The public got a preview of what the new elementary school planned for the Westlake community will be during a show-and-tell session conducted by Palm Beach County School District officials Thursday, March 5 at Seminole Ridge High School.
“I think the school is going to be beautiful,” said Anita Kaplan, chair of Westlake’s Education Advisory Board, who attended the session.
Though planners are moving ahead, a final school board vote is not scheduled until April 15. A groundbreaking is expected during the last week of April, school district officials said.
The school, known on the drawing board with the temporary name “West Community Elementary,” is scheduled to open in the fall of 2027. It will have the same basic design as several other recently constructed elementary schools, including Saddle View outside the gates of the Arden community off Southern Blvd.
Zyscovich Architects, a master planning, architecture and interior design firm, is again handling the project after studying the community.
“We find what is unique and authentic about a place, people and community, and build a master plan and design around it,” Bernard Zyscovich, founding principal of the Miami-based firm, has said.
In the case of Westlake, the design draws inspiration from the tall glass walls of the nearby Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s Office, the modern metal canopy of the local Publix supermarket and the Minto Communities USA sales office, according to a PowerPoint presentation shared by the school district with some 50 people who attended the event.
One of the school’s unique planned features is a solar panel array large enough to power the entire school, explained James Campbell, director of construction and principal liaison for the School District of Palm Beach County.
“Our goal is to be net zero in terms of energy use,” he said, meaning while the school will still draw power from the electric grid, the renewable energy it generates will offset that usage, bringing the annual energy balance to roughly zero.
If the energy plan is approved by the school board, Westlake’s school would become one of only a handful of Florida schools that are truly net zero, Campbell said.
West Community Elementary has been designed to meet Green Globes sustainable building standards featuring native landscaping, low stormwater impact design, thermally efficient dual-pane insulated and glazed exterior windows, and extra-efficient LED lighting throughout, with 95 percent of instructional spaces having natural daylight.
The school is being built to accommodate 970 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, although there will be no fifth-grade class its first year, Campbell said.
“We don’t want to pull students out of a school they’ve been attending for four or five years just for one year,” he said.
The school will be 96,000 square feet in three stories. Kindergarten and grade one will be on the first floor, with grades two and three on the second, and four and five on the third.
The new school will provide needed relief to other elementary schools in the area, especially Golden Grove on 140th Avenue North at 60th Street North. Built in 1997, Golden Grove has a current enrollment of 938, according to its web site.
While technically part of Westlake, a lack of road connectivity forces many parents to drive miles out of the way to drop off and pick up children attending Golden Grove.
The exact boundaries of Westlake’s new elementary school are yet to be set. That will be done by the school board after hearing from the district’s Advisory Boundary Committee, an appointed group of parents and community representatives that reviews enrollment data and recommends attendance boundaries when a new school is opened.
And that’s where friction around the opening of a new school is often the hottest, according to school district officials.
“Boundary issues are the biggest concern,” said Westlake Vice Mayor Greg Langowski, who serves as liaison to the city’s Education Advisory Board.
Langowski said his understanding is that 75 percent of the students at the new school would be from Westlake, but some students could come from as far away as the Avenir development at the intersection of Northlake and Coconut boulevards.
Westlake residents, though, can expect to have plenty of input on the new school — from the principal to the school’s official name and colors, and even the mascot, he said.
The school’s major emphasis will be on reading, writing, math, science and technology, according to the March 5 presentation. “Engaged learning” with a “well-rounded education for success” will be key, along with a collaborative partnership with parents, according to the presentation.
Once Moss Construction moves onto the site at the intersection of Persimmon Blvd. and Green Lane, Campbell said the company “is very aware of the importance of being good neighbors.”
“They have traffic plans for how to schedule and direct trucks… and how to keep dust from going all over the place,” he said. “They’re committed to creating as little disruption as possible.”
