In December 2023, prominent Buchholz teacher Will Frazer began having conversations with James Schrader. 

Schrader is the founder and principal of Gainesville Christian Community School (GCCS), which started in 2013 and now enrolls roughly 330 students in K-12th grade.  

“He said, ‘Hey, how about you open up a private school? I’ll get you a building,’” Frazer, 66, recalled in an interview. 

The original plan was to wait and open the school in 2026. But plans changed in April 2024. The building at 1520 NW 34th St. in Gainesville, formerly Cornerstone Academy, came up for sale, and Schrader jumped at the opportunity to buy it.  

With a building ready to go, Frazer made the difficult decision to leave a job he loved at Buchholz High School after nearly three decades.  

“I’m a Buchholz grad, and so it was not easy [to leave],” Frazer said. “I would have rather stayed and finished things out, but the support system at the very top was gone.” 

Frazer became the founder and director of a new private school that would bear his name: The Frazer School. The 3rd-12th grade school for competitive academics opened last fall with just over 300 students enrolled. Almost one year later, it has already outgrown its first building and is expecting to host around 450 students when classes begin on Monday.  

Perhaps what makes The Frazer School even more intriguing is that it wouldn’t have worked even five years ago. Florida’s recent school choice legislation paved the way for middle- and lower-class students to access private schools, which is why Frazer believes the sky is the limit for his new academic powerhouse.  

“If you’re creating something that parents and students want, you’re going to be successful if the financial structure is there,” he said.  

‘Public-school guy’ makes jump to private 

Frazer describes himself as a public-school guy. 

Frazer, a Gainesville native, grew up attending Littlewood Elementary, Westwood Middle and Buchholz High School. He earned an accounting degree from the University of Florida in 1980.  

The public school system continued to follow Frazer, even beyond his years as a student. 

After working as a bond trader on Wall Street, Frazer returned to Gainesville to accept a math teaching job at Buchholz in January 1997.  

In returning to his alma mater, Frazer established Buchholz as a national powerhouse for math competitions. Last year, the team won its 16th Mu Alpha Theta national championship in 17 years. 

In 2022, 25 years after leaving Wall Street, the trader-turned-teacher found himself profiled in the Wall Street Journal.  

“How a public school in Florida built America’s greatest math team,” the headline said. The story credited Frazer for being “obsessed with identifying talent, maximizing potential and optimizing education,” which “created a dynasty.”  

For years, Frazer said he had the support of top administrators at Buchholz and within the school district. But that changed after former Superintendent Karen Clarke resigned in 2020. Frazer said the district support went away under the next superintendent (Carlee Simon), who Frazer declined to name but described as “hostile.” 

“Without the proper support of the top [administrators], we weren’t going to achieve the success that I feel these kids deserve,” Frazer said.  

A quick launch  

Once Frazer made the tough choice to leave Buchholz and partner with Schrader, it didn’t take long for the two men to get The Frazer School up and running. 

With the building purchased, Frazer and Schrader managed to quickly organize several open houses in late April 2024. Just a few months later, the school was welcoming hundreds of students for the first day of classes in August 2024.  

Frazer described that three to five-month window of getting The Frazer School open as “hectic” and “crazy.” 

“I was lucky that Mr. Schrader is like this crazy, risk-taking guy,” Frazer said. “I don’t think too many people would have taken the risk he took, particularly with the speed.” 

Schrader described Frazer as someone who is “driven.” 

“To partner with somebody that is building a rocket ship — and I got to build it while we were in takeoff mode — was incredible,” Schrader recalled in an interview. 

The rocket ship took flight quickly. During the 2024-25 academic year, the school won numerous championships in various team-based competitions at the state and national level. 

“We want to find the best,” Frazer said. “We want to go compete against the best.” 

When asked how he and Schrader were able to open the school so quickly, Frazer referenced Schrader’s knowledge from opening GCCS. Frazer said he was also “grateful” for the state’s support, specifically with providing scholarships and a “competitive opportunity” for students. 

House Bill (HB) 1, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2023, expanded Florida’s school voucher program by making scholarships available to all students eligible for K-12 public school, regardless of income.  

