New beginnings for Cape Central Academy as doors open at revamped Red Star Baptist site

Cape Central Academy opened its doors to students for the first time at its new location Monday, Oct. 21.

After nearly two years since Cape Girardeau Public Schools announced the purchase of the former Red Star Baptist Church building at 1301 N. Main St., students walked the halls and attended classes in their own dedicated space.

The district purchased the building for $350,000 in December 2022 to act as Central Academy's new home after it had outgrown its previous classrooms located at the district’s administration offices. Those classrooms will now house CGPS's early childhood program. After officials had to push the start date back due to delays in the renovation schedule, classes are now able to take place.

“At the time, what we were looking for was a new space that we could give Central Academy a better facility to better facilitate their kids in the curriculum that they were teaching,” district assistant superintendent of support services Josh Crowell said. “Our current location just didn't work for that. It had just outgrown what it was able to hold.”

Administrators, teachers and other staff members shared their enthusiasm for beginning classes on Monday as they started moving into the new building on Friday, Oct. 18.

“It's a blessing, that’s really what it is,” Central Academy transition coordinator Stephen Hemby said. “The space is something that was needed, and to be able to come to a new part of Cape, put a district building here, and then get kids from this part of town into the building, along with our other Academy kids, it’s just a great feeling. To be in a new building, having to learn new routines, new schedules and all that stuff is something that I think our kids are looking forward to.”

Central Academy English teacher Bri DeWitt said she feels that the new space helps “legitimize Central Academy as a program that is important to the district.”

“My mom is a teacher, and she's been a teacher my whole life,” DeWitt said. “I brought her here over the weekend, and she was like, ‘How amazing is it that no one's been in this room?’ That's super cool. Like, this is my room. It's my space. No one's ever been in this building because it's brand new to us, so one of the things I'm going to try to drive home with the kids is that we get to set the tone. We get to be excited, we get to be positive, and we get to make the space our own.”

According to Crowell, the building had issues with flooding upon purchase, but, with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other engineering agencies, the district was able to adjust and make the property work. Crowell and his team had the entire building gutted “down to the bare bones.” Three exterior sump pumps and French drains were installed to combat flooding, and new load-bearing walls were erected.

Crowell said the decision to renovate the building rather than demolish and rebuild saved the district a significant amount of money.

“Compared to new construction costs, if we were to build a school building, we were going to be looking at around several hundreds of dollars per square foot,” Crowell said. “We were able to do this for about a third of the cost.”

The new building triples the amount of space for the academy, according to Crowell. In addition to the new classrooms and offices, the academy now has a dedicated gym and cafeteria, which had previously been combined in a multi-purpose room at the administrative office building. Additionally, the academy also has its own nurse’s office, which it didn’t have previously, as well as an abundance of storage space.

“That multipurpose room we had in our old building, it was a scheduling nightmare to make sure breakfast, lunch, PE classes, meetings and all those things were taking place,” Crowell said. “Now we have different rooms for those designated periods.”