photo by: Chris Conde

Veritas Christian School, 256 N Michigan St., is pictured in September 2018.

A private Lawrence school plans to get bigger and much more visible with a pending move across town.

Veritas Christian School has struck a deal to move into about 30,000 square feet of space near 31st Street and Kasold Drive, leaving behind its longtime home in a more remote section of northern Lawrence.

“We are kind of tucked away now and people don’t drive by and notice us,” Mike Baker, head of school at Veritas, told the Journal-World. “We will be more of a shining light in Lawrence at this location.”

Plans call for Veritas to begin moving in early July to the new space at 3001 Lawrence Ave. The space is part of the River City Church complex that is just north and east of the “Kasold Curve,” where 31st Street turns into Kasold Drive in southern Lawrence.

River City had about 30,000 square feet of vacant space that previously had been set aside for a school but had not been used for that purpose, Baker said.

“The space is really pretty brand new,” Baker said.

Veritas currently has less than 20,000 square feet of space — some of it in portable classrooms — at its location at 256 N. Michigan St. in a largely residential area near the Kansas Turnpike.

Veritas ended the school year with 197 students in classes, which run from pre-K to 12th grade. Baker said that was a new high for the school, which has been operating in Lawrence since 1979, although it long was named Douglas County Christian School.

Baker said he’s expecting an enrollment up to 220 students for the next school year. He didn’t project how large Veritas could become in the new space, but said enlarging the school was a factor in the move.

“We want to have the opportunity to continue to grow in the school and to be more present in the community,” he said.

The move, though, is a bit of a detour from previously announced plans for Veritas. The school last year constructed a new building south of Lawrence along U.S. Highway 59 on a piece of vacant land just south of where the highway intersects with Douglas County Route 458.

When the school announced that project in 2018, it said the first phase of the project would build a gymnasium for Veritas sports teams, then would add classrooms to create its own campus-like setting for the school.

This week, Baker said the gymnasium portion of the project has been completed and was in use during the last school year. But Baker said the school has chosen to put the idea of building classroom space at the property on hold.

Veritas has signed a three-year lease to locate in the River City Church property, and Baker said Veritas would continue to use its new gymnasium, which he noted is only about a five-minute drive from the school’s new location. Baker did not rule out that U.S. Highway 59 site might become a campus at some point for Veritas.

Veritas plans to sell its property along North Michigan Street, which it has occupied since the early 1990s.

River City Church will continue to operate in its location at 3001 Lawrence Ave. It now simply will share space with the school. Baker, however, said Veritas Christian was not affiliating with River City Church. While Veritas uses a Christian-based curriculum, it is not aligned with any particular denomination, Baker said. He said students from about 30 churches in the community attend the school.

The issue of private schools in Lawrence has become an interesting one. As I reported in March, Lawrence finds itself in a situation where the community is adding population, but its public school enrollment has been shrinking. That’s not the norm for a community.

The reasons for the dichotomy in Lawrence aren’t clear. The pandemic has played a role, but Lawrence’s enrollment numbers were weakening before the pandemic. Clearly, there are questions about whether the type of growth in Lawrence — which has had a spate of apartment construction in the past decade but a slowdown in single-family construction — simply doesn’t produce many families with children.

But another theory suggests private schools are taking a larger share of school enrollment than they used to. It is tough to get hard numbers on private-school enrollments for the entire community because private schools aren’t required to report their numbers to the state. But private schools have been undertaking visible capital campaigns in the community to build new facilities. That has been the case at Bishop Seabury Academy, St. John Catholic School and Veritas.

Baker didn’t weigh in on that bigger-picture discussion, but he did share some interesting numbers from the three years that he has been head of school at Veritas. The projected 220-student enrollment for the next school year would be an increase from about 160 students when he began.

“Our enrollment has continued to rise every year,” he said.

Look for Veritas to be operating in its news space by the time classes begin in August.