BRADENTON, Fla. — After a Department of Education analysis found Palma Sola Elementary no longer meets building code and must be replaced, it’s now up to the Manatee County School Board to figure out how to move forward.

What You Need To Know

  •  The School District of Manatee County has made no formal statement about the school's status

  •  The school board will have to decide Palma Sola's future

  •  Parents are pushing to keep the school open, traditions alive

The district is holding a school board workshop on Friday morning to discuss the possible changes.

Many of the buildings on the Palma Sola campus are 61 years old, while a few are 32 years old.  The DOE’s recommendation for the campus is to demolish the existing buildings because renovations would not be financially feasible.

After hearing that the school’s fate was up in the air, a group of Palma Sola parents launched a petition aimed at keeping the school going.

To date, the Change.org petition titled "Save Palma Sola Elementary" has nearly 4,500 signatures.

Hollie Wollard attended Palma Sola Elementary herself and now has a third grade son at the school. She says after years of her son’s eduction being interrupted by the pandemic, now is not the time for any more changes.

“Palma Sola is a community school. We’re close knit, we’re not a transient town. My 5th grade teacher is my son's kindergarten teacher,” she said.

Kristina Snyderman says her third grader has been through a lot the last few years with a mix of virtual schooling and mandates and that Palma Sola is a place of comfort and community.

“It caused a lot of trauma for our kids, especially given the point he was in schooling,” she said. “Now is not the time. Our kids have been through enough over the last few years. To uproot them and tell them to go to a completely different school after what they’ve been through would be absolutely heartbreaking.”

Palma Sola Elementary has also had dwindling enrollment. Redistricting reduced the amount of students zoned to the school and the pandemic caused class sizes to shrink even more.

“Smaller class sizes is probably what we need for a generation that wasn’t able to go to school for a few years,” Wollard said.

The Manatee County School Board is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks regarding the plan for the school.