GEORGETOWN, Del. – Officials with Sussex Academy announced on Thursday that the State Board of Education approved their modification request to add an elementary school for the 2020-2021 school year.

The Sussex Academy Elementary School will open its doors in August 2020 on the current Jefferson School campus located at 22051 Wilson Road in Georgetown. The tuition free school will serve 160 students in Kindergarten through Grade 5. At maximum capacity, the school will enroll 240 students.

All students seeking enrollment, including incoming Kindergarten students, must submit an enrollment application. A DOE Standard School Choice application should accompany the enrollment application. Applications can be completed beginning March 20th at schoolchoicede.org/Apply/SussexAcademy. Families have until 4 pm on April 9th to complete an application. If the number of applicants received exceeds the number of seats available at one or more grade levels, a lottery will be held on Monday, April 20th.

“It is a lottery, if we have more applicants than seats. So it doesn’t matter if you are the first person to get your application in or the last to get your application in,” says Erica Anderson, the head of school for Sussex Academy.

The Jefferson School is still operating through the end of the 2019-2020 school year as a private school. According to Anderson, the Jefferson School approached Sussex Academy about the opportunity because they were having sustainability issues.

School officials don’t think this change will necessarily impact overcrowding issues in Sussex County schools. They’ll be looking to fill about 15 faculty positions at the new Elementary school.

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