The new Liza Jackson Preparatory School will continue to provide instruction for students from kindergarten through eighth grade. But those students, who will arrive in August, will have 16,000 additional square feet in which to move around.
Roberts said plans call for adding another grade level class for each elementary grade, a move that will raise the student population to close to 1,000.
It is somewhat ironic that the dream of building a new Liza Jackson Preparatory School was made possible to some degree by the demise of the YMCA of Florida s Emerald Coast.
At the time the local YMCA declared bankruptcy in 2014, its Fort Walton Beach campus occupied about 20 acres that had been deeded to the city by the Air Force. But the Air Force benevolence hinged on the provision that the land be used for recreational and/or educational purposes.