Families with school-aged children who live in Avalon Park attend some of Pasco County’s best public schools located within a few miles of their homes. Soon, they will have the option of going to a brand-new charter school at the community’s entrance.
Pinecrest Academy Wesley Chapel is being opened by Pinecrest Academy Inc., one of the top charter school operators in Florida. In the past few weeks, the school’s walls were erected at the entrance to Avalon Park West.
“Now that the walls are going up, our dream of offering families a top-notch charter school is finally becoming a reality,” said Stephanie Lerret, senior vice president of marketing and community relations for the Avalon Park Group.
The new school will open in time for the 2020-21 school year with 650 students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and plans to expand to serve up to eighth grade. The school’s opening will coincide with the completion of the widening of State Road 54, which runs in front of the school.
Pinecrest Wesley Chapel will offer a core curriculum of English/language arts, mathematics, social science, science and electives, such as performing and fine arts, and world languages. Parents who are interested in the school can go to the website (PinecrestWesleyChapel.com) to fill out an interest form.
“Our goal is to have the very best school in the entire state,” said Lerret.
Pinecrest Academy Inc., received approval of its Wesley Chapel charter application in 2017 from the Pasco County School Board.
Judith Marty, founding board chair of Pinecrest, expressed enthusiasm at the school’s Wesley Chapel groundbreaking in June.
“Thank you for being here, and thank you for believing in us,” Marty told those gathered.
Marty shared with the crowd that Pinecrest has 16 schools and is opening more. Most of its schools operate in South Florida, but it also has four charter schools in Nevada and will be opening one more in August.
“All of the schools are high-performing,” Marty said. “For example, Pinecrest Prep High School is graduating 99 percent, with a population that is predominantly Hispanic. We also are placing 97 percent of those students in college. Once we commit to a community, we’re not going to let you down.”
The Florida Department of Education recently released school grades for the 2018 school year. All Pinecrest Academy schools earned an “A,” and one of the schools was the top-performing K-8 school in Florida.
Pinecrest Academy Wesley Chapel is supported by Academica. Academica is an education service and support provider for nearly 200 schools across the country. Serving fourteen National Blue Ribbon schools, Academica is one of the nation’s longest serving and most successful charter school support organizations.
Beat Kahli, president and CEO of Avalon Park Group, spoke at the groundbreaking and told how in the mid-1980s, he invited two dozen real estate agents to ask them for recommendations of what would be good to offer people east of Orlando, at what would become Avalon Park East.
Kahli suspected they would tell him to build golf courses, or a waterpark. Instead, they told him: “We want good schools.”
From that, he learned, “If you have a good school, everything else follows.”
Now, Kahli is involved in creating Avalon Park West.
When the master-planned community is completed, Kahli said, it “will be a town, where you never have to leave if you don’t want because you will be able to satisfy all of your needs.”
“It’s great to be here in Wesley Chapel,” he said. “Let’s build this downtown. Let’s start with the most important — the school.”
Interested families can visit PinecrestWesleyChapel.com to find out more.
Editor’s note: Portions of this story were previously published in the June 19, 2019 issue of The Laker/Lutz News.
Published July 24, 2019
