RCPE Dedication

School Board dedicates Page Elementary

By Daily News staff (Bonita Daily News)

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Lee County School Board members dedicated Rayma C. Page Elementary on Tuesday, nearly a year after children were first assigned to south Lee’s newest elementary school.

Highlights included visits from relatives of Rayma C. Page and a performance from the school’s chorus, which sang in the multipurpose room of a building that no longer bears a resemblance to the Kmart it once housed. The district bought the abandoned retail space, gutting it and transforming it into a “staging school” that can house nearly 1,000 primary students. Page Elementary currently has about 540 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

The school was named after Rayma Page, the first woman elected to the Lee County School Board. She served as the board’s chairman and was re-elected four times. Page also served on the President’s Council for Post Secondary Education and was president of both the Florida School Board Association and the National School Board Association, according to the school’s Web site.

The school opened in August, so the ribbon-cutting came a little later — or a little earlier, some might say — than expected. For months, there was confusion as to Page Elementary’s permanent location. It was originally scheduled to stay in the San Carlos Park space for just a year or two, while the school district built a permanent school in eastern Bonita Springs on Tower Road.

But last year, the Bonita Springs City Council denied the district’s request to build the school, saying the land was too environmentally sensitive. District leaders then announced the school would reside permanently on the site at Alico Road and U.S. 41. The fate of the Tower Road site remains uncertain.

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