace “one of the unused baseball fields and part of another.” 

“A portion of one of the baseball fields will still be available for P.E.,” she said. 

According to Johnson, the modulars at Oak View would serve grades Pre-K-4 and include a total of 25 classroom buildings. She said this includes classrooms for art and music. 

“Additional buildings will be for the media center, administrative [and] warming kitchen/dining space,” Johnson said. “These are not all individual buildings.”  

Johnson said there will also be a separate parent drop-off/pick-up area for the students housed in the modular buildings.  

On March 12, Newberry City Manager Jordan Marlowe posted a map on his city Facebook account that showed the proposed plan for the Oak View Pre-K-8 expansion. This was before the SBAC voted on the finalized rezoning maps later that day. 

The map shows that there would be a separate driveway connection from the modular buildings to SW Fourth Avenue for student drop-off/pick-up. 

Marlowe expressed the need to access the capacity of SW Fourth Avenue, noting in a recent interview with Mainstreet that the city of Newberry just invested “significant resources” to expand SW 15^th Avenue in front of NES due to traffic backups.  

“SW Fourth Avenue is a neighborhood road,” he said. “It’s not tended to be a collector road. “It doesn’t have long turn lanes in it for parents to stack up and drop their kids off.” 

Johnson said there are already two existing driveway connections from Oak View to SW Fourth Avenue. She added that “any further additions or the potential for a traffic study are being evaluated as part of the design process.” 

In his Facebook post, Marlowe said the “immediate challenges” with connecting the driveway from the modulars to SW Fourth Avenue would be that ACPS would need to fill in the retention basin, which could lead to flooding issues. 

“Obviously, we don’t want schools to flood,” he said in the interview. “So, if you fill in basins, you have to identify where the stormwater is going to go.” 

Johnson said a sanitary sewer system is part of the project design process and that the retention basin would not need to be filled in.  

“The district staff, the design team and the contractor have already met with [the] Suwannee River Water Management District about this project,” she said.  

In his post and in the interview, Marlowe also questioned the projected elementary enrollment capacity at Oak View come the fall, given the new charter school (Newberry Community School). 

Project staff had said in prior meetings that NES’s capacity is currently at 125% (606 students). With the Oak View K-8 expansion, it was projected that the elementary capacity would be 105% by opening.  

“The 105% figure was based on every student currently attending Newberry Elementary [School] moving to Oak View, with none attending the charter school,” Johnson said. “That figure also doesn’t take into account the capacity being added through the modular buildings.” 

At the March 23 Newberry Community School Board meeting, NCS Principal Lacy Roberts said 475 students were enrolled at NCS, with 380 having accepted their seats for the fall.  

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.