While Duval County’s School Board ponders choices on controversial school closing suggestions, funding for a stalled elementary school renovation is being moved to add portable classrooms at two crowded secondary schools.

Without debate, the board approved plans Tuesday night to spend $6.5 million installing four portables at Baldwin Middle-High School and another four at Atlantic Coast High School.

Baldwin’s enrollment is considered 134% of the school's capacity and Atlantic Coast’s enrollment is 108% of capacity, according to information presented to board members.

The money — $3.5 million for Baldwin and $3 million for Atlantic Coast — is supposed to come from $12.9 million earmarked in the district’s capital plan for Biltmore Elementary School, the board was told. A facility plan the school district endorsed in 2019 called for renovations or additions at Biltmore, but the cost of that work has risen from an estimated $9.7 million to $16.9 million, according to a facilities presentation to the board in March.

That presentation outlined a proposal to consider closing or consolidating dozens of schools to “right size” school district properties to serve shrinking student enrollments. It recommended the portable additions approved Tuesday as a near-term step but also recommended completely rebuilding Baldwin as a high school only, which could cost $154 million and shift younger students to the new Chaffee Trail Middle School. Long-term, the plan suggested having $25.8 million in renovations and additions at Atlantic Coast.

The proposal advanced in March suggested closing Biltmore and moving its students into a new K-8 school, for students in both elementary and middle school grades, at the site of Pickett Elementary. The K-8 schoool was envisioned as housing students currently enrolled in five separate elementaries.

Pickett was also scheduled to undergo upgrades for continued use as an elementary school but that work was put on hold this spring while the board weighed how much of the suggested closings list should be adopted.

The board has six public meetings scheduled between June 10 and June 20 to hear public input on the closing suggestions.

The portable classrooms are intended to give temporary relief to schools that had been marked for expansion by the district, which must navigate the handling both of needs to add class space in fast-growing areas and limiting expenses in other schools that are mostly empty.