BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – In a county where the population is growing overall, some communities are actually considering consolidating schools, not building more.

Brevard Public Schools says an aging population in some areas means there are fewer kids going to school there.

News 6 highlighted the issue in April when the Rockledge community feared McNair Middle School could close.

Now, Cape Canaveral Community Correspondent James Sparvero found out the district is considering closing Cape View Elementary School in Cape Canaveral and sending the 270 students to Roosevelt Elementary seven miles away in Cocoa Beach.

At a school board work session on September 23, the district said both schools are only half-full, and all of the students wind up anyways at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School which is right next to Roosevelt.

In addition to older homeowners moving in, the district also blamed lower enrollment at Cape View on more vacation rentals in neighborhoods at the beach.

“I think we need, gotta step up as a community, honestly, and all come together and keep this school here,” parent Matt Sterling reacted to the proposal.

The father said he’d be worried about transportation if Cape View closed.

“It would be tough,” Sterling said. “I mean, we could walk them to school from where we are.”

The district said it will look at how adding more buses could affect traffic.

The meeting also addressed whether the space industry might bring more young families beachside, and then, they’d need Cape View.

“We just wanna make sure that there’s not gonna be a change in that demographic the other way,” school board member John Thomas said.

Throughout this month, the district is asking parents what they think too.

“We’re starting early enough now to give people a heads up that we could go ahead and make this move and save funding but also provide a school experience for kids that they have advantages of the numbers, better programming, because you can have better staffing,” school board member Katye Campbell said.

The district wants to have its proposal ready to bring before the board in November.

The community could then weigh in at a public hearing in January, and if merging the schools is approved, Cape View could close, and the students could start going to Roosevelt next school year.