The Orange County School Board won’t give the Eatonville Town Council a requested 90-day extension to come up with its own plan for the site of the former Hungerford School, a school for Black children. Instead, the board will move ahead with a Jan. 13 deadline to finalize the contract for the land with Dr. Phillips Charities, which plans to turn it into a history center, affordable housing, and a clinic.
Eatonville council members asked for the extension to read over and review the contract for the sale of the former Hungerford School, which is currently owned by the district, and to make changes as needed.
But school board members said a delay could be detrimental to both the school district and the town of Eatonville, and decided to move ahead with the previously scheduled vote to ratify the contract to sell the land to Dr. Phillips Charities.
Board Chair Teresa Jacobs says the urgency is in part because unused school property can easily be turned into charter schools and Schools of Hope under a 2025 Florida law.
“The longer we sit on this property, the more likely we are to see no tax revenue for you, no offset for Orange County Schools and no public good as I perceive it to Eatonville and to its history,” Jacobs said.
Town council members say they just got the proposed contract to sell the land over the holidays, and need more time to look it over. Plus, they say they didn’t get to have much say in the process from the beginning.
Watch the full workshop here:
The ownership of the land, and what happens to it, has been controversial. Town council members like Wanda Randolph want the town of Eatonville to own the land, not Dr. Phillips Charities.
“I believe in Eatonville that we should have the consideration to own the property. 100 percent,” Randolph said. “We can get this done in the same manner as Dr. Phillips. It will be an advantage to own the property.”
Randolph says the residents are emotional about the property because it’s the largest parcel left in the town of Eatonville to not only preserve, but also to develop.
“We are going to need revenue in order to stay a governmental agency,” Randolph said. “We don’t want to be the one lost town in the nation, like some of the other Black towns, have completely failed because they didn’t have enough funds and revenue to keep the town going, because of lack of development.”
Newly elected council member LaDwyana Jordan echoed Randolph's concerns.
“Sometimes it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it,” Jordan said. “The way that this has come to be. It has not been fair to the council. Our mayor, she went and spoke for us. We are a five member board.”
“I have a saying, ‘If we don’t own the land, we don’t own the plan',” Jordan said.
But Chair Jacobs says leaving unused school property sitting around is too risky, and could leave the property up for grabs and out of the hands of the school board and the town of Eatonville.
“Any vacant property is available to charter schools that aren’t going to pay any tax revenues, but will ultimately make a private gain to a private corporation,” Jacobs said.
The school district is already grappling with potentially having to close seven schools due to under enrollment and a budget shortfall of $41 million.
The board approved beginning rezoning plans for those schools at its last meeting in December.
