A majority of the Palm Beach County School Board voiced support for building a new high school in Riviera Beach — a development that supporters say is long overdue and would make good on a promise to the city’s majority-Black community.
“We made a promise to the citizens of Riviera Beach and Palm Beach County that we will be constructing this high school,” said School Board Member Edwin Ferguson, who represents Riviera Beach and has championed the plan. “I do think the time is right for us to … to make good on that promise.”
But support for building the new school is by no means unanimous.
Some board members argue that there aren’t enough students in the city to warrant building a new school there.
There are about 2,020 high school students who currently live in Riviera Beach, according to district numbers. The majority of those students attend the district schools they’re zoned for: Palm Beach Gardens Community High School, William T. Dwyer High School, also located in Palm Beach Gardens, and Palm Beach Lakes Community High School. All of these are at or even well under capacity:
- Palm Beach Gardens High School – 86% utilization
- William T. Dwyer High School – 96% utilization
- Palm Beach Lakes High School – 100% utilization
More than 200 students from Riviera Beach are also enrolled at Suncoast High, a district-run magnet school, and Inlet Grove High, a public charter school in Riviera Beach.
And critics say that the move wouldn’t be financially responsible, as the district is grappling with the looming expiration of federal COVID funds — and the rising tide of universal school choice pulling students away from traditional public schools.
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It's a time of great uncertainty for school districts. While in Palm Beach County enrollment is growing, just down the road, Broward County Public Schools is considering closing down a number of campuses due to declining enrollment.
“At this moment in time, when we’re looking down the barrel of what we’re looking at as a district with the uncertainties we have, I cannot in good conscience budget this money for this project when these students are being well served in the institutions they serve,” said Board Member Alexandria Ayala.
A school where ‘our folks can root for the home team’
The plan to build the new school is a long time coming.
Conversations about building a new high school in Riviera Beach date back to 2004, according to Superintendent Mike Burke — well before he took the top job in 2021.
“This issue actually predates this entire school board,” Burke said. “So it's been kind of a long road to come back to this issue.”
“The discussion and the opportunity to see the activation of a Riviera Beach High School ... will mean so much to the folks that live in our community and the next generation.”City Manager Jonathan Evans
At a board workshop on Wednesday, Riviera Beach’s city manager pledged his support for the plan, saying that his community deserves an anchoring institution like a high school that residents can invest in and claim as their own.
“We want to create a home campus where our folks can root for the home team,” said City Manager Jonathan Evans. Residents of the city are committed to the success of the school, he said, and would work alongside district leaders to sustain the campus.
“The discussion and the opportunity to see the activation of a Riviera Beach High School will not mean that much to some folks that may be watching,” Evans said. “But it will mean so much to the folks that live in our community and the next generation.”
Board members also wanted to make sure students and their families don't have to commute across the county to make it to class before the bell rings at 7:30 am.
‘This is different’
The main resistance to the plan during Wednesday’s meeting came from Board Members Alexandria Ayala and Erica Whitfield, who argued the proposal isn't a prudent or equitable use of the district’s resources.
Superintendent Burke acknowledged that the proposal does not follow the district’s “conventional” process of building a new school — waiting for neighboring campuses to be so overcrowded they’re “bursting at the seams."
“This is different. But I think the circumstance is different too,” Burke said. “We’re looking to a community that had glimmers of hope for a new school in 2004 that never materialized. And now it's back to us. So I do think it's fairly unique.”
“It blows my mind... The idea of spending taxpayer dollars in a place where we do not have a need for seats."Board Member Erica Whitfield
Still, Whitfield said she couldn’t support the plan — pointing out that there’s still capacity in the schools that Riviera Beach students are currently zoned for, while schools in other parts of the county are significantly over-capacity.
“It blows my mind,” Whitfield said. “The idea of spending taxpayer dollars in a place where we do not have a need for seats. Where we have children that are being educated at schools that I think are fabulous.”
“New schools are a blessing that we need to spread out evenly among this district,” Whitfield said.
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District staff have previously raised that the new school — designed to serve the majority Black city — could make the district’s western schools more racially and economically segregated.
Ferguson dismissed that argument during Wednesday’s meeting. “This whole concept about concentration of poverty is absurd to me,” Ferguson said.
As a counterpoint, he referenced one of the district’s historic all-Black high schools — a place of immense pride and Black excellence despite the ravages of Jim Crow. The school was shut down after reintegration.
“Roosevelt High School, one of the greatest high schools that we ever had in Palm Beach County that was eliminated due to racism, there was nothing but basically poor people that were going there,” Ferguson said. “And most of them are leaders of the industry, to this day.”
Decision expected in May
District staff presented a range of options for how to get the new Riviera Beach high school built, with price tags ranging from $106 - $301 million.
The option that most board members appeared to favor would entail building the new school on site of the current Inlet Grove High School near West Blue Heron Boulevard. Students at Inlet Grove would move into renovated buildings at the current site of Lincoln Elementary School near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The elementary students would then be divided between West Riviera, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and possibly Washington Elementary Schools.
This proposal, known as Option A, would cost the district an estimated $258 million and would have the new high school built by August 2030.
While the board reached an informal agreement on Wednesday, members still have to officially vote to support the proposal. More discussion and a final decision are expected by the board’s meeting in May.
