North Philadelphia’s new $44 million elementary college opens with fanfare

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It was, Kendra Brooks stated, an extended battle.

She and different activists had advocated for years for a brand new college of their North Philadelphia neighborhood to switch the outdated T.M. Peirce Elementary constructing, which was in-built 1909. However their pleas went unheeded — till a constructing engineer found flaking asbestos, inflicting group outcry.

Related situations at different faculties have led to extended constructing shutdowns not too long ago. In T.M. Peirce’s case, the district decided that the outdated constructing was so filled with hazards like lead and mould that it needed to be demolished. The Board of Schooling voted in September 2021 to switch it.

And on Wednesday, officers together with outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Board of Schooling members, and Superintendent Tony Watlington celebrated the opening of a contemporary, $44 million college in one of many metropolis’s most challenged neighborhoods, the place a couple of third of residents reside beneath the poverty line.

Peirce lecturers and college students will begin utilizing the brand new constructing in January, proper after the vacation break. They’ve been situated up to now this college 12 months within the close by Pratt Elementary College, which closed in 2013 however has been retrofitted to function “swing house” whereas different faculties endure renovation or building.

The truth is, the brand new T.M. Peirce Elementary is the primary new college in-built North Philadelphia in 70 years, Watlington identified. (As of final 12 months, the typical public college constructing within the metropolis was over 70 years outdated.)

“This college constructing says one thing about what we worth for our college students,” he stated Wednesday.

The constructing at twenty second and West Cambria Road can accommodate 625 college students in grades Okay-6, and options furnishings and rooms designed for collaborative work, in addition to an auditorium and cafeteria with all essentially the most trendy facilities.

The message to the scholars, Kenney and different officers stated, was that they matter as a lot as these in prosperous areas “like Decrease Merion and Radnor.”

Metropolis Councilmember Cindy Bass grew up within the neighborhood, and described as a scholar transferring from college to highschool as one after one other closed. Now, she stated, this state-of-the-art college “is the usual” for schooling. T.M. Peirce Principal Anthony Gordon referred to as it “a historic second in North Philadelphia.”

Kenney used the ceremony to tout the $1.5 billion enhance in metropolis funding for faculties throughout his tenure. Board of Schooling President Reginald Streater referred to as the brand new college a “down cost” that might assist future generations.

And State Sen. Sharif Road referred