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The school needs 13 children to enroll in the sixth grade to create a viable class. Ten families have committed.
By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 30, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- After months of planning and soul-searching, it's official: Lutheran Church of the Cross Day School in Shore Acres will add a middle school next fall.
Only one hitch could delay the plans: if too few parents are willing to sign up their children within the next few weeks.
No one really expects that to be a problem.
"We've been talking about this for five years. Our families are just too important to us not to take this next step," said Holly Carlson, director of the LCC Day School. "We started the elementary program nine years ago and have had to watch our elementary children leave for other middle schools. We're not ready to let them go."
LCC has 190 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and 140 children attend preschool. Twenty-seven fifth-graders will graduate in the spring.
The school needs 13 students to enroll in the sixth grade to create a viable class. So far, 10 families have committed, according to school officials. Contracts were mailed last week to these and other families who have said they want their children to remain at LCC after graduating from the elementary school.
The annual middle school tuition is set at $5,000, plus uniforms and consumables. The elementary school tuition is $4,200 a year.
"We're very enthusiastic about it," said Rob Kapusta, chairman of LCC's middle school planning committee. "This has come together so quickly, but there is such enthusiasm among the fifth-grade parents."
Last March, planning for the middle school expansion began in earnest. A committee of nearly two dozen parents visited area private middle schools and researched costs and equipment, marketing, curriculum, technology and extracurricular programs.
The church's board of directors unanimously approved expanding the school. The School Board also gave approval. The bank that holds the mortgage on adjacent commercial property that the church purchased for $795,000 last spring stamped its approval just a few days ago.
That approval was key, as LCC plans to house its new sixth grade in a stand-alone former bank building on that property. The 1,650-square-foot building is large enough to house both the sixth-grade class and a seventh-grade class planned for 2003. In three years, the school will have to decide whether to put an eighth-grade class in a portable building or add on to the existing elementary school.
"We've got lots of time to decide that. This year we've budgeted up to $65,000 for renovations and another $15,000 for furniture and fixtures," Kapusta said. No zoning changes are needed, and city officials already have told Kapusta that a building permit for the interior renovations will be issued.
Kapusta said the school will not limit sixth-grade enrollment to existing LCC students, and is hoping the new middle school class will attract up to 24 students.
In addition to a "primary" teacher, the sixth-grade class will meet regularly with art, music and Spanish teachers. When the seventh grade is added in 2003, the two primary teachers will form a team, with one specializing in language arts and social studies and the other in math and science, according to Kapusta.
"The strongest thing going for us is a fantastic curriculum," said Kapusta. "This will not be a geek school but it will be a challenge for kids, no matter what their level. Our graduates will qualify to enroll in the International Baccalaureate program, if that's what they want."
Outside Ms. Carlson's office is a plaque stating the school's mission, to "provide a developmentally appropriate environment," and a philosophy that "each child is valued for his or her unique traits."
LCC students know they are "more than a name" to their teachers, according to Ms. Carlson. "The children know that every person on campus really cares about them."