New school campus awaits students at Heritage Charter Academy in Cape
After a seven-year journey, one school is beginning a new chapter at a brand-new school when the doors officially open for the upcoming school year on Aug. 11.
Heritage Charter Academy Principal/Operations Director Robyn Gomez-Marsan said Heritage was established in 2019 with 65 students at a building on Santa Barbara Boulevard.
“The emphasis was always on the whole child concept, which was very attractive to families,” she said. “I came to Heritage in 2020 during COVID and saw the potential of a wonderful school that had a family feel.”
The new campus at 1429 N.E. 15th Ave., off the Del Prado Extension and just south of Diplomat Parkway, will welcome more than 500 students. The elementary school is larger than the middle, with about 150 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students.
“No one is a number here. Everyone is known,” she said.
An open house will be held Thursday, Aug. 6, for students and parents to meet the teachers and tour the campus.
“We feel like a real school. Everything is state of the art of how it is set up. We are excited for the students to experience that coming from a different campus,” Gomez-Marsan said.
Heritage Charter Academy currently has a wait list for some of the classes, while still accepting enrollment in others.
“We can take up to 795 in total for enrollment,” Gomez-Marsan said, adding that they will gradually grow their enrollment as they do not want to bite off more than they can chew the first year.
The new campus is 47,000 square feet with double the number of classrooms for their K-8 school. The school is laid out in a square with one side accommodating the K-5 grade students and other middle school students.
“We are very excited because we are coming from a campus that didn’t have a playground before. There’s a wonderful playground and a regulation sized soccer field built on turf,” she said.
The campus also includes a state-of-the-art gym with retractable basketball hoops and volleyball nets
“Our kids now have access to the sports. That was something we were lacking before because we didn’t have the facility. Super excited to give that opportunity,” Gomez-Marsan said.
With Heritage Charter Academy being a STEM school, the campus also includes a STEM lab that incorporates computer science —- coding, robotics, and 3D printing.
The school has always been community oriented. It offers food pantry services at the school to service families to get groceries twice a month with the help of the Harry Chapin Food Bank.
They also support students.
“We are able to link them with resources that they don’t know are available to them,” Gomez-Marsan said.
She said they provide a school that students want to attend.
“We diversify the way they are learning and slow it down a little bit,” Gomez-Marsan said. “We are allowing kids to be able to learn who they are as well, discover their own strengths – develop confidence in other areas.”
She said they would like to show that education is something wonderful.
“That it has a different side,” Gomez-Marsan said, adding that they want the students to “feel loved and respected and that they are not just here to have the academics, but are really here to become model citizens.”
For more information, visit heritagecharteracademy.org, or call (239) 829-5134.