The Liberty School has a new location at Bodo Industrial Park for the 2017-18 school year.

The school will share a space with San Juan BOCES at 162 Stewart St. until construction of a permanent space for its students is complete.

Opened in 2007, the private school uses specialized curriculum and tutors to teach first- through eighth-grade students who are dyslexic or intellectually gifted and twice-exceptional students, which means children who are both dyslexic and intellectually gifted.

This will be the school’s fifth facility after recently being displaced by The Juniper School, which moved into a Durango School District 9-R building on 12th Street that also houses Durango Big Picture High School.

“We have stayed on our toes and remained nimble and adaptable,” said head of school Christian Holmen.

Twenty-four students are enrolled for the new school year and applications are being accepted to put prospective students on a waitlist. There will be three teachers and eight language tutors who work one-on-one with the children.

The Liberty School has raised $1.2 million of its $3.1 million goal for a new, permanent building that will be constructed on 9 acres on Junction Creek Road north of Four Corners Health Care Center. The school came up short of raising enough money to break ground on the project last December.

The cost of construction does not include the value of the land, which was purchased for $1 million and donated to the school.

Now, The Liberty School needs to raise about $400,000 to start constructing the building this fall as planned.

“The greatest thing is that we will finally have a place to call home. It is all about our kids and how we can better serve them. Having said that, the land was donated. Someone believed enough in what we do to help,” Holmen said.

The inside of building was recently redesigned to fit more tutoring spaces for kids, he said.

“We initially had the building being constructed in three phases, and we kind of combined two phases in order to serve more students out of the gate. We had to redesign for more tutoring spaces because a tutor can only handle four students per day,” Holmen said.

Once the building is complete, the school can accept up to 49 students.

“When we first started fundraising, it seemed overwhelming,” said Veronica Cortes, vice president of the board of directors. “We’ve really come a long way.”

mrupani@durangoherald.com