By: Dale King
The mayor of Boca Raton joined other City Council members along with officials from the Palm Beach County School District and School Board to break ground June 16 for the first new school to be built in Boca in about a decade, an elementary facility at 3300 N. Military Trail, adjacent to the Don Estridge High Tech Middle School and Spanish River Boulevard across from Lynn University.
Nicknamed “O5C Elementary School” until an official name is chosen, the building that stretches from a single story to three stories is expected to serve youngsters in kindergarten through grade 8.
Groundbreaking was held June 16.
The facility will be built on 15 acres of former city property valued at about $8 million that was officially donated to the school district by vote of the City Council earlier this year. The O5C land is currently being used as a holding site for students at Addison Mizner K-8 School while their new campus is being built.
The land donation was orchestrated by then-Councilman, now Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer and School Board Chair Frank Barbieri in January of 2019.
O5C is scheduled to open to 1,000 students in August 2022 and will feature a three-story building for classrooms, a two-story building for administration and media center and a one-story building for the cafeteria as well as science and art labs.
“The vision of this school will be to educate, affirm and inspire all of our students,” said Superintendent Dr. Donald Fennoy. “This school will help with overcrowding in some of our elementary schools, and in the post-COVID period, we can build to a new standard.”
“This is not something we wanted to do, but something we needed to do,” he said, “because of overcrowding in the great municipality of Boca Raton.”
City Council members prioritized public school infrastructure safety, strategy, advocacy and actions at its spring 2019 goals-setting sessions, committing $1 million to the effort. Current projects include safer streets, new turn lanes and sidewalks for walkability and connectivity to Verde Elementary and Addison Mizner Elementary.
At the groundbreaking, Mayor Singer said, “This project is about what the best of government can be: Creative, nimble, collaborative, persevering and visionary. All five of these attributes were needed to get us here today.”
The mayor noted “a huge demand for our schools. We have wonderful teachers, wonderful educators, wonderful parents, a wonderful school district who work so hard to make all of our schools A-rated.”
“The curriculum…will prepare students for a future where collaboration, inquiry and innovation will be a major role,” said Larry Clawson, director of construction for the School District of Palm Beach County.
Barbieri said discussion of boundary lines for O5C Elementary School will start in September and will be conducted by the school district’s Boundary Committee.