BOCA RATON, Fla. — School district leaders in Palm Beach County broke ground on a new elementary school in Boca Raton on Wednesday.
Nicknamed "O5C Elementary School" until an official name is eventually chosen, the campus is located at 3300 North Military Trail, right next to Don Estridge High Tech Middle School.
The "O5C" property is currently a holding site for students at Addison Mizner K-8 School while their new campus is being built.
"O5C Elementary School" is scheduled to open in August of 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.
Approximately 1,000 student will attend the new school.
"The vision of this school will be to educate, affirm, and inspire all of our students," said Superintendent Dr. Donald Fennoy at a news conference. "This school will help with overcrowding in some of our elementary schools, and post-COVID we can build to a new standard."
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Palm Beach County School Board Chairman Frank Barbieri said the boundary lines for "O5C Elementary School" will start to be discussed in September by the school district's Boundary Committee.
"This is truly an investment in the education of the children in this part of the county," Barbieri said. "This new state-of-the-art school will provide relief to other elementary schools that are experiencing overcrowding."
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Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said a rare partnership between governments helped this school come to fruition. The city donated 15 acres of land to the school district to build the new school.
"This project highlights, I think, what the best of government can be," Singer said at Wednesday's news conference. "Creative, nimble, collaborative, persevering, and visionary."
Singer said schools in Boca Raton are in high demand for young families.
"We all recognize how important education is to the residents of Boca Raton," Singer said. "We see the huge demand for our schools, and it's because we have wonderful teachers, wonderful educators, wonderful parents, a wonderful school district."
Earlier this month, crews broke ground on a new state-of-the-art high school in Palm Beach County that's expected to reduce overcrowding at several schools in the area.
Currently nicknamed "OOO High School," the campus is located on Lyons Road, just north of Woodlands Middle School. It will get an official name in the future.
