Lakewood Ranch Preparatory Academy's upper school takes shape

Principal Cheryl Cendan walked through the doors of the new Lakewood Ranch Preparatory Academy upper school building, and looked past the piles of construction materials, the unfinished ceiling, and the cabinetry and furniture that had yet to be finished and installed.

It was June 16, but she could clearly picture what the building will look like on Aug. 10, the first day of school.

“The families are going to be in for such a shock because they realize how big the building is, but when they go in, I don’t think they’re going to realize how beautiful it is,” Cendan said.

Cendan and other Lakewood Ranch Preparatory Academy staff members were touring the upper school, which is expected to be finished in late July. They were seeing their vision for the school coming to life.

“Our freshmen did a great job identifying and getting the vision and implementing it as a student body,” Cendan said. “They are student leaders. I think having more space to be able to demonstrate their leadership is just going to be great. It is very exciting.”

The tour group was able to go into some of the classrooms to see the possibilities. For example, they could see how the high school classrooms have partitions that will allow teachers to combine their classes in one large room or break down into smaller classes and groups. 

Classes for the high school will be on the lower level of the upper school while classes for middle school will be on the second floor. 

The upper school will feature a college and career room, Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education science rooms, black box theater, gymnasium, weight room, TV production room and more. 

Photo by Liz Ramos

Outside, the school has a football field, tennis courts and green space with artificial turf. 

The cafeteria will be able to fit 269 students, not including the patio with picnic tables so students can eat lunch outside. 

“The goal is to allow them to come outside and get some air before going back to class,” Cendan said. 

With the upper school complete, Cendan said Lakewood Ranch Charter School will be able to add more athletics programs and other extracurricular activities, which will include e-sports, student government, stock market, computer science, pre-law and pre-med groups. 

Cendan said although the school is a WISH model school, which stands for wellness, innovation, science and health,  the school will offer more learning opportunities and extracurriculars that are outside the fields of health and sciences to address students’ interests. 

In the 2023-2024 school year, Lakewood Ranch Prep will have kindergarten through seventh grade as well as high school freshmen and sophomores. 

With the construction of the upper school building, Lakewood Ranch Preparatory Academy was able to double the number of students in its kindergarten "village" as well as accommodate more fifth graders for the 2023-2024 school year. 

In the upper school, Cendan said there are close to 200 students enrolled in both sixth and seventh grades and approximately 130 students enrolled in ninth and 10th grades. 

In seventh grade, the school was able to offer about 80 more seats. The school offered about 120 seats for sixth grade, and about 20 to 25 seats for ninth and 10th grades. 

Cendan said the school is at capacity and has a waitlist. 

“(The enrollment) validates what we do and that the community wants choice,” she said. “There’s hurdles you have to overcome, but that’s the great thing about being a choice school. The families that stay are the ones that choose to stay.”

Although students in sixth grade through 12th grade will be next door at the upper school, Cendan said a priority for the charter school will be to maintain the relationships built among the high school and middle school students and the elementary students. 

“We are going to make sure we are very intentional in maintaining our relationship with the bigs and the littles because that was so organically beautiful,” Cendan said. 

The high school students would greet elementary students at the car line and walk them to class or on some days, the middle school students would read to the elementary students or listen as the elementary students read to them. 

“Even though we have two buildings, we are a K-12 system,” Cendan said. “We’re very intentional in maintaining our K-12 culture and continuum.”