Following the 2020-21 construction of the school’s Upper School campus building, located at 395 Columbia Road in Dorchester, Conservatory Lab will begin its renovation of its Lower School campus building, which serves 209 of Conservatory Lab’s 450 students. This comprehensive upgrade of the existing site will yield additional bathrooms, outdoor environmental classrooms, state-of-the-art practice and performance spaces, and a cafeteria/assembly/recess space to nurture social and physical growth.
The project entails Great Lakes Academy’s renovation of a church building into a cafenasium/arts space and the addition of an athletic field, and other improvements to support its K-8 program for 560 students from the South Shore and South Chicago neighborhoods.
Springfield Prep Charter School is redeveloping a vacant industrial building in East Springfield into a 45,000 SF campus for 490 K-8 students. The project will allow Springfield Prep to expand its mission of preparing all students for success through a focus on rigorous academics and character development.
Alma del Mar Charter School is developing the Frederick Douglass campus, its second K-8 school building that will enroll an additional 594 students. The building is the new construction of 52,000 SF and will allow Alma del Mar to more than double its impact in New Bedford.
Alma del Mar is a Massachusetts charter school located in New Bedford since 2011. Its mission is to send all of its scholars to college without exception. Despite having a student body that is 79% low-income Alma del Mar maintains high expectations and provides support for students and families in order to set each scholar on the path to college. Its highly successful program has created strong pressures to grow and it is seeking to increase its enrollment from 240 currently to 450 by 2020. To accommodate this growth, it is planning on acquiring its leased site from the City of New Bedford, demolishing the existing building, and constructing a 39,000 SF school building.
Codman Academy Charter Public School (CACPS) is a public charter currently serving 190 students in grades K1, K2 and 9-12 in Dorchester. CACPS is regarded as one of the best charter schools in Boston and has been molding successful high school students since 2001. The Massachusetts-based academy needed to locate more space to increase its enrollment from 190 to 345. They acquired the Lithgow Building at 367 Talbot Ave in Dorchester, MA and renovated the 25,400 SF site in order to add grades 1-8 to the shcool, allowing students from K-12 to benefit from the successful programs in place.
Excel Academy-East Boston, Excel Academy's first charter school was founded in 2003 to serve a population of primarily first generation immigrant students. This development rehabilitated a former school and added space to make the new home for this Excel charter school site. As a regional, public charter school, Excel Academy-East Boston educates more than 200 diverse 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students representing over 23 nationalities, holding its students, families and staff to high expectations both academically and behaviorally.
Conservatory Lab Charter School (CLCS) is a Boston public charter school currently serving 444 students that engages students with an inquiry-led, project-based, arts-infused teaching curriculum based on the Expeditionary Learning model. CLCS is proposing to construct a 43,500SF building in the Uphams Square section of Dorchester. The new building will contain 11 classrooms for grades K-8, 2 science labs, an outdoor science garden, 4 small ensemble rooms, 1 large ensemble room, a flex cafeteria/performance space, gym, and media center.