The Early Childhood Academy in Delray Beach cares for children who often wind up in pre-kindergarten at Gulf Stream School. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Steve Plunkett
As rumored for months, the Gulf Stream School is expanding into Delray Beach, buying the building and land of the Early Childhood Academy on North Swinton Avenue.
The seller is the St. Joseph’s Episcopal School, which closed its lower and middle schools in Boynton Beach last June but kept its ECA open. While no enrollment changes are planned this school year, Gulf Stream School officials say they anticipate moving at least the 3-year-olds in their pre-kindergarten from the Gulf Stream campus to the Delray Beach location in the future.
Patrick Donovan, president of Gulf Stream School’s board of trustees, and Dr. Gray Smith, the head of school, confirmed the news of the impending purchase to town commissioners on Sept. 8. Their school will close the deal in early October, they said.
“The acquisition made sense for us as it aligns with our mission and strategic plan,” Donovan said. “And historically, ECA has been a feeder school for a significant number of students who transition from the ECA to pre-kindergarten at Gulf Stream School.”
The Early Childhood Academy provides child care for about 50 children from as young as 6 months up to 2 years old, he said. The property, at 2515 N. Swinton Ave., includes a 3,100-square-foot building and about 2 acres of land. Donovan and Smith did not disclose the purchase price, but St. Joe’s bought the facility in 2007 for $1.35 million.
Donovan promised the acquisition would have “little to no impact” on the town.
“The ECA students are very young and will remain at the ECA campus with no plans or capacity for transportation to the Gulf Stream campus. In addition, after-school events for ECA families will be held at the ECA campus,” he said.
“Just to be clear, we do not expect any excess traffic or additional campus use of the Gulf Stream campus to be associated with this acquisition,” he added.
But commissioners, who temporarily raised the school’s enrollment cap from 250 to 300 for the last school year and this one, wanted many more details.
“Are you considering moving any of the grades currently at Gulf Stream School over to the ECA facility in the future at any time?” Mayor Scott Morgan asked.
Smith and Donovan said they planned no changes at all for the first year. But tuition at the ECA would be adjusted in the next school year, and the academy would stop accepting the very youngest children.
After that, he said, the 3-year-olds on the Gulf Stream campus would be the first to change locations, perhaps followed by the 4-year-olds. Kindergarten will remain in Gulf Stream, he said.
“We have 32 children who are in our pre-kindergarten; our pre-kindergarten is mixed 3s and 4s. So we have 15 3-year-olds, let’s say, and the rest are 4s or are about to be,” Smith said.
At some point the ECA campus will take on Gulf Stream School branding.
Gulf Stream School had 293 students last school year despite enrollment being capped at 250 in the development agreement it has with the town. This year its enrollment is 294.
Town commissioners amended the agreement in January to raise the cap to 300 children after Smith told them having more students would give the school a “modest” budget surplus instead of a deficit.
Commissioners were going to vote later on making the higher limit permanent but after hearing about the ECA purchase decided to wait at least 90 days so Donovan and Smith could develop and share with them more specific plans.
Commissioner Joan Orthwein had asked Smith at the commission’s July 14 meeting whether what she had heard was true, that the Gulf Stream School had plans to expand into Delray Beach. But the deal had not been finalized then and he declined to answer.
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