St. Paul’s Adds Classrooms as Classical Christian School Grows

MELBOURNE — Students returning to St. Paul’s Anglican Church & School in Suntree this fall are enjoying four new classrooms completed over the summer to accommodate the school’s rapid growth.

The classrooms are part of a larger campus expansion backed by an $8 million capital campaign to expand St. Paul’s Classical School and eventually build a new church sanctuary. W+J Construction completed the Parish Hall phase of the renovations this summer, adding the classrooms along with new flooring and ceilings and upgrades to the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

Brian Oldfield, the Anglican parish’s rector and current head of school, announced the expansion campaign in 2024, outlining a vision for the additional classrooms, and eventually an auditorium, offices and green space, and a new sanctuary.

“This vision is long-term of course, but every long journey begins with a single step,” Oldfield said at the time.

Additional classroom space was among the parish’s most immediate needs as St. Paul’s Classical School grew from just eight students when it opened in 2021 to more than 90 students this school year.

The growth at St. Paul’s comes amid increasing interest in classical Christian education on the Space Coast and greater access to private education through Florida’s school-choice scholarship programs. Pietas Classical Christian, another local school following a classical model centered on the great books, is also seeing rapid growth, while Christ College, launched last year in Satellite Beach, is similarly seeking to bring classical academic and intellectual formation into Christian higher education.

For Oldfield, establishing a school in Suntree was part of his vision for the church from the beginning. Before becoming rector of St. Paul’s in 2019, he helped launch a classical parochial school while serving at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Fernandina Beach. During the interview process at St. Paul’s, Oldfield told the congregation that calling him would also mean embracing his vision of a church educating children academically while emphasizing their moral and spiritual formation.

St. Paul’s Classical School opened two years later with a mission to form students to “love truth, beauty and goodness, ultimately finding that in the sight of God,” Oldfield said.

The classical model draws heavily from the great books of Western civilization and traditional methods of instruction. At St. Paul’s, students read works ranging from Homer and Dante to Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The school emphasizes memorization and recitation, largely forgoes screens in the classroom and teaches Latin beginning in second grade.

“We want the Christian worldview, the life of the church, the life of Christ to permeate everything that we do,” Oldfield said.

Students begin and end their days in prayer and attend chapel daily, integrating the school’s Christian identity throughout the academic day rather than limiting it to a weekly chapel or Bible class.

“It’s a generational project that we’re working on,” Oldfield told Christians of Brevard in 2024. “The end goal, at least for me, is to pass to my four sons a church and a school that they can pray in for their whole lives if they so desire.”

St. Paul’s was founded in 1994 and initially worshipped in a storefront before purchasing the former Suntree United Methodist Church property at 7200 N. Wickham Road, where the parish remains today.

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