Brookside Charter School breaks ground on new primary school building

By Tony Madden

A student drum line performed Friday afternoon to kick off a groundbreaking for Brookside Charter School’s new 57,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Primary School building on the Brookside campus. The building, expected to open to pre-K through second-grade students in August 2027, will double the program’s current program capacity, the school announced in a press release. 

Brookside Charter School opened in 2002 and serves pre-K through eighth-grade students who reside in Kansas City Public School boundaries. Charter schools are publicly funded and require no tuition.

Construction on the new Primary School facility began in March. The building is set to include a gymnasium, 23 classrooms for more than 600 students, administrative offices and shared learning spaces. The schoolyard will also feature rough grading for a future athletic field and track. 

The Primary School facility is specifically designed for ages 4 through 8, whereas most schools are designed for intermediate grades, according to Brookside Charter School Superintendent Roger Offield. The building will seek to provide a quality environment for these ages focusing on expectations, procedures and routines, he said. 

The spaces will be tailored to the developmental needs of early learners to foster both academic growth and social-emotional development, a press release adds. 

After the performance, the audience heard remarks from Brookside Charter School Board Member Vickie Miller, Forge Construction founder Eric Turner, ACI Boland Architects Principal Dominic Spadafore, Cornerstone Construction Consulting President TJ Steinkirchner. Also present were several teachers, students and community members.

Offield remarked that the new facility is a result of the community asking Brookside Charter to grow. He added Brookside Charter had just 24 staff members when he started 16 years ago, and it now has more than 170. He also said he hopes this is just the beginning of more growth.

“This isn’t just going to help five, six, seven years,” Offield said. “You’re talking a generation.”