After a day’s delay due to Hurricane Debby, The Frazer School for competitive academics opened its doors for the first day of school on Tuesday morning. 

Will Frazer, the school’s director and namesake, stood under an awning wearing an American flag polo to welcome students as they arrived in the morning drizzle. 

After 26 years coaching the award-winning Buchholz High School math team, at a time when he could be contemplating retirement, Frazer said he is excited to start one more big project that he hopes to stay with for at least 15 years. 

“I’m having a great time, and we’ve got great people, and we’re all kind of contributing to that,” Frazer said. “Just the newness, and starting from scratch, and building my fantasy school with a lot of input from other people.” 

About 200 students streamed in on Tuesday to begin their first period classes in Chinese, AP physics, Latin, math and more. The 3^rd-12^th grade school has a little over 300 students enrolled, but the elementary students don’t start school until next week. 

For high school and middle school students, the week’s head start allows them to fit in an extra week of instruction, which, though they lost a day on Monday, still leaves 186 days of instruction. James Schrader, the school’s owner, said that instructional time gains extra value through excellent teachers and focused students. 

“What’s so cool is, there’s 300 kids in a room—they’re not going to be harassing each other, they’re not going to be [messing around],” Schrader said. “They’re truly going to get 50 minutes of quality education. And I don’t care where you’re at, that’s unheard of.” 

Principal Olanrewaju Fayiga said he is not a seasoned administrator and he loves teaching, so when he stepped in to fill the principal position, he did so on the condition that he would still teach. 

Fayiga said he was excited for The Frazer School to be a place where teaching and learning could be the priority. That means less paperwork, more teaching and more invested students. 

Fayiga said in his 20 years in the public school system, most of his students did not want to be in school. At The Frazer School, students knew from the open house that they would need to be serious about their academics if they wanted to attend. 

“The difference is that most of these want to be in school,” Fayiga said. “That’s why they are here… So, that’s the excitement: that we teachers are going to be able to teach the way we’re supposed to, and students who are interested in learning, and interested in joining us.” 

Fayiga, who will teach three math classes, was a coach for the Buchholz math team alongside Frazer. So was Ziwei Lu, who is The Frazer School’s third math teacher, beside Frazer and Fayiga. 

The school drew many teachers with strong records in competitive academics, including Britt Ryerson, owner of Logic Lab and coach of multiple successful young chess players, and Marc Moody, who Schrader said is one of the top eight high school physics teachers in the United States. 

Eileen Lai, an incoming senior at The Frazer School, said she has been on the Buchholz math team since she was in 6^th grade, and that her time at Buchholz would not have been the same without that experience. 

Now, though she is switching schools for her senior year, Lai said it does not feel too drastic because so many of her classmates and teachers will be the same. Instead of being concerned about a new school, Lai said she is looking forward to the new opportunities The Frazer School offers, like Latin and robotics. 

“I feel like the aspect of a team is really good for me. Everyone is really nice and it’s a good community,” Lai said. “I feel like, at Buchholz, if I didn’t come with the math team, it wouldn’t have been the same and I wouldn’t have felt like I had a family there. But here, I feel like it’ll just be the same as it was.” 

The process to open The Frazer School started in April, with the ambitious goal to open in time for the fall semester. 

“Everybody told me it took three to five years and we’re doing it in three to five months,” Frazer said. “So a little chaotic, but in a good way.” 

Schrader said knowledge and hard work were the keys to success in starting the school quickly. Frazer’s name and reputation from Buchholz helped draw in the 300 students, and Schrader used Department of Education connections and knowledge he had from opening his other school, Gainesville Christian Community School (GCCS). 

Even with the connections and knowledge, one summer was a tight timeline and Schrader said The Frazer School’s application for state vouchers was submitted 12 hours before the deadline. This left parents with a 24-hour window to accept the vouchers, which represent about 85% of the school’s funding. 

During the same summer, staff was renovating the building, which was formerly home to Cornerstone Academy, and the school was hiring teachers. With a uniform salary of $92,000, the school had about 80 teacher applicants for 15 slots, according to Frazer. With a few slots that were filled already, the school now has about 20 teachers. 

Two weeks ago, the school acquired buses because about 60-75 students who live in the Jonesville area needed transportation. 

“I think it’s just a lot of hard work, but that’s what the school is all about,” Schrader said. “Frazier put in hard work, my staff put in hard work, to get the facilities ready, and the rest is history.”