- February 25, 2026
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Courtesy photo
The Ocoee City Commission heard the updates on the Ocoee Middle School comprehensive renovation project during the commission meeting Tuesday, Feb. 17.
The $62.5 million project is intended to improve the cosmetics of Ocoee Middle as well as upgrade the programs and facilities that are at the end of their lifespan.
However, residents and city leaders worry the project won’t address what they consider the area’s most pressing concern: flooding.
Since Ocoee Middle was built, residents along South Lakeshore Drive have dealt with longstanding stormwater runoff and flooding issues. Ocoee resident Patricia Robertson said she has spent thousands of dollars replacing her floors and other house repairs since the school opened.
She wasn’t alone.
“I’ve lived at this property since 1985,” Ocoee resident Cathy Sills said. “We’ve had our foundation eroded because of so much standing water from the school. Patty’s property has been flooded. Her foundation was eroded because of so much water coming off the school property. During this whole process, St. Johns requires — whatever — nobody came down and asked anybody, ‘Do you have any issues here?’”
Andy Orrell, of Orange County Public Schools community relations, said revised drainage plans, new retention ponds, retaining walls and stormwater systems had been reviewed and approved by the St. Johns River Water Management District. He said the redesign would capture the runoff on campus rather than allowing it to flow into neighboring properties.
Mayor Pro Tem Rosemary Wilsen agreed with the residents. She was frustrated with OCPS’s public outreach efforts, saying a Zoom meeting isn’t the way to engage with people one-on-one. Residents should have felt engaged earlier and more directly. She does house visits to speak with residents to hear and see their concerns, and OCPS missed that level of care. While the school is important, no resident wants the excess repair costs to their home.
“I’m usually pretty good at solutions,” District 1 Commissioner Scott Kennedy said. “I like to fix things and this is broken, and I don’t have any idea what the solution is.”
He said OCPS hasn’t gone through any of the formal meetings with Ocoee required of other developers.
Orrell said they’ve had the engineers at the three previous meetings, but because this was an update on the project, he didn’t ask them to come and apologized.
Proposed work includes adding a new regulation 400-meter track and field; basketball and tennis courts; courtyard design; ramp and retaining walls to athletic fields; site and building lighting; and covered walkways and extended drop off canopies. Orange County Public Schools intends to improve the site drainage at the athletic fields and improve markings and flow arrows in the parking lots.
On the exterior of the school, OCPS will add new exit doors, reconfigure entry to administration to give visitors better visibility; repaint the walls; replace wall and window sealants; and add missing roof drainage and a new chiller yard enclosure. Interior improvements include new finishes and ceilings; instructional technology; plumbing fixtures; signage; furnishings; lighting; and the replacement of existing movable partitions with hard walls.
OCPS will practice sustainability in the renovation project. It will add high-efficiency chillers; a light colored roof to reduce heat gain; Energy Star rated equipment; water-saving toilets, faucets and fixtures; and an automated building controls system. More than 75% of spaces will have natural lighting.
The project is expected to be completed by spring 2028. Between spring 2025 and second semester 2026, the design and permitting is scheduled; second semester 2026 to summer 2026 is portable construction; and construction is summer 2026 through spring 2028.
The schedule is divided into five phases. Phase one is portables installation and construction area; phase two is the east side of building one; phase three is the rest of building one, admin, building two and three, and the bus loop; phase four is building four and five, media, kitchen, dining and gym; phase five is north parking, courtyard and track.
Portables will be removed as soon as the new classroom buildings are completed.
As commissioners continued to make their comments, District 3 Commissioner Richard Firstner brought up the point of education. He agreed, aesthetically the changes are nice, but they aren’t addressing the educational issues. To him it’s a “disservice for children.” Teaching positions are vacant across the county and the quality of learning has “gone down the drain” in recent years, he said.
Ocoee Mayor Rusty Johnson is worried about the 400 to 500 kids sitting outside of Ocoee Middle waiting for the gates to be unlocked when the first bell rings.
“The major problem we got is who we have elected to respond to us, Melissa Byrd (OCPS District 7 representative),” Johnson said. “We haven’t heard a word out of her. Never do we hear anything out of her. It upsets me that these citizens bring this to us, we have to answer to them, and what we can’t tell them is how we’re going to fix it.”
