AIKEN - A 12-acre facility off Vaucluse Road is the site that the Lloyd-Kennedy Charter School and the Aiken Performing Arts Academy will call home next Monday.

Keisha Lloyd-Kennedy, principal of both schools, said new features, including an outdoor classroom, that will be available when students return to class.

Construction crews are completing the campus theater and creative arts classrooms, but the administration building and high school classrooms are beginning to take shape with desks, chairs and even curtains.

Ms. Lloyd-Kennedy and her 22-person staff began working to create the facility almost seven years ago. The schools received a USDA Rural Development Facility Loan to develop the campus on the former site of Bellvue Estates, a winter home for the wealthy in the 1800s.

They hope that a larger facility will not only attract more students but also make the community take notice of the two charter schools.

The schools, which includes a middle school program for grades 5 through 8 and an arts program for grades 9 through 12, currently have a combined enrollment of 100. Most classrooms at the rented space on Beaufort Street can hold about 10 students.

"With the new facility we can hold up to 19 students per class," Ms. Lloyd-Kennedy said. "I'd really like to add 150 more students in the next semester."

Started by Ms. Lloyd-Kennedy and her mother, Brenda Lloyd, the charter schools have struggled to get their name out in the community.

"I get asked all the time what the tuition is," Ms. Lloyd-Kennedy said. "It's free and open to anyone."

Although technically a part of the Aiken County School District, the two schools and Midland Valley Preparatory Academy, also a charter school, often get lost among the district's other 41 public schools.

The charter schools don't even have their contact information listed on the school system's Web site.

But Ms. Lloyd-Kennedy said she's grateful for the support she has received from the current administration and hopes it continues to grow.

"A lot of the kids we get are struggling in the traditional system," she said. "For our middle school program, we're here to offer kids a more nurturing environment with classes for those that learn best with auditory, visual or hands-on lessons. They need that one-on-one time to catch up.

"Our high school program is open to anyone who loves the arts. Parents that struggle to pay for dance, music and acting lessons can bring their children here. We have professional, certified teachers that will help these kids go to college and beyond."

Retired Aiken County schools administrator Cecil Atchley joined the Lloyd-Kennedy family this year in a temporary position and stayed on to oversee discipline after he fell in love with the program's objectives.

"I joke that I had to get out of my wife's hair, but they are all about students first and I like that.

"Students can get an entire arts education that isn't offered at other schools, it just encompasses everything, and they have choices," Mr. Atchley said.

Both schools are still accepting applications for this semester, which starts next Monday.

Reach Julia Sellers at (706) 823-3424 or julia.sellers@augustachronicle.com.

TEST SCORE COMPARISONS 2008 END OF COURSE TEST SCORES
Aiken Performing Arts Academy
	Number Tested	Mean
Algebra 1/Mathematics for the Technologies 2	7	72.4
English 1	8	69.4
Aiken County
	Number Tested	Mean
Algebra 1/Mathematics for the Technologies 2	2081	78.8
English 1	1983	77.3
2008 HIGH SCHOOL ASSESSMENT PROGRAM SCORES
Aiken Performing Arts Academy
	Number Tested	Percent Met Standard
English/language Arts	12	75
Math	12	58.3
Aiken County
	Number Tested	Percent Met Standard
English/language Arts	1891	89.4
Math	1884	86.1
For Lloyd-Kennedy Charter School and the Aiken Performing Arts Academy state school report cards, visit www.ed.sc.gov/topics/researchandstats/schoolreportcard/2007/0201.html