This expansion especially applies to private schools, with two of those voucher programs—the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC) and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO)—providing on average $8,000 in financial assistance for private school tuition and related costs.  

Schrader said 100% of Frazer School students are enrolled in the voucher program. He called it “fundamental” in making the school accessible to families, “especially with Will’s philosophy of having anybody be able to come, if their academics are there.”  

Frazer estimated last year’s tuition for The Frazer School was roughly $2,000 to $2,500 “over and above” the $8,000 voucher. 

The school has slightly increased tuition fees by $1,000 to $1,500 for the 2025-26 school year, Schrader said, adding it’s now $4,000 above the voucher. For comparison, annual tuition at Oak Hall School—another private institution in Gainesville—for the 2025-26 school year is $16,840 for kindergarten, $17,705 for grades first-fifth, $19,960 for grades sixth-eighth and $20,590 for grades ninth-12th.  

Frazer attributed the increase in tuition fees to the school’s rapid growth.  

The growth of the voucher program is having an increasing impact on the public school system, said Tina Certain, an Alachua County School Board member. 

“The voucher use is primarily as a result of existing private school students applying for public funding,” Certain said. “I am a public-school advocate, and I don’t think that any public dollars should be used in a private setting.” 

Certain said when she joined the school board in 2018, the number of FES in the district was less than 2,000. She noted that the district doesn’t have an exact number of FES for this upcoming school year but estimated that it’s between 5,000 and 6,000. 

Expanding into year two  

As The Frazer School prepares to begin its second year this fall, it will do so in two new buildings.  

Frazer said Schrader acquired a second owner, who does not want to be publicly named, and the two purchased the Hudson Building within the Santa Fe Village Health Park, 4700 NW 89th Blvd., Gainesville.  

A contract for the Hudson was signed in November 2024, with the sale of the building to The Frazer School officially completed in May. 

The Hudson, now called the Frazer Building, is over 60,000 square feet and will become the new home of the middle/high school, said Frazer, who added that the building will eventually hold up to 800 students. 

Nearly two months after inking a contract for the Hudson, The Frazer School owners signed a contract to lease the Peddie Building, located just around the corner from the Hudson (4300 NW 89th Blvd., Gainesville).  

The school has started renovating the 40,000-square-foot Peddie building, which will become the Frazer Elementary School.  

Frazer wasn’t sure of the total number of students the Peddie building could eventually hold, adding crews were installing temporary walls this year because the building is being leased. He believes it’s the owners’ goal to purchase the Peddie building within a year.  

As for The Frazer School’s old building at 1520 NW 34th St., it will be the new home of GCCS, according to Frazer. 

“I’m real appreciative of [Schrader] and the second owner that he’s got now,” Frazer said. “They’ve risked a lot financially, scraping up loans, putting up houses and various things to keep this thing going on a pretty fast pace.” 

While The Frazer School continues to grow quickly, Frazer remains committed to keeping tuition costs down. 

“We’re flatlining around four grand,” he said. “That’s affordable for middle class and lower [class families], and we’ll help people who can’t even afford that.” 

Frazer noted that they have a foundation – The Frazer Foundation – which was set up to help the families who cannot afford the $4,000 tuition, as well as those who can’t afford the costs associated with competing in the school’s various academic competitions. 

“Even if they can’t pay $400 a month or the $4,000, he wants to fund ways to help them out if they’re academically excellent,” Schrader said.  

Yuehua Tang will have two children attending the Frazer Elementary School this fall, with one in first grade and the other in fifth. He said Frazer’s goal of keeping enrollment affordable is one factor his family appreciates about the school. 

“Where the school is affordable but doesn’t sacrifice the quality of teaching,” Tang said.  

Tang said his family believes in a merit-based education system, which aligns with The Frazer School’s culture. 

“I think that’s something I don’t shy away from: We’re a merit-based school,” Frazer said. “You got to come here, you got to work hard, you got to earn your grades, not be given grades. 

“We want our kids to succeed. And if our kids succeed here through hard work and learning all the things we’re learning…they’re going to be a lot more successful.” 

Nick Anschultz is a Report for America corps member and writes about education for Mainstreet Daily News.