Rosarian Academy opens new learning center expansion with traditional Marian ceremony

The Rosarian Academy, having acquired all of the property east of Olive Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets in West Palm Beach, blessed its new Stockard Learning Center on May 1 with a traditional "May crowning" ceremony in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The center adds 10 classrooms with new playgrounds to the campus and is scheduled to open in the school year beginning in the fall. With the addition, the school aims to expand its Montessori preschool with a Toddler House serving 2- to 3-year-olds and a Children's House for 3- to 5-year-olds.

Enrollment at Rosarian Academy is at an all-time high, especially for the Montessori preschool program, with 450 students, according to Linda Trethewey, head of school. The new classrooms should enable Rosarian to grow to 480 students with a capacity of 500.

The center is the first phase of a capital campaign that will go on to revamp the school’s athletic fields, adding a regulation-size grass field for interscholastic competitive sports, move the existing turf field and also add outdoor basketball courts.

Palm Beach Mayor Danielle H. Moore, who serves as the vice president, secretary, and treasurer of the Fortin Foundation of Florida and is a longtime supporter of the independent Catholic school, named the learning center after her mother and president of the Fortin Foundation, Lesly Stockard Smith, also a former mayor of Palm Beach.

The May crowning is a traditional ceremony in the Catholic Church in which a statue of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, receives a crown of flowers.

After hundreds of children who attended the event returned to class and guests toured the center, Trethewey, joined by Nick Coleman, chairman of the Centennial Capital Campaign; Nicholas Coniglio, chairman of the board of directors; Shaun McGruder, past board chairman; and Moore, an alum, parent and benefactor; cut the ribbon to ceremonially open the center.

The Rev. Brian King then blessed a newly unveiled statue of St. Dominic, as well as the new center.

“We are excited to open these 10 new classrooms and to be able to expand the campus and allow our community to continue to grow, at a time when it’s difficult in West Palm Beach to have the space to grow,” Trethewey said. “With many families moving to the area, to be able to fulfill that need for quality education, we were lucky enough that this was a plan that had been in the works for the last 25 years.

"The ability to take that strategic plan and move it forward has been an honor for me, the board of directors, and the whole community," she said.