A new boarding school for underprivileged children may soon be on its way to Jefferson City.
On Thursday, the city's Planning and Zoning Commission approved Capital Region Medical Center's request to amend a final Planned Unit Development plan, which states 1310 Edgewood Drive can only operate as a child daycare facility, to allow a boarding school at the location.
St. Nicholas Academy will lease the Edgewood Drive location from CRMC and operate the boarding school.
The boarding school would be for under-resourced and underprivileged children. Elizabeth Huber, president of St. Nicholas Academy, said she got the idea two years ago while talking with a friend, who is a teacher.
"She might have in her classroom one, two, three kids at any time whose focus is solely getting to school early so that they can get the free breakfast and overeating at lunch so that they will be fed going into the next day," she said. "Those type of kids do not focus on the classroom because they are focused on survival and those are the types of kids we want to help because we have that need in town. She sees it in her classroom every single day."
The boarding school could contain up to 12 children, ranging from pre-kindergarten or kindergarten to high school. The Edgewood Drive property would be used primarily for boarding, and the children would attend local schools.
Huber said she based the boarding school off Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The school is faith-based and self-funded, as well as provides education and housing to students.
"I got thinking, 'How do I replicate that?' but it hit me that in town here, through our Catholic schools, our Lutheran schools, our Baptist schools, we already have one, two and three. We have faith-based, excellent education and self-funding," she said. "What we were missing was the boarding piece, the residential, so I thought that if I could just do that and partner on the rest, we might actually be able to get this going."
The boarding school would enroll children at a young age because, Huber said, it is easier for children to assimilate to the boarding school if they start attending at a young age.
Parents would apply to the boarding school and prove they have economic needs. Huber said the school would select students from these applications, and if they are selected, they would live at the Edgewood Drive location for most of the year while attending school.
The boarding school would also have two full-time houseparents, relief parents, volunteer staff and a director.
It would be funded by private donors, Huber said.
Martin Grabanski, director of facilities at CRMC, said the hospital is leasing the building to St. Nicholas Academy because the boarding school fits with the hospital's goal to "improve the health and wellness of the community."
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the final PUD plan in 1989 and amended it in 1994 to allow 132 children at the daycare.
Huber said she is currently working with an architect to remodel the daycare.
Following city staff's recommendation, the commission approved a C-O Office Commercial underlying zone so it could accommodate the school's possible future uses.
The boarding school proposal will be presented to the Jefferson City Council on Nov. 20.