A Springfield magnet program that left its longtime home inside the Discovery Center of Springfield for a one-year stopover at the Geek Foundation is expected to have a permanent address by August.
The Academy of Exploration will relocate to the former Fairview school at 3241 N. Grant Ave., part of the campus of Hillcrest High School.
The move in summer 2023 will allow the program to eventually serve three times as many students.
Ben Hackenwerth, chief strategy and innovation officer, said the new location gives the popular program room to grow to serve 150 students in grades 4-6. Currently, it serves nearly 50 fifth-graders.
“A major goal for us has been figuring out a way to expand, in whatever space we had available, at the time,” he said Friday. “This, in kind of one fell swoop, allows us to accomplish that.”
The program focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM….
