As your School Board Member representing the Doral area, I appreciate the opportunity that the Doral Tribune has offered me to share with you this information.

School Board Member Demetrio Perez

According to the most recent survey by the district's Office of Capital Improvement Projects, our public schools are 33% over-enrolled. When the hundreds of portable and relocate classrooms required to accommodate our burgeoning student enrollment are factored in, the schools are still 12% over-enrolled.

And in fact growing areas like Doral, which is expected to more than double its existing residences in the new few years, the gap between the number of students and the availability of student stations is exacerbated.

I want to assure the residents of this area that the Miami-Dade School Board is very much aware of your explosive growth, and that it is doing everything it can to provide the schools that you will need.
First, to relieve overcrowding at John I. Smith Elementary, which already has close to 1,200 students, a contract to build a primary learning center to house 275 children in kindergarten through the second grade was awarded to Building Design International at the School Board's June 23 meeting. The pri

mary learning center is scheduled to open next June.

State School "A", located at NW 58 St and NW 114 Ave, will open in the fall of 2000. This elementary school will house 1,060 students. District administrators presently are finalizing a contract for construction of the school.

If you have been in the neighborhood of NW 50 St and NW 112 Ave lately, you have seen the foundation of a new middle school begin to rise out of the ground (editor's note: we featured a pictorial of the school in our January issue). Designed to house 1,5000 students in grades 7 to 9, it's scheduled to open in January of 2001.

Also in the pipeline for the Doral area is a new high school, with its site yet to be determined. When the school is built, it will accommodate 2,846 in grades 9 through 12.

In addition, the School Board has approved two charter schools in the Doral area. One opened in September, the other next September.

The Ryder Elementary Charter School-Florida's first charter school in the workplace will be located at NW 33 St between NW 82 Ave and NW 84 Ave. In the 1999-2000 school year, it will house 300 students in kindergarten through grade three. After three years it is expected to have about 5000 children enrolled in kindergarten through grade five.

The Doral Academy is to open next September with 225 students in grades 6 through 8.