SEASIDE — Seaside Neighborhood School is officially expanding.
The Seaside School Board voted unanimously Thursday to proceed with plans to add high school and elementary school grades.
Parents and residents at the meeting applauded after the board voted to add a collegiate high school and elementary school in the next two years, said Cathy Brubaker, the charter school’s director of program development.
“I think it’s a win-win for everybody,” she said.
It’s the second time Seaside has added grades recently. Officials decided last year to add a ninth grade class to the then middle school.
By August, it will also have a 10th grade class. An 11th grade class will be added for the 2014-15 year and a 12th grade will be added for 2015-16.
Kindergarten through fifth grades also are planned to start in 2015-16.
The collegiate high school will operate out of leased classrooms at Northwest Florida State College’s South Walton campus in Santa Rosa Beach. An elementary school will be built in Alys Beach.
“We have a lot of things that we have to complete, so the next few months will be pretty busy,” Brubaker said.
The new classes will continue to be small, she said. The elementary school will have one class in each grade, with a total of 116 students. Students will have the same teacher for everything in kindergarten, first and second grade. By third grade they will have different teachers for different subjects, but keep those same teachers through fifth grade.
At the high school, no grade will have more than 40 students. Students will work with a small group of teachers in the ninth and 10th grades before they begin taking college courses at Northwest Florida State’s campus in Niceville in the 11th and 12th grades.
Enrollment procedures for the new grades will be under the same lottery system the school now uses, and high school applications are being accepted now for students who meet the entrance criteria. Applicants do not have to be Walton County residents, but county residents will be given preference, Brubaker said.
Students currently in enrolled at Seaside automatically will be admitted to the high school, but there also will be openings for other students.
Brubaker expected to have 10 to 15 slots open in the ninth grade and room for an additional 32 students in the 10th grade.
Brubaker said she expects the lottery to be held in the spring.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.
