{"id":368297,"date":"2026-08-11T11:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T11:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368297\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T11:20:10","slug":"orange-center-steam-academy-offers-teaching-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368297\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange Center STEAM Academy offers teaching model"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 An elementary school near Orlando\u2019s Camping World Stadium is entering a new era as students head back to school.<\/p>\n<p>The former Orange Center Elementary School in the West Lakes neighborhood is now the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocsteamacademy.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orange Center STEAM Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Orange Center parents voted in early 2026 to transform their children\u2019s magnet school into a new model for hands-on learning.<\/p>\n<p>Dana Wallace is among those who supported the change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIntroducing more projects that kids are hands on, and I know one of my sons would definitely benefit from the hands-on learning,&#8221; Wallace said.<\/p>\n<p>Principal Erin Albert said teachers, parents, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocps.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orange County Public Schools<\/a> and the nonprofit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liftorlando.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lift Orlando<\/a> are teaming up to make the STEAM Academy work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really hoping this model becomes this innovation lab of, &#8216;Let\u2019s try something, see how it works and see how our students succeed,&#8217; and then take those pieces of information and what we\u2019ve learned out to the other schools,&#8221; Albert said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0810_n13_orange_county_steam_3.jpeg\" alt=\"Spectrum News\/Keith Landry\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Spectrum News\/Keith Landry\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Spectrum News\/Keith Landry<\/p>\n<p>She said Lift Orlando and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsiorlando.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Neighborhood Schools Initiative<\/a>\u00a0are providing additional support so students can focus on learning.<\/p>\n<p>Albert said the A in the STEAM model means the school will put a new focus on the arts. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re having our music teacher expose them to musical theater and choir, as well as really just letting them fall in love with the arts,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth-grader Essence Coar said the new model will allow teachers more creativity in their lesson plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiving us that freedom and that room to breathe, and not having to make sure this is done by this time and you\u2019ve gotta get this amount of minutes,&#8221; Coar said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0810_n13_orange_county_steam_1-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Spectrum News\/Keith Landry\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Spectrum News\/Keith Landry\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Spectrum News\/Keith Landry<\/p>\n<p>Third-grade teacher Laurabelle Corbin said the new model should increase parent engagement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, just expanding that relationship and giving them more opportunities to come in to be a part of the classroom community is really important,&#8221; Corbin said.<\/p>\n<p>Orange Center STEAM Academy is still enrolling students who want to attend. The school will add a sixth grade next year and then seventh and eighth grades as it ultimately becomes a K-8 school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 An elementary school near Orlando\u2019s Camping World Stadium is entering a new era as students&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4996,274,113,1337,115,1335,139,141,140,278],"class_list":["post-368297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-keith-landry","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}