The Frazer School for competitive academics, which opened in fall 2024 across the street from Westwood Middle School, plans to expand in fall 2025 to the Hudson Building at 4700 NW 89th Blvd.
Will Frazer, the private school’s director and namesake, said owner James Schrader has signed a contract for the new building, which will double the school’s capacity from about 300 students currently, to about 600. They hope to close the deal in January.
Throughout its first year of operation, the school’s enrollment has crept upward, according to Frazer. He said it has seen a pattern of losing one student and gaining two more, leading to about 15 more students than it started with.
In addition to the growth during the year, Frazer said some families told him already they plan to apply for the second year, now that the school is up and running. He said parents from Tallahassee, Pakistan, Great Britain and across the United States have reached out to him, interested in moving to Gainesville so their children can try The Frazer School.
“We’re optimistic about the future,” Frazer said. “Our education model is quite unique, so there’s pretty much almost nobody doing what we do across the country, and there are just a lot of people that are into it.”
The Frazer School is open to students in grades 3-12, and while Frazer said the admission bar was relatively low this year while the school got its start, he said admission will be more selective starting in the 2025-26 school year.
Frazer also noted that the expansion will not only include a building purchase but will also necessitate an increase in staff, necessitating an increase in cost. In its efforts to stay affordable, Frazer said the school has skipped things like counselors, music and sports, though he said he knows those things are valuable as well.
“We’re trying to keep costs way down, so we don’t provide a lot of the things a full-service school would provide,” Frazer said. “Because every time you add something, you’ve got to raise your cost. So we’re focused on a very narrow world of academics.”
This focus allowed the school in its first year to charge only about $2,000 more than the state provides through school choice vouchers, though Frazer said he expects tuition will need to rise to about $3,500 more than the voucher with the expansion.
Frazer said he has always supported public schools and wants this school to be accessible. The Frazer School is working to set up a trust fund for students who qualify academically but don’t have the funds to attend, he said, and does not want the school to become a place for rich kids.
A few people have expressed interest in buying The Frazer School, according to Frazer, but he and Shrader are not interested in selling to another private school owner. Frazer said he is open to conversations with public school organizations like the University of Florida and Alachua County Public Schools who may want to partner with The Frazer School.
Overall, Frazer’s goal for the school continues to be a high ranking, in competitions and in schoolwide academics. He said already the school administration has learned from the first year, and is making a list of changes and improvements for how to run the second year.
“Just growing, making changes that are positive, kind of looking down the road five years to where we want to be and kind of picturing it out is very exciting,” Frazer said.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correctly identify Westwood Middle School.
Parents from Pakistan reached out? Does the school have immigration counselors for processing visas for these students? It does not pay to remain humble though!
There are many professionals eligible to work here and can bring their families. Pakistan, India, european countries, et al.The families with the means to relocate here can ceretainly mansge an immigration attorney consult. As for remaining “humble”???Not sure if that was snark or something profound but at least you’re tuned in to the subjecy at hand.
Property tax season is a good time to talk about the cost of education. Check your bill for the amount you pay for school taxes and compare that to the Frazier School tuition. Since we all share the cost of public education, no parent pays the full $8500 voucher amount which is roughly equal to what is spent per pupil in public school. Frazier is 2k above that and going to 3.5k. While they’re offering a quality, but narrowly focused education to a particular subset of students, it’s also bare bones. They don’t provide music, counseling or sports. Limited accommodation for special needs and disabilities. They can choose who to admit and pass over kids that don’t fit.
This is not a criticism of Frazier, but of us. We sing the praises of a selective, elite private school while expecting our public schools to provide a complete, full service education to EVERY kid, everywhere, and every time and at a 30% discount. Yet we yell and complain when they fall short?
So true, always!
And magnet has much smaller class size than 40 kids in one class from middle to high!!!!!
I love this newspaper that Frazer uses to advertise. His students were magnet shopping recently for high school. Competitive it is a joke, everyone is A if they were A in public school. They focus on teaching kids tricks of education not fundamental. They lost more than one student. Don’t make a fool of yourself. There are other much better options than this school in Gainesville. Families are glad all these competitive kids left to allow smaller class sizes. While The Frazer School has 40 kids in one class lol from grade 3-12. By the way, they report and remove bad comments in their website and ask families to put false positive comments. CANT wait to have my child out of this school!!!!