Florida District to Open Four New Campuses This Fall

Orange County Public Schools, headquartered in Orlando, Fla., has announced that it will open four new campuses this fall. The new facilities include two high schools, one new elementary school, and a K–12 school for students with behavioral disorders. All four schools will host Sneak Peek events open to the public during the first week of August, before the beginning of the 2021–22 academic year.

The two high schools, Horizon High and Lake Buena Vista High, have a combined capacity of 5,550 seats, addressing overcrowding issues in the eighth-largest school district in the country. The Orange County Public School system is projected to have an enrollment of 200,000 students within the next decade.

Village Park Elementary was designed by Rhodes + Brito Architects and was built by Pirtle Construction. The project budget was $25.8 million, and it will relieve two other elementary schools in the district.

The Silver Pines Academy K–12 Learning Center, meanwhile, will have a student capacity of 280 and cover just short of 150,000 square feet. The project’s estimated budget was $47.6 million, while the architect of record was Harvard Jolly.

The four construction projects cost a total of $278 million, paid for by taxpayers, developers and property owners. The facilities were all built to the Green Globes environmental construction standards. Another new school, Water Spring Middle School, will temporarily open in one of the wings of Horizon High while its permanent campus is still under construction. OCPS records a total of 205 schools for the coming academic year.

Orange County Public Schools has announced plans to open 22 new schools over the next decade. The district has cited high population growth and overcrowding of existing facilities as the reason for the construction push. The plans call for two additional high schools (not including those mentioned above), four new middle schools, one new K–8 school, and 13 new elementary schools.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Hartwick College Debuts Baking Innovation Lab

    Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., recently debuted its new Baking Innovation Lab (BIL), part of the Hartwick Center for Craft Food and Beverage, according to a news release. The 3,500-square-foot facility serves as a lab for innovation, collaboration, and experimentation within the food and grain sector.

  • OpenStax Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Providing Open Educational Resources

    OpenStax, which expands access of K–12 and higher-education resources and research-informed educational tools, is celebrating its 25th anniversary as 2024 comes to a close, according to a news release. The educational initiative from Rice University has served almost 37 million students in 153 countries and saved students nearly $3 billion in educational costs since its launch in 1999.

  • All Surfaces Announces New Director of Commercial Business Development

    Surface solutions provider All Surfaces recently announced that it has hired a new Director of Commercial Business Development in Torie Bonafede. Bonafede will work to build the company’s market presence in various categories and drive strategic initiatives to expand its commercial sales portfolio.

  • DreamBox Math

    Discovery Education Debuts Enhancements to DreamBox Math

    Discovery Education recently announced that DreamBox Math, an online math program for K–8 students to supplement core instruction, has been updated to improve accessibility for K–5 students, according to a news release. DreamBox Math provides personalized instruction by adapting to individual learners’ responses and providing an engaging, dynamic learning environment.

Digital Edition