- July 3, 2025
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The School District of Manatee County is undertaking a comprehensive rezoning process that will reshape school boundaries across the district, with new maps set to be implemented in August 2026 for elementary and middle schools, with the high school rezoning to begin in August 2027.
The district held its second round of public rezoning meetings between June 11-18 at district high schools in Lakewood Ranch, Palmetto, Braden River, Bradenton and Parrish. New proposed maps were presented at the meetings to gather public feedback.
Rezoning is necessary due to district operated schools being near or over capacity as well as new schools being built, including the new Lake Manatee K-8 in Lakewood Ranch.
Lakewood Ranch resident Jaime Marco is a parent of a student at McNeal Elementary and said bringing in parents and community members into one room to discuss and give feedback and opinions is a step in the right direction.
“The mental health of our students when they get pulled out of a school or moved to a different school or separated from their friends is a real thing that needs to be talked about,” Marco said. “Sometimes we look just on paper at what looks good for a district line or for the amount of students in each class, and we forget those other real people scenarios.”
“What you're seeing on these maps is not set in stone at all,” Interim Superintendent Kevin Chapman said. “This is why we're doing it. We need all of your area records. This is going to take several months. We need that feedback.”
“Are we there yet? No,” Marco said. “As (Chapman) said, this is the beginning of the conversation, or the middle of it. We're just trying to determine what is going to work for our community.”
Greekbrook's Jacklynn Lubofsky has four children — three currently at Gilbert W. McNeal Elementary and one at R. Dan Nolan Middle School. She expressed concern over the proposed high school maps which would split Greenbrook residents and send the kids to two high schools: Lakewood Ranch High School and a potential new high school being considered for Lakewood Ranch.
“With all of these new high school maps, you take kids who have been together from kindergarten through eighth grade, you take them and you separate them for high school,” Lubofsky said.
Lubofsky doesn't care which high school they go to, but wants all of the Greenbrook resident students to stay together.
Heritage Harbor resident Adam Samblis expressed concern for the boundaries for high school students as well. His home is right on the edge of the potential zones for Parrish Community and Lakewood Ranch high schools. His son finished his freshman year at Parrish Community High School and he will be a junior when the rezoning is to take effect. Samblis doesn't want his son shipped to another school.
An exemption for the rezoning process states if a student is going into the highest grade level at a school — fifth, eighth or 12th — he or she can choose to stay at his or her current school.
“They're saying the seniors won't have a problem, but the problem is somebody who's going into a junior year. That student should have a priority over being able to use school choice, or stay where he's at,” Samblis said. “That's a concern I have, because it's going to be difficult for him in both sports and education to not get to continue where he's at.”
On the website ManateeSchools.net, there are simplified and satellite maps that are color coded to show where the potential lines may end up. There are also capacity charts and lists of advantages and considerations for each map.
“They'll be able to choose the specific region that they want to make a comment about, or if they want to make it district wide, and then share the comment,” Ranaldi said. “They can identify whether they're a student, a staff member or a parent.”
Ranaldi said they will keep track of as many questions or concerns as they can and try to implement as many solutions as possible in the maps.
“After that Aug. 15 date through Sept. 30, we're going to take all of the comments that we've received and kind of craft together a full elementary, full middle school and a full high school. So we'll have the three levels of the three options ready to present to the board.”
The school board members urge the public to report their concerns on the website.
“Please, please, please, make sure you make your comments through the website (ManateeSchools.net),” said board member Heather Felton. “Emailing the individual board members is not going to be as effective — please put them directly into the website, so that they don't get missed.”
“We’re open to hearing inputs, but we have 42,000 students that we have to rezone with 50 schools,” school board member Richard Tatem said. “We're just not going to be able to make everybody happy.”
