- July 16, 2026
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Sarasota County Schools calls a plan to reinvent several of its campuses a “Future Focused Initiative," and while some of it truly takes place years from now, a significant portion will take shape this academic year.
Built as a proactive and multipronged approach to face changes in enrollment trends, the proposal includes elements such as a technology-centered magnet school for middle schoolers, conversion of several elementary campuses into kindergarten through eighth-grade facilities and an ambitious project to build a pair of business- and finance-learning centers with the help of a national partner.
“It’s a very, very robust plan how we as a school district can maximize the utilization of some of our schools that are under-enrolled as well as be innovative in our offerings to be competitive to make sure we are the premier educational provider in this county,’’ Superintendent Terry Connor said.
Developed last year as a response to private-school vouchers with no income restrictions, home-schooling options and Florida’s Schools of Hope provisions that would allow charter schools to occupy unused seats in under-capacity schools, the wide-ranging set of proposals was approved in November.
Earlier this year, Sarasota County schools reported about 4,800 students in the county are using Florida’s Empowerment Scholarships, about 37% of them leaving public schools to do so. About $45 million disappeared from the school district’s reach as a result, playing a role in potential staff cuts.
Here’s a look at what’s coming for the 2026-27 school year and what lies ahead in the future.
Riverview High and Wellen Park High, the county’s newest high school, will roll out the first phase of a partnership between the school district and Junior Achievement, a century-old national nonprofit that focuses on youth financial literacy and entrepreneurship.
Estimated to cost about $2.1 million for years two to four, the first year is funded through an $840,000 grant from the Barancik Foundation. A campaign to raise the remainder is underway, and subsequent years will cost far less, said Rachel O’Dea, a deputy superintendent and the district’s chief academic officer.
In ninth grade, students may choose to take a JA-linked personal finance class as an elective, then progress through additional choices such as business and entrepreneurial principles in 10th grade, accounting applications in 11th and legal aspects of business in 12th.
Launch teachers Andrea Abeigon at Riverview and Cesar Poulus are undergoing specialized training in July to be ready for the new school year.
“If you want to have great programs, you need to invest in them,’’ O’Dea said. “This is very much one that is shooting at a pocket of students that are not a part of accelerated pathways but would have another opportunity to be involved with getting career-ready skills.’’
Costs for the partnership and staffing beyond the initial years of design, development and implementation would be around $165,000 annually, which O’Dea compared to the International Baccalaureate and the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education curricula, which cost around 8.5 times as much per school.
Sixth-graders accepted to the Gulf Coast Academy’s tech-focused curriculum will begin this coming school year in a three-year program that’s a first for the Sarasota district.
Seventh- and eighth-graders enrolled in the former Brookside Middle School will continue with a more traditional pathway of studies. A new cohort of sixth-graders will be brought in to matriculate through to high school in the specialized programs.
The school will emphasize four main topics:
“We’re really coupling with what Brookside currently has,” said Megan Green, the school district’s chief of high schools.
Gulf Coast Academy is teaming up with such outside experts as The Florida Center for Cybersecurity at the University of South Florida and Sunshine State eSports League in developing curriculum. Green said beyond game design, students would also develop business plans and approaches to bringing a game idea to market.
Academy students would be expected to work as a team on a project; navigate measurable skills challenges and be exposed to field experiences in aligned industries. Green said those expectations for grades 6-8 would serve students well.
“This sets them up beautifully for what they choose to go into for high school, so whether they pursue an IB program, AICE, AP/dual enrollment or any of our career-technical pathways, having this experience in the middle school years, working as a team, working through project-based learning, critical thinking skills, all of those things are really going to help to refine their learning and understanding before they get into high school,’’ she said.
Enrollments of sixth graders at the school stood at around 100 in the spring, and Connor said a total of about 150 would be seen as a complete success.
“This is a leap of faith for many of our families,’’ he said. “It’s our first inaugural class.’’
Four elementary schools in the Sarasota area, each with flagging enrollment over the last few school years, will become K-8 schools over the next three academic years, beginning with 2026-27 when sixth graders will be enrolled.
Alta Vista, Brentwood, Gulf Gate and Wilkinson will gradually shift through the 2028-29 school year. The move is in large part designed to reverse declining capacity percentages and head off potential Schools of Hope co-location requests on the campuses.
Wilkinson, which had faced a proposal to close altogether, will retain its science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics specialty.
“Our commitment to meaningful student and family engagement will remain strong through events such as STEAM Family Nights, Saturday Fun Days, and partnerships with our community,’’ Principal Kelly McWilliams wrote to parents.
Essentially the second and third phases of the three-phase partnership with Junior Achievement USA, building out a pair of regional centers for elementary school and middle school students to learn about entrepreneurship and finance is at least a school year away.
Fundraising, coordinated locally through JA’s national organization, is underway to build Biz Town at Emma Booker Elementary, re-purposing two buildings on campus. The campaign is aimed at $18 million for construction and four years of operation with a goal of reaching 80% by December 2027. Once reached, an eight-month construction project would allow for the opening of a combined Biz Town and Finance Park for the 2028-29 school year.
From there, a campaign to build the Booker Middle School facility, again from two existing buildings, would launch to raise a similar amount by 2030, for opening in the 2030-31 school year. At that point, Finance Park would move to Booker Middle and operate as a second site.
Brandon Johnson, the district’s director of strategic innovation, said these two facilities would attract students from not only Sarasota, but also surrounding counties.
