A Union Grove resident who has tried for 2 1/2 years to start a private, co-ed military school for sixth- through 12th-graders in southeastern Wisconsin may have finally found a home for the school - the old Prospect Hill Elementary School near the intersection of Racine and National avenues.
New Berlin's School Board agreed this week to sell the property at 5330 S. Racine Ave. for $1.25 million to Jeff Starke, a retired U.S. Navy serviceman and lieutenant in the volunteer Civil Air Patrol who is eager to launch his Wisconsin Air Academy.
Starke's quest to create a day academy and boarding school for middle school and high school students, a venture that even experts in the field say is a tough business, has been fraught with difficulties.
Plans for sites in three municipalities have fallen through because of legalities, municipal demands or neighborhood opposition. Two contracting firms are suing Starke over development issues, and Bill Orris, the Wisconsin Air Academy's intended president and dean of admissions, was fired mid-year from his last job as dean of admissions at the Florida Air Academy, according to that school's president, James Dwight.
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