The concept is innovative, the benefits huge: academic excellence and time with the grandparents. Like much at Ocean Reef Club, The Academy was conceived to accomplish a simple, important mission – to find a way for kids to spend more time in the warm, Florida weather where grandparents hang out until the buds appear at their homes up north. The solution: a school with admirable academic standards that welcomes temporary students. Each visiting student’s curriculum is brought or sent from her or his home school. Stays at The Academy are determined by how long the student will be at ORC; the minimum is a week. “Back-home” schools often report that the visiting ORC Academy student is ahead of the class upon returning.

The Academy is a full-time school for its many students who live at Ocean Reef Club. Those kids – K through 8 – are the soul of a temporary student’s sense of feeling welcome and at ease in a new classroom. As the kids say: “It’s no big deal; the visiting kids make life interesting.”

Life at The Academy is definitely interesting. There are field trips to wildlife refuges all over the south Florida area with programs and projects that help develop the students’ sense of responsibility for their environment. By the time they graduate, Academy students are expert on aquatic and land-based species with a thorough appreciation of the delicate balance of the natural forces that create the environment. But the “3 R’s” flourish here too in the pleasant, relaxed atmosphere of the Club. The kids know they’re lucky; it’s one of the reasons they’re willing to work hard in a school which, like everything else at ORC, encourages the pursuit and appreciation of excellence.

Visit The Academy’s website at http://www.oracademy.org/ or call 305.367.2409 for a private consultation.