This old schoolhouse goes higher ed
The parking lot in front of the former Joseph P. Kennedy School was crowded with vans belonging to electricians, carpenters, and other tradespeople. Inside the building, which is set against a hill across from Stony Brook Reservation, electric tools hummed and ladders crowded hallways.
In one classroom, a low blackboard was being replaced by a whiteboard positioned noticeably higher, for the convenience of the soon-to-arrive taller students.
On Tuesday morning, the former Catholic elementary school, which closed last year, reopened as Boston Trinity Academy, a nondenominational Christian college-prep school for middle and high school students.
``It is a wonderful building," said Boston Trinity headmaster Tim Wienes. ``It was very well constructed and well maintained. It's all masonry and brick."
The academy, which was founded in Brookline in 2002, has 161 students, most from Boston and surrounding communities. About 62 percent are nonwhite, and between 70 and 80 percent receive tuition assistance.
The school had been renting classrooms from Temple Ohabei Shalom on Beacon Street in Brookline, between Kenmore Square and Coolidge Corner. Boston Trinity bought the Hyde Park property for $6 million in May from the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters, an order based in Reading, Pa. For the past 50 years, the nuns had operated the elementary school and maintained a convent on the site.
In Brookline, Boston Trinity functioned in 9,000 square feet of floor space. Now it has 60,000 square feet in a building set on a 5-acre parcel. The organization is eyeing ways to make the most of the property. For instance, the sprawling parking lot could be turned into an athletic field, according to Susan Yem, the school's communications and marketing specialist . School officials also are eyeing a large downstairs kitchen for a culinary arts program, she added.
The parking lot is usually the first thing noticed by passersby on busy Gordon Avenue, a main thoroughfare linking Hyde Park with West Roxbury and Dedham.
The school, which is about a half-mile from Cleary Square, has been reaching out to its new neighbors. Its leaders invited area residents to a picnic on the school grounds this summer. Boston Trinity also has joined the Hyde Park Main Streets program, and donated furnishings and equipment to nearby All Grace Harvest Church after it was gutted by fire last month .
District 5 Councilor Rob Consalvo said he has not heard that the school's arrival has prompted any neighborhood concerns. ``People are used to living near a school. They know what's involved with it," he said.
Last year's closing of the Kennedy School, which was named after the World War II hero and brother of President John F. Kennedy, was opposed by some parents and neighbors. Unlike most other Catholic schools in Greater Boston, the Kennedy School was not run by the Boston Archdiocese. Efforts to save the school fizzled out.
``We were at a disadvantage because it wasn't in the archdiocese," said Consalvo. ``The order in Pennsylvania just decided to close it."
The Bernardine Franciscan Sisters opened a convent on the property in the 1920s. Later they built an orphanage in a separate building, which was demolished when the elementary school opened in 1956. The orphanage operated for some time in a section of the school building.
Boston Trinity Academy was founded a group of Boston-area business people and residents led by Robert Bradley, president of a Boston investment firm.
The school is designed serve highly qualified students who could gain entrance to the area's elite private schools. The academy's first class of seniors graduated this spring, with all 16 now attending four-year colleges.
Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com. 
