New schools just in time for new school year

Orange County, FL – In order to relieve the growing pains of schools around Central Florida, new schools will be available for this school year in areas including Lake Nona, Windermere, Baldwin Park, Winter Garden and Apopka.  These new schools, at a cost of nearly $174 million, will be able to accommodate over 7,000 additional students combined.

North Lake Park Community School has felt stress in east Orange County, sparking the construction of Moss Park Elementary.  The new school is a reflection of the quick pace of growth over the past year of the Lake Nona area.  At a cost of $17.8 million, it will have capacity for 830 students.

In Windermere, both Whispering Oak and Windermere elementary schools are feeling the squeeze of limited student space.  The new Sunset Park Elementary, similar in size and cost to that of Moss Park Elementary, will help alleviate the burden.  The Avalon Center for Technical Excellence, also around the same size and cost, will be added next to Timber Creek High.  Ninth-grade students will share the tech campus for two years to relieve crowding at Timber Creek.

Near downtown Orlando, the budding Baldwin Park area has a new reason to attract families with the recent construction of its first elementary school.  It will be named Audubon Park Elementary, after the name of a smaller school that closed in the area not too long ago.  It is also the same size as Moss Park and Sunset elementary schools, able to seat 830 students at a cost of $17.9 million.

Even larger new schools will be found in Winter Garden and Apopka areas.  Completion of the new Bridgewater Middle school will hold just over 1,200 students at a cost of $32 million.  That school will help with the bulge of students crowding Lakeview Middle.  The new Wekiva High dwarfs all of the previous schools in size and price, costing $74 million and able to hold almost 2,800 students.  It will make a major impact on the numbers issue at Apopka High.