Foundation Christian Academy Board of Trustees member Jack Ray speaks about the new Falcons Nest, a 22,500-square-foot preschool building that will features eight classrooms, a cafeteria, a new library, an auditorium, a new administrative wing for admissions and business offices and more, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the facility on Friday, May 10, 2024. The $5 million campus expansion is slated to be completed during the summer of 2025. (Grace Ramey McDowell/grace.ramey@bgdailynews.com)

Foundation Christian Academy has come a long way from a single Greenwood Park Church of Christ kindergarten class in 1996.

The private pre-K through 12th grade facility broke ground Friday on a new “state-of-the-art” 22,500-square-foot preschool building dubbed the Falcons Nest.

“We’ve been blessed with record growth over the last six years in a row,” FCA President David Pahman said. “Because of that, with the growth of Bowling Green and the growth of our school, we’re basically out of space and that dictated, ‘hey, we need another building.’ ”

The expansion at the Three Springs Road campus will add eight classrooms, a combined auditorium-cafeteria, a playground and more. It will also free up space in the old facility for higher grades, adding a new library, an art room and a foreign language room among other opportunities.

The $5 million expansion, made possible in part by numerous private donors, is slated for completion by summer 2025.

Pahman added that an expansion has been in the minds of FCA board members as far back as 2005 when the plot of land was purchased. The 40-acre plot was chosen then as the board “saw the need to have plenty of room to grow,” Pahman said

– and grow they have.

The attention to preschool encompasses every piece of the new building, with everything from classrooms to bathrooms designed with younger, smaller students in mind.

“Research has shown that the earlier that children start education, it provides more success later on in life,” Pahman said. “We want to have education and our parents want to have their children in a place that puts them in the best position for success in the future, and that starts with a successful preschool.”

The church kindergarten class that FCA stems from began with 22 students over nearly three decades ago – now, they oversee a student body of over 460 students.

He added that FCA is unique in that “someone can be on campus from 3 years old all the way through the 12th grade.”

“They never have to have a new first day of school ever again,” he said. “They just stay here and we have a continuous curriculum all the way through.”