New school can accommodate more students in master-planned community

While consulting with Syd Kitson of Kitson Development at the beginning of Babcock Ranch, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a charter education advocate who sits on the Babcock Ranch Advisory Board, insisted on the best say to start a town: first, build a school. 

No one can argue with the success of that plan. The first Babcock Neighborhood School, which opened last fall, was filled before it opened, and even before the first home in Babcock Ranch, which straddles the Lee-Charlotte county line, was occupied. Kitson immediately decided to build a larger replacement school with a catch: It had to be ready before the 2018-19 school year.