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Ormond Beach mom starts petition to stop elementary school closure

ORMOND BEACH, Fla — A Volusia County elementary school will close soon after a decision by the school board to merge it with another one.

The district will combine Ortona and Osceola Elementary Schools and build a new one on the Ortona property.

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Some parents are upset by the decision.

“I went here since I was in kindergarten through 5th grade for me,” Ortona parent Larnie Danielson says. “It would be kind of sad to see it go somewhere else.”

Both Ortona and Osceola are more than 50 years old with 600 students between them.

Ormond Beach resident Travis Sargent says he feels as though the school district misled them.

“It was a big slap in the face,” Sargent said. “Residents...their voices were not heard.”

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Sargent claims parents didn’t know when the vote to combine the schools was happening.

The agenda from the August 25th meeting only mentions whether the district would build a K through 5 or K through 8 school, not which one would close.

Sargent adds the district also listed Osceola as one of the schools that would benefit from the half-cent sales tax if people voted for it.

“We thought we would have our school remodeled; they would get their school remodeled...and now we’re out of a school.”

Kathleen Miksits is the mother of two Osceola Elementary school students and has started a petition to save it.

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“To pretend like the pandemic hadn’t affected all the parents that would have been involved, if they had the opportunity to be...it’s very disappointing,” Miksits says.

The Osceola Elementary School site will be used to house the Ortona Students while the new school is being built, and possibly Tomoka Elementary students while that school undergoes a planned renovation.