NEWS

PAMELA McCABE, PMCCABE@NEWS-PRESS.COM Published 7:46 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2017 | Updated 9:48 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2017

Babcock Neighborhood School is filled to capacity and has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM curriculum. Andrea Melendez/news-press.com

In the Kindergarten room the kids were making letter cookies as they learned about the alphabet. Teacher, Christine Carey, worked with, Stellar-Love OÕBrien, 5, Will Bishop, 5, and Callie Erwin, 5. Babcock Neighborhood School, a charter school in Charlotte County that has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students under the new school choice law. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM (science, technoligy, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)Buy Photo

Hands-on learning. One-on-one attention from teachers. The “best” lunches ever. And being able to attend a solar-powered school on a campus that sits smack-dab in the heart of an up-and-coming city.

There’s a lot to love about being a student at the newly-opened Babcock Neighborhood School, and nothing proves that more than the charter school’s booming enrollment in its first year of classes.

Already, the schoolhouse has reached its full capacity, with about 156 students attending the K-6 school. Most of those who attend hail from Lee County, although the campus is located in the south end of Charlotte County.

And that doesn’t account for the 96 kids who are hoping for a spot to open so they can be moved off the registration wait list.

“This week, we’ve gotten, like, 10 applications,” explained Principal Shannon Treece.

The school planned to open modestly with about 76 students in four classrooms, with some of the grade levels being grouped together.

As applications rolled in last spring, officials announced they would accommodate all the grade levels they could in the first school building’s eight rooms. On opening day, this meant two kindergarten classes, and one class for each grade level between first and sixth.

In the 6th grade classroom the kids were showing off their passion projects as teacher Lori McLain looks on. Nic Stucki demonstrates his bamboo fishing pole with the helps of classmate Bradley Sutton. Babcock Neighborhood School, a charter school in Charlotte County that has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students under the new school choice law. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM (science, technoligy, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

“It’s exciting,” Treece said. “It’s a good problem to have when you want to build a community. And the school is the most important part of the community.”

That’s why the school is forging ahead by adding seventh and eighth grades next year, with a groundbreaking coming soon for a permanent K-8 building. This, Treece said, could open as early as next fall, and is something the school wasn’t scheduled to do until year three.

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The growth, however, is due to the fun culture and project-based curriculum being promoted at the school, Treece said.

“It’s really neat because we still have to honor the standards that the state says you have to teach, but the beauty in it is how we do that is up to us,” she said.

On this day, that meant taking kids out to the playground, where, from a safe distance, they could watch a dynamite blast as workers made room for a 5-acre lake near the construction site for the community’s Lennar and Pulte homes.

Principal Shannon Treece has great passion for her school. Babcock Neighborhood School, a charter school in Charlotte County that has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students under the new school choice law. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM (science, technoligy, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

“There’s lots of things they can do around blasting with science and with math and with writing and with reading,” she said. “What we encourage with this project-based approach, that when things like that come up, is, ‘How do we respond and merge the curriculum?’”

That sense of classroom control has been a drawing point for her nine teachers, especially those who are tired of the pressures of what Treece calls a “rigid” read-and-test education system.

“They wanted the autonomy in the classroom — to be able to deliver to students what they know students need. That’s what teachers do,” she said.

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This means hands-on learning when a Cape Coral-based surgical tech program visited the school, offering students the chance to screw together and plate bones.

It means nature walks, where second- and third-graders escort younger students around campus in search of items in their environment that match their letters or words of the day.

And it also means taking up opportunities to pursue their passions with special projects aimed at helping others, be it by creating water barrels for people in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, or even starting a student-run business.

The latter, led by 11-year-old CEO Whitlee Way, is called Solar Scentsations.

“We’re making bath bombs, soaps, scrubs and lip balms,” the sixth-grader from Fort Myers explained. “Our main goal in Solar Scentsations is to make scents and then to donate all of our money back to American Red Cross or something like that and just be Babcock’s student-run business.”

Babcock Neighborhood School, a charter school in Charlotte County that has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students under the new school choice law. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM (science, technoligy, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

Programs like this resonates with Michele Baublis, a mother of three Babcock students and another one she hopes to enroll next year.

“We came from public schools originally, which I love, but a lot of the ways that are being taught with Common Core was a lot of testing,” said Baublis, a North Fort Myers resident.

This led to a lot of stress on her kids, who learn better with hands-on activities.

“It makes it more fun for them,” she said.

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Even though opening a new school is exhausting work, the principal and staff say they are excited for each new work day and the opportunities it brings their students.

“At the end of the day, all of us are going, ‘Isn’t this just the greatest? Isn’t this awesome? We get to do this. No one else gets to do this,'” Treece said. “How many people get to open a brand-new building in a brand-new town that, in 20 years, people are going to look back and say it started with  a school and a restaurant? ”

“We,” she continued, “were here.”

Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @NP_pstaik.

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A look out the second story window towards the playground. In the distance you can see the land being prepared for more development. Babcock Neighborhood School, a charter school in Charlotte County that has attracted a high percentage of Lee County students under the new school choice law. Parents says they signed their kids up for the school because of the green, STEAM (science, technoligy, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)