Boarding school opening in South Florida
Westlake education center to emphasize soccer for pre-K-12
WESTLAKE Palm Beach’s newest city will get something that’s rare in South Florida: A new boarding school.
Minto Communities USA is under contract to sell 91 acres in its master-planned community of Westlake to a developer who wants to build a pre-kindergarten to grade 12 boarding school.
At capacity, the school could have 1,300 students. Of those, 800 students in grades 6-12 will have the option to live on campus in dormitories.
The co-ed, college prep school, called ISTF Preparatory School and International Sports Training Facility, hopes to stand out among other boarding schools more traditionally found in the northeastern United States with a niche of sports. The focus will be primarily soccer, but also golf and tennis, for students interested in pursuing those sports in college or professionally.
The developer, Contraria Development, was approved to build 533,000 square feet, which will include the school, dormitories and office space, a 10,000-seat exhibition field, a multipurpose field, 10 soccer fields and 15 tennis courts.
Since it became a city in 2016, Westlake has grown to become 4,000 acres. Westlake is about 6 miles north of Southern Boulevard, west of Royal Palm Beach and north of Wellington. Lion Country Safari is a short drive south. The new school will be in the southern portion of Westlake on the east side of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
The city is being built from scratch to offer thousands of new homes, as well as shopping. A hospital opened in June, and a church submitted plans to build.
“It fits in better than we had even planned,” said Michael J.
report drafted by library staff after the storm.
Communication was a major problem in the shelters during Hurricane Irma. Employees didn’t have enough radios to call for help and had to walk or run across the school campuses to locate police or medical officials, according to the library staff report.
Emergency management has purchased and programmed radios to match the same make and model used in each school that serves as a shelter and has made enough of the radios available for each staff member on shift, Blakeney said.
The assignment rotation and radios are the main changes being made to the
county’s hurricane response, despite a slew of problems identified in the library department’s shelter report after Irma, including the following.
Organizational issues, including insufficient training and a lack of experienced officials on hand, such as mental health professionals, police or trained medical professionals.
Communication issues, including unrealistic training and insufficient site visits or meetings with school officials.
Numerous safety, security, and wellness concerns for county staff as well as the public. In particular, many female staff complained about being directed to work in areas primarily populated with men.
Employees said they still faced the same problems in the shelters during Dorian,
even though fewer shelters were open and the storm didn’t hit South Florida.
“We believe it is vital that these major concerns be addressed as soon as possible or the County will risk high numbers of defections during the next storm activation,” the library staff report said.
Library department officials recommended shelter duty should be done through a fully volunteer work force.
The county once used American Red Cross volunteers to staff the shelters, but stopped just before Hurricane Irma. Currently, Red Cross volunteers staff only six of the county’s 15 shelters.
Employees told the Sun Sentinel the rotation and additional radios won’t help. One former employee left because of what she
said were unreasonable expectations for hurricane assignments.
At least four employees have sought legal represe from Garcia Labor Law in West Palm Beach, according to Isidro “Sid” Garcia.
“Some people have family medical leave issues, they’re caring for a sick family member or have other health limitations that may prevent them from doing those duties,” he said. “This potentially could be high risk work. You don’t know who’s coming in and what type of issues they might have. I’m not sure some of them are qualified to do this type of work and these responsibilities.”