Dreamers Academy will build a $42.79 million middle school campus on 10 acres along Leonard Reid Avenue in Newtown, the tuition-free charter school said at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.

The 42,000-square-foot building, designed by Suárez Architecture, will serve 400 to 500 students when it opens in August 2027, Your Observer reported. The campus will also absorb the fifth-grade population from the school's current K-5 site at 2146 Myrtle St., which serves 650 students.

Parent demand drives middle school expansion

Co-founder Geri Chaffee recalled that at the 2023 ribbon-cutting for the Myrtle Street campus, parents immediately asked about a middle school. "We just opened the K-5," she said.

That parent demand drove the expansion. Dreamers Academy is a dual-language immersion school where students learn in both Spanish and English. It operates as a charter within the Sarasota County Schools district and holds an A grade from the Florida Department of Education, with one of the highest third-grade English reading proficiency rates among Sarasota elementary schools and the highest in Spanish language arts, according to WWSB.

New campus adds classrooms, gym and fields

Ryan Lee, assistant head of school, said the Myrtle Street campus is "bursting at the seams." The new facility will include about 30 classrooms, a soccer field, basketball courts and a gym. The school hosts home games at Robert L. Taylor Community Complex; the new athletic facilities will bring those events on campus.

Chaffee said the building's first floor will house a community center at the entrance. The campus will employ roughly 45 to 50 instructional staff, including teachers, paraprofessionals, interventionists and coaches, she said.

Students can earn high school language credits

By eighth grade, students can earn high school world language credits, positioning them for Advanced Placement or advanced honors Spanish rather than starting in Spanish I.

Dreamers Academy board member Dan Kennedy said he did not expect the school's growth to stop with the middle school. Elected officials, school board members, nonprofit executives and business leaders attended the ceremony.