The Grand Rapids Public School Board of Education unanimously approved major expansion plans for
C.A. Frost Environmental Science Academy Monday night as part of Superintendent Theresa Weatherall Neal's comprehensive district
Transformation Plan developed last year.
With the start of next school year, C.A. Frost will add preschool, alongside two 30-seat ninth grade sections, at its existing building on 1460 Laughlin Drive NW, followed in 2016 by three sections of 10th grade, and three sections for both 11th and 12th grade each year after that.
GRPS Executive Director of Communications and External Affairs John Helmholdt says when the high school expansion is finished, the goal is to have three 30-seat sections of each grade level. C.A. Frost currently enrolls 487 students, but will increase capacity by a total of 360 seats – 90 in each grade level – by 2018.
Along with the expansion, the new and improved C.A. Frost would become one of the Grand Rapids Public School District’s Centers of Innovation, dedicated to innovative partnerships that offer students and parents more school choices and opportunities for improving student achievement.
With a reputation for practicing challenging, hands-on education methods and integrated curriculum, C.A. Frost focuses on environmental stewardship, a theme that will carry into the high school grade levels with an added leadership component infused.
Helmholdt says the district was losing a lot of eighth-grade students after graduation due to a lack of options that met the educational and learning standards students and parents grew accustomed to at C.A. Frost Environmental Science Academy.
"What we heard loud and clear is that the parents love Frost, but it ends at eighth grade and they wanted continuity beyond eighth grade," he says. "A lot of the families were not even staying all of the way to eighth grade because if they didn’t get into City High Middle School or another option that was viable to them, they left the district."
Helmholdt says what C.A. Frost parents want, more than anything else, is the same thing their students need: consistency.
"The district been in a state of churn for more than 20 years," he says. "We’ve eliminated one thousand positions, slashed the budget by more than $100 million and closed almost 30 schools. For parents, what they need is stability, predictability. They want to know who the principal is going to be next year, they want to know who the teacher is going to be next year. They want to know early and often, not two or three weeks before school starts."
Helmholdt says the next step for the Transformation Plan is to convene a district team that will explore plans to renovate 1417 Covell Avenue NW, where the former Covell Elementary closed in 2014 due to low capacity, to create more space for the C.A. Frost expansion.
As of today,
updated applications for the 2015-2016 school year are available in both English and Spanish on the district's website and administrative offices located at 1331 Franklin St. SE. The deadline for submission is February. 27, 2015.
On Nov. 20, GRPS will hold a School of Choice Expo from 4-7 p.m. at the Gerald R. Ford Museum to educate parents about the choices available within the GRPS district, including theme schools and COI's.
"It just makes sense," Helmholdt says. "We have 52 kids in eighth grade ready to go into the high school who have basically said, 'If you build it, we will come.' This is really the dawn of a new day; with Theresa Weatherall Neal, we are being responsive to our customers, we are being responsive to our community, and we are investing in what’s working."
Written by Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Grand Rapids Public School District
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