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Here's who Palm Beach County school superintendent thinks should go to new Dr. García High

Update: The Palm Beach County School Board approved a final attendance map for Dr. Joaquín García High on March 29. Read about it here.

Students who attend eight different high schools in the county's midsection are one step closer to knowing whether they'll be able to stay at their schools or are moving to a new high school next year.

Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Mike Burke has released his recommended boundary map for the county's newest high school, Dr. Joaquín García High, which will be located off Lyons Road in the western Lake Worth area.

His recommended map suggests leaving Lake Worth High School's boundaries intact, moving a neighborhood in Wellington from Wellington High to Palm Beach Central and keeping one neighborhood near the airport from moving to John I. Leonard from Forest Hill High — the most crowded high school in the district.

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Those changes are layered on top of recommendations from the volunteer boundary advisory committee, which devoted more than 20 hours to meetings and reviewed hundreds of public comments in the boundary-writing process.

Burke has also appeared to agree with parents who have criticized the district for not starting early enough to establish boundaries for a school with space for up to 2,600 students in the middle of a fast-growing part of the county. He said that parents who say the district should have started earlier have "valid" points.

His recommendation now goes to the school board for consideration at its Wednesday workshop and meeting.

In addition to a map with suggested boundaries, Burke has recommended allowing both juniors and seniors to choose to stay at their current high school through graduation, an ask echoed by dozens of parents of upperclassmen-to-be.

His recommendations also include allowing the siblings of juniors and seniors to stay put, providing that parents take responsibility for getting any student to and from school who chooses to stay.

Palm Beach County schools Superintendent Mike Burke
Palm Beach County schools Superintendent Mike Burke

"Unfortunately there’s no recommendation that was going to make everyone happy," Burke said. "I expect a lot of juniors and seniors to stay and finish out their career. I do recognize that that junior year is a critical year as students prepare for their postgrad year. They’re entrenched in their school community."

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Parents in Lake Worth area, Greenacres feel left out by Burke's recommendations

Burke's changes to the map don't satisfy everyone.

They don't address concerns from parents who live in one part of the western Lake Worth area whose students will have to take a dangerous left turn at an intersection that doesn't have a signal to get to Dr. García High instead of Park Vista, which is east of the Isola Bella neighborhood.

"The new map continues to be disappointing," said William Vogt, an Isola Bella resident with three elementary-age children. "This is a hazard. We’re now putting our young kids, our new drivers and our kids on buses into the equation with this new assignment."

The gated community homeowners association has been denied a traffic signal by Florida's Department of Transportation because of the intersection's proximity to Florida's Turnpike.

"We have the well-being of children in mind with our request, not the inconvenience of a long drive," Vogt said, pointing to parents in other neighborhoods who have successfully lobbied to move their students from Boynton Beach High to Park Vista, citing long travel times to the school.

Although the traffic issues were included in the advisory committee's suggestions to Burke, his recommendations do not appear to address safety concerns for the neighborhood.

Previously: 'Can't make everybody happy': 3 things to know about boundaries for Dr. García High

Changes to the attendance map for Dr. Joaquín García High School as recommended by Superintendent Mike Burke. The school board will consider the changes Feb. 15, 2023.
Changes to the attendance map for Dr. Joaquín García High School as recommended by Superintendent Mike Burke. The school board will consider the changes Feb. 15, 2023.

The proposed map also failed to address concerns from the city of Greenacres that its high school students were being divided among five different schools, while other municipalities such as Wellington were allowed to keep all the village's students in schools with Wellington addresses.