Renovations underway as Grace Christian plans to relocate to former Beverley Manor Elementary

STAUNTON — It's been nearly six months since Grace Christian officially closed on the property that will eventually be its new school, but there are already some signs of life in the building.

On a recent Thursday afternoon just after 3:30 p.m. a group of students arrived for basketball practice in the gym. While cables hang out of the dropped ceiling and construction workers were busy with renovations in the former cafeteria, the Warriors basketball team was getting in some practice with the season already underway.

In June Grace Christian, a private school with 320 students located on two campuses in Staunton, purchased the former Beverley Manor Elementary School which closed in 2017. The building is also the former Central Augusta High, an African-American school in Augusta County that educated students from 1961 until integration in the summer of 1966.

When Augusta County decided to sell the property, Grace Christian officials took a look. Initially, Don Larson, head of school at Grace, heard it was an elementary school and didn't think it would meet their needs to consolidate both campuses into one school for all of its students.

But as he took the tour, Larson was surprised that it fit their needs almost perfectly. He had a checklist of what was needed, including at least 33 classrooms. The former August County school has 35.

"I had this list of what I was looking for and this place had everything," Larson said. "It's the perfect size for us to consolidate our campuses."

Grace's elementary and middle schools are currently located in a building on Thornrose Avenue across from Gypsy Hill Park. The high school is on South Market Street in Staunton. Grace opened in 1980 with just seven children in a combined kindergarten and first-grade class, according to its website.

The school currently uses a gym on Middlebrook Avenue for some of its indoor athletic events. The plan is to keep that gym while also making use of the gym at the school's new location. That will help with scheduling practices for all of the teams.

Currently the school plays soccer in Waynesboro, but the new school will have a regulation-sized soccer field that will help. There are plans to have a soccer field for elementary and middle school students. There will also be a practice baseball field at the new school, although games will still be played in Stuarts Draft.

The new property is 72,000 square feet on 20 acres on Cedar Green Road, located not too far from Va. 262. Moving away from downtown Staunton isn't a concern for Larson, who said there are only a few students who walk to school. For those students, the move will be a change, but for the ones who are driven to school, Larson doesn't think the move will be much of an impact.

"I will be interested to see if it will have a growth impact," Larson said. "I don't think it will have a negative impact."

Grace has been trying to slowly grow starting at the elementary school, said Larson, which means soon they will be out of classroom space at the Thornrose location.

"This is happening at a good time," said Larson.

The move is exciting for current families at Grace, but Larson has also heard from other community members that are happy that the former school will have a new tenant, and one that plans to use it as a school.

With the new location, the head of school said they could accommodate more than 500 students. Even though he said there are no plans now to add that many additional students, it's nice to know that the space is available.

The optimistic timeline is for the high school to move in the fall of 2024 and the elementary and middle school students to follow a year later. Ultimately, those dates are dependent on the sale of current school buildings and the school’s capital campaign.

"Realistically," said Larson, "it will be two to five years and we'll all be in here."

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— Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Grace Christian planning to relocate to former Augusta County school