Fall 2026 Urban and Regional Planning Distinguished Lecture Series: Paving the Way for the Next Bell: The Collision of School Choice and Community

About

Join us for the Fall 2026 Urban and Regional Planning Distinguished Lecture Series: Paving the Way for the Next Bell: The Collision of School Choice and Community. Our speaker is Saralee Morrissey, FAICP, Founder and Principal at Saralee Morrissey Consulting LLC.

Abstract:

For decades, Florida's landmark Growth Management Act of 1985 and its subsequent 2005 amendment sought to bind community expansion to public infrastructure via strict concurrency rules which included schools. However, the 1999 A+ Plan and the increasing popularity of school choice options, along with the removal of the school concurrency mandate, decoupled education from local municipal planning. Today, as birth rates and migration trends exacerbate the decline in traditional school enrollments and force modern school leaders into painful school closure decisions, the consequences of this shift are laid bare. This lecture examines how today’s schools are overriding traditional land-use frameworks, jeopardizing the neighborhood school concept and sparked a critical collision that fractures community cohesion across the Sunshine State.

5-6: p.m.: Networking

6- 8 p.m.: Lecture

UCF Downtown, Dr. Phillips Academic Commons, Room 106