Libertas Academy plans to break ground next week on a $40 million upper campus and high school expansion in Boiling Springs, the first high-school step for a tuition-free charter that now serves grades 4K through 8.
The ceremony is set for 10 a.m. on November 17, according to FOX Carolina. Officials say the campus is scheduled to open for the 2027–28 school year, starting with ninth and 10th grades and adding one grade each year.
What the Upper Campus Is Supposed to Include
FOX Carolina reports that the facility is planned to include a gymnasium, athletic fields and a theater, along with expanded academic and extracurricular opportunities. The station does not give an enrollment capacity or a construction timetable beyond the scheduled opening.
That opening plan means the first high-school class would arrive before the campus is a full four-year school. A ninth grader starting in 2027–28 would, on the stated schedule, still be there when the later grades are added.
Libertas describes itself on its website as the first tuition-free public charter serving 4K through eighth grade in the greater Boiling Springs area. The high-school campus would extend that footprint rather than replace the existing grades.
A Middle School Record, as Reported
FOX Carolina also cites the academy’s middle-school results on the 2025–26 South Carolina School Report Cards: an Excellent rating, a tie for the highest-performing middle school in Spartanburg County, and a ranking above every middle school in Spartanburg School District Two.
Those comparisons come from the station’s account of the report cards. The underlying score details and methodology are not part of the published report.
The school’s own early history is less polished than that rating. On a Libertas page, the academy said it would open its inaugural year in temporary modular buildings on August 14, 2023. The same page says the South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority backed the school with a $29.42 million bond.
Earlier Campuses, Separate Price Tags
The Boiling Springs high-school plan is the latest in a run of Libertas groundbreakings, and the earlier projects do not share one price or one opening date.
The Post and Courier reported a groundbreaking for Libertas Academy in Woodruff on October 8, 2025. That campus was expected to open in fall 2026 and serve 1,000 students from K4 through eighth grade, with the building and grounds expected to cost about $35 million.
A separate Post and Courier report described the Woodruff project differently: a $27 million building on which the school broke ground last fall, months before financing was in hand and a full year before the first student enrolled. The South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority later announced $34 million in JEDA bonds for Libertas Academy Woodruff. Those figures cover different things — expected grounds cost, a building price, and a bond announcement — and they are not a financing plan for the new $40 million Boiling Springs expansion.
Pickens County, and a Bond Bill Already on the Books
The same debt report said Libertas Academy’s Boiling Springs campus borrowed $28 million in 2024 for its building and owed $2.2 million in bond payments the following year. That borrowing is tied to the existing campus, not identified as the source of the upper-campus project.
In Pickens County, Libertas Academy Easley held a groundbreaking on October 28, the Greenville Journal reported. That school is slated to open in August 2027 with grades 4K through sixth, then add a grade each year until it serves 4K through eighth. FOX Carolina separately reported an October groundbreaking on a Libertas facility in Pickens County.
Statewide, The Post and Courier found charter-school borrowing through JEDA bonds more than tripled from 2021 to 2025, with 17 schools securing $480 million. The Boiling Springs high-school announcement does not say whether this expansion will follow that bond route.
A County Adding Residents, and a Date on the Calendar
The growth around the school is not abstract. In the Woodruff campus report, OneSpartanburg CEO Allen Smith said, “Twenty-nine people a day are moving to Spartanburg County.” A charter adding high-school seats in Boiling Springs is landing in a county that, by that count, is filling up between breakfast and dinner.
For families already at Libertas, the practical date is November 17 at 10 a.m. in Boiling Springs. If the published schedule holds, the first ninth and 10th graders would walk into the upper campus in the 2027–28 school year, with a gym, fields and a theater on the plan and another grade to follow each year after that.
