A homeschool education center that can accommodate up to 500 children has been proposed for Roscoe Boulevard in Ponte Vedra Beach, according to a new St. Johns County Building Department filing.
Renee Woods, co-founder of the Ponte Vedra Christian Co-op (PVCC) filed a preliminary application Oct. 1 to develop a center that other homeschool co-ops and enrichment providers could rent space.
The co-op aims to purchase 28-32 Roscoe Blvd., listed at $3.5 million, the document says.
“The campus would exist to create a space for families to come and use resources to educate their children and find community,” she wrote in the filing.
The project would use two existing structures on the 5-acre property, which is owned by Armstrong Farms and zoned open rural.
In addition, the co-op plans to build three school barns totaling 13,000 square feet to meet demand from various homeschool operations.
“What’s happened in the world of alternative education is it has grown so much and nobody has space, so we thought it would be a good idea to have a campus where a lot of homeschool co-ops and enrichment providers could come and use the space,” Woods told The Citizen.
In addition, the campus would also give parents a one-stop option for supplementing their children’s homeschool education with courses such as theater, music or coding.
“This will be an education enrichment center,” she added. Woods noted that Roscoe Boulevard isn’t the only contender, and they’re looking at several potential properties for the campus.
Woods founded PVCC with her sister, Angelique Newman, in 2016 “to give families a Christ-centered choice in education.”
PVCC, which currently uses space at Ponte Vedra Presbyterian Church, has about 120 students from kindergarten through eighth grade.
The co-op provides instruction three days a week using a classical education model that includes a Bible study class. Many homeschool co-ops, she said, meet only once a week, and the proposed campus could provide space for them.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the department will discuss the proposal.
