Five years ago, J.J. Wedgworth and her colleagues made history by opening Alabama’s first rural charter school in Sumter County.

Now, with a new, $25 million facility, Wedgworth has made it clear that University Charter School is here to stay.

“It literally represents the future,” Wedgworth said, sitting in her new office on the outskirts of the University of West Alabama campus in Livingston. “Here we’ve made a real investment – a very large financial investment – so we’re here, we’re here for the long haul and we’re investing in these kids, we’re investing in the community.”

Wedgworth and other local leaders welcomed the public to view the Justin L. Smith campus of University Charter School on Friday afternoon. The new campus will house the school’s fourth through twelfth graders. The school operates independent of the county’s regular public schools, which now are under threat of state intervention.

The modern building has a student-run coffee bar (the only one in the town to offer curbside service), a full-court gym, a tornado shelter, spaces for students to explore careers like health sciences and marketing – and most importantly, a lunchroom.

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Wedgworth said leaders have raised $2 million toward the school.

“This day marks the culmination of a lot of hard work, perseverance, visionary leadership and forward thinking for Sumter County,” University of West Alabama President Ken Tucker, who has three grandchildren enrolled at the school, said at Friday’s ribbon cutting ceremony.

“It is indeed a major milestone, but that word simply is not simply appropriate enough to reflect the positive impact that University Charter School has already had on so many lives.”

In Sumter County, the opening of University Charter School in 2018 was seen by many as a step forward, as it would open with nearly an equal number of Black students and white students, something not seen in the county’s public schools before.

Token school desegregation occurred in Sumter County in the mid- to late-1960s, but when a federal court order required immediate integration, white families pulled their children out of the public schools, effectively ending any chance for the public schools to become fully integrated.

UCS expanded from about 260 students in 2018 to 660 students in 2022. Last year, about 50% of the student body were white and 46% were Black.

“This school helped bring the community together,” said Veronica Triplett, one of the school’s founding board members. “The students have the chance to meet so many students, people, families that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to meet, and that has just grown over the years.”

Triplett’s daughter came to the school as a first grader and will now start sixth grade in the new building. She also has a son who will enter the first grade this year.

Triplett, who lives in Tuscaloosa, said the school’s focus on place-based learning – an approach that teaches children to draw knowledge from their local environments – is something she wouldn’t be able to get in the city.

“There’s a lot of freedom of expression and creativity,” she said. “They’re able to learn at their pace, and that’s the biggest thing for me.”

The Alabama Public Charter School Commission renewed the school’s charter last fall, greenlighting the contract for another five years.

The school has outperformed most other rural Black Belt schools, according to state data. According to 2022-23 test results, 57% of students were proficient in English and language arts; 32% were proficient in math and 39% were proficient in science, gains from the year prior.

University Charter School graduated its first senior class this May. Of the seventeen graduates, 14 are going to college and three have accepted jobs or apprenticeships.

Lawanda Prestage, who has three boys in the fifth, eighth and eleventh grades, lauded the school’s health sciences program, which helps get students training in the medical field.

Wedgworth said none of those offerings would be possible without talented teachers, many of whom are local and know the kids and the community.

“To just see the reality come true – it’s like a dream come true,” said Rochelle Tolliver, a middle school math teacher who has been with the school since its founding.

“This community has really come together. You can see it because we have this school. Everybody’s motivated, they’re excited, and they just want a brand new start for their kids as well.”