Springfield Public Schools recently ended a partnership with the Discovery Center to house the district’s Academy of Exploration program for fifth-grade students at the downtown science center.
On Wednesday, Rob Blevins, the center’s executive director said the center will move forward with its own schooling option, the award-winning Discovery School. Blevins said that some spaces remain in the 80-student, K-8 program.
The Springfield News-Leader recently reported that the magnet program will be temporarily housed at the Geek Foundation and that the district intends to double the size of the program, which is currently available to 40 fifth-graders.
“If it were up to us, it would have been here,” Blevins said. “They were welcome. And we did everything we could to try to make it so they can stay here.”
Blevins said he will continue to support public schools while also touting the unique educational experience students can get at the Discovery Center. The absence of the Academy of Exploration program will allow for an increase in enrollment for the Discovery School, which opened in August of 2020 as an educational opportunity at the outset of the pandemic.
The school utilizes interactive exhibits and tech gear at the science center and programming from NASA, the Smithsonian and local university partners. In 2021, the Discovery School won a Yass Prize in Education from the Center for Education Reform and Forbes. While capacity will expand, Blevins said the Discovery School will maintain a 1:10 teacher-student ratio. The center is also increasing preschool classroom capacity in response to the area’s lack of child care options.
For information about the school, visit discoverycenter.org/school.
