'We pulled a miracle': School for children with autism relocates to Royal Palm Beach

ROYAL PALM BEACH — Students of The Learning Center, a school that caters to children with autism, stepped into a new campus in August.

After operating in Jupiter for eight years, the school relocated to Royal Palm Beach this summer to the former site of the Western Academy charter school along Southern and Royal Palm Beach boulevards.

“We pulled a miracle,” said Cathy Sharp, the school’s PTO president. “We didn't know if we were going to open on time.”

The Learning Center, founded in 1999, is a tuition-free charter school for children with autism-spectrum disorder from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade. It offers low teacher-to-student ratios and personalized education plans, based on each student’s needs.

The public school receives funding from the state’s Education Finance Program and operates within the School District of Palm Beach County.

Stacie Rout, the school’s executive director, said the new Royal Palm Beach location allowed The Learning Center to stay open and offer their students more amenities such as a cafeteria, an indoor gymnasium and a sensory room.

“We have small miracles that happen in the hallways every day,” Rout said. “Now those hallways are going to be in Royal Palm Beach.”

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The Learning Center relocates after nearly a decade in Jupiter

The Learning Center had operated in Jupiter since 2015 on a campus owned by the Els for Autism Foundation, founded by PGA Tour golfer Ernie Els.

This year, the school’s board of directors raised concerns with the foundation about the privacy of student records and provisions that “interfered with its ability to function as an independent charter school,” according to a news release.

After months of “protracted” negotiations, the Els for Autism Foundation announced in May it wouldn't renew the schools lease.

The Learning Center’s staff only had the summer break to find a new facility for its 150 students.

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They filed site plans and permits with the village, packed up all their supplies and furnished every classroom in three months.

Rout said the Palm Beach School District found the 30,000-square-foot space in Royal Palm Beach for the center. Then the race to open on time for the school year began.

The village council granted The Learning Center its final approvals on Aug. 17. The following week, the first students walked through the hallways of the new campus.

For Rout, seeing the children on the first day back to school was like “walking on sunshine.”

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The Learning Center opens new campus with more space, new rooms

A freshly painted red train engine rests outside The Learning School with blue and yellow cars attached on its back.

Inside, each door leads to classrooms carefully arranged with smartboards, posters and no more than six desks. There is at least one teacher for every two students in every class.

There is an art room filled with markers, paint and brushes; a music room with tiny instruments; a STEM room with computers and robotics equipment; and a sensory room, a dimly lit space with yoga mats, colorful light fixtures and a column covered in sequins.

In the afternoon, a small group of students board the train and a teacher drives them across the street to Lakeside Challenger Park.

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At the learning center, children learn math, writing and science, like at any other school, but also take classes on how to improve their speech, motor and social skills. The school has multiple analysts in classes that sit down with each child to understand their behaviors.

In the school, Rout said, the staff witness miracles daily, from hearing nonverbal children sound their first words to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to having a group of kids form a robotics club and win a countywide competition.

Rout said the school’s goal is to continue providing a space for children with autism to develop and hopes to one day offer a high-school curriculum.

“To put them in an environment that helps them to learn and to progress changes their futures,” said Rout. “And having the resources and the expertise to do that is very important.”

Valentina Palm covers Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, Loxahatchee and other western communities in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. Email her at vpalm@pbpost.com and follow her on Twitter at @ValenPalmB. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: The Learning Center moves from Jupiter to new campus in Royal Palm Beach