Charter School Set for Construction on Florida College Campus

The construction of Pinecrest Lakes Academy Middle/High School, a Florida charter school, is set to begin this year on the campus of Lake-Sumter State College in Clermont, Florida. The school is scheduled to open its doors to students in August 2022.

Pinecrest Lakes opened in 2017 as a K-8 school and has a current enrollment of about 750 in those grades. Additionally, 67 high-school freshmen have begun taking classes on the college’s campus. The school plans to admit tenth grade students during the 2021-22 school year and eleventh grade students in 2022-23. The first senior class is slated to graduate in 2024.

The charter school connected with the college about a year to a year and a half ago, according to Pinecrest Lakes Principal Cristina Alcalde, when it became a member of the Health Sciences Collegiate Academy. The lease is part of a STEM education partnership among the college, Lake County Schools, Montverde Academy, the University of Central Florida, and South Lake Hospital.

According to LSSC President Stan Sidor, “Together, we will create pathways for secondary students to work toward credentials and college credit that will accelerate their degree completion and improve the health and wealth of our local economy.”

Pinecrest Lakes is a member of Pinecrest Academy Inc., a charter school network with locations in five Florida counties and one Nevada county.

About the Author

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

Featured

  • GeoCam and UCLA: Modernizing Campus Accessibility Mapping

    In early 2025, UCLA partnered with GeoCam to capture and modernize its pedestrian infrastructure data. The goal was ambitious but clear: to produce a high-accuracy, imagery-backed digital map of every sidewalk, pathway, ramp, and ADA-related feature on UCLA’s 419-acre campus.

  • Barbara Vick Western Branch

    Barbara Vick Western Branch

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The Barbara Vick Western Branch has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Grand Prize award in the category of Renovation.

  • Opportunity by Design Framework

    Opportunity by Design

    Educational improvement efforts often focus on curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and intervention systems while treating the physical school building as background. But school design is not a passive backdrop to learning — it is a structural lever for equity.

  • CU-Lock Haven Receives $1.75M Gift for New Entrepreneurship, Media Center

    Commonwealth University-Lock Haven in Lock Haven, Penn., recently received a $1.75-million donation from entrepreneur and alumnus Nicholas Subich ’17, according to a university news release. The funds will go toward establishing the Nicholas Subich Center for Entrepreneurship and Media, a technology-driven hub for innovation and experiential learning.