After 90 years serving kids and community, Grand Avenue school closes its doors – Orlando Sentinel

It was a little school with a big mission, a campus that served barely 200 students but one that ambitiously reached out to help those who lived near its historic Orlando campus.

So when Grand Avenue Primary Learning Centers closed Wednesday just weeks after celebrating its 90th birthday many students, parents and teachers were in tears.

The Grand, as some called it, had a homey, everyone-knows-your-name feel, thanks to its small size and long-serving faculty. Sitting alongside Parramore Avenue in one of the citys poorest neighborhoods, the public school made family services such as health care, food for the weekend and GED classes for parents a staple alongside academics.

This is an oasis in this community, said Rebecca Reitzel, who has taught at Grand Avenue for 32 years.

The Orange County school district decided to close Grand Avenue and several other schools as part of an effort to consolidate and replace small, aging campuses with newer, bigger and more modern ones.

Grand Avenue students will go to a new kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school under construction in Parramore, about 2 miles away at North Parramore Avenue and Amelia Street. The new school is to open in August, and some parents and teachers said there is plenty to recommend the new Academic Center for Excellence. The new school, for example, has a partnership with the Harris Rosen Foundation, which will provide free preschool and college scholarships to students.

But that didnt make it any easier saying goodbye to the old familiar place.

As soon as my daughter walked out of the classroom, she just cried and cried and cried, .parent Geisha Alvarez said about her 7-year-old on the last day of classes. She was really heartbroken.

Her older daughter, already attending another school, came back last week, too, to help teachers pack up their classrooms and to say goodbye.

That was a like a second home for us, added Alvarez, a mother of six who had three children at Grand Avenue this year. It was an amazing school. Everybody got together. Everyone knew everyones name.

Like other parents, Alvarez said she always felt welcome on campus. She took part in weekly parent breakfasts, volunteered regularly and worked to get her GED while her children were in class.

The bonding, the teachers, everything was pretty awesome.

At the new school, all of her children will be together, and that will be a plus, she said. Since 2007, Grand Avenue has served only youngsters in kindergarten through second grade, so Alvarezs two oldest were at another elementary school.

The goal a decade ago was to create a school that would focus on the needs of young students, particularly early literacy skills. The move to a primary learning center Grand Avenue had been a typical K-5 elementary came after the school earned a string of Ds and then an F on Floridas annual school report card. Once students in third through fifth grade moved off Grand Avenues campus, the school no longer received a state grade because it no longer had students old enough to take state exams.

Despite the changes, Grand Avenue remained a place that made everyone feel comfortable, said parent Khadijah Bagley, whose three children attended. Even though the neighborhood is bad, when you went to the school, you kind of had peace and quiet.

Her youngest finished at Grand Avenue last week and will go to the new school, but Bagley isnt excited. She is worried about the mix of kids, from preschoolers to teenagers, the distance from her home and what she fears will be lots of traffic around the campus. I dont understand why they would take the school away, she said.

Grand Avenue, in the Holden Heights neighborhood, opened in the 1926-27 school year. The original historic building, with a second-floor auditorium, remains. Additions from later decades, including an outdoor classroom, sit behind it and next to it.

The future of the Grand Avenue campus is not set, but it could be given to the city in exchange for property the city gave for construction of the new Parramore school, said Woody Rodriguez, the districts attorney. The city, however, has not yet decided if it wants the school site.

Grand Avenues small size had its downsides, making it hard to fund programs that are more affordable on a bigger scale, for example. But the size also seemed to benefit its students, who never got lost among classmates.

It was a huge advantage for our children, because so many staff members knew them, said Lino Rodriguez, who served as Grand Avenues principal for 13 years, moving to a new campus June 1.

Many of the schools students were from families who lived in poverty and moved frequently. The school, well supported by local businesses and colleges, was a constant in otherwise unstable lives for both youngsters and parents.

I knew my job was to build the best possible school to help this corner of the world, Rodriguez said late last week, as he and teachers packed up boxes of supplies, put tape on furniture to be moved to other locations and decided which historic items needed to be saved.

It was an emotional week, Rodriguez said.

But teachers, he added, were determined to finish strong and focus on academics until the end, leaving a legacy all the way through the last day.

For many of Grand Avenues teachers, working at the school became a mission, said Reitzel, who will teach first grade at the new K-8 school in August. Theres just a special vibe here.

Felicia Chambers agreed. She first came to Grand Avenue as a student intern from Florida A&M University and 23 years later was still teaching there, delighted with a school that focused on the whole child, she said.

Shell be moving to John Young Elementary School, where Rodriguez is the new principal.

Both will miss the little school on Grand Street.

The kids, the community, Chambers said. It was just like a second family.

lpostal@orlandosentinel.com 407-420-5273

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After 90 years serving kids and community, Grand Avenue school closes its doors - Orlando Sentinel