With the significant growth of the Doral community over the past few years, changes must be made in order to ensure we appropriately accommodate all students. If you have a child attending Miami-Dade County Public Schools, you may be affected by the upcoming school-attendance boundary changes. School-attendance boundaries regulate which school your child will attend depending on where you live.
As the population of our city continues to increase, so has the need for more schools. That is why we have plans for new schools in the City of Doral. The first of these is planned to open in August 2017 near NW 90th Street and NW 114th Avenue. Additionally, there are plans for the opening of two new schools in the future. As such, if your child is attending Eugenia B. Thomas K-8 Center, John I. Smith K-8 Center, Dr. Rolando Espinosa K-8 Center, and Ronald W. Reagan/Doral Senior High School they may be affected by the boundary changes.
In the past, when important educational policies and decisions were made, some parents expressed concerns about being included in the conversation. That’s why we so strongly emphasized participation in this current decision making process. In order to provide the best for our students, community involvement isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. Keeping our parents well informed and involved now and in the future will help yield better results in the classroom and positively impact the overall well-being of Doral families.
During a series of community meetings hosted at several schools in the Doral area on January 23 and Feb. 1, we discussed possible changes to the attendance boundaries. These meetings were held in order to present the recommendations of the District for the changes in attendance boundaries to the community and also to effectively give parents and other interested parties a voice in the matter.
The next step calls for formal recommendations to be reviewed by the Attendance Boundary Committee, which I am pleased to report will reflect the vital input provided by the dozens of local parents and community members who attended the community meetings. Final boundary changes will be presented to the School Board on May 24 for approval, at which point it will be determined where children will go to school for the 2017-2018 school year.
For more information, contact the School Board offices via e-mail at district5@dadeschools.net or call 305-995-1334.
Miami-Dade County School Board Member-District 5 Susie Castillo serves as a member of the School Board’s committees on Fiscal Accountability and Innovation, Governmental Relations, and Community Engagement. She also serves as Vice-Chair of the Board’s Personnel Services and Student and School Support Committee, and as the School Board’s representative on the Miami-Dade County League of Cities. A resident of Doral, she previously served as Special Assistant to the first Mayor of the City of Doral for over eight years.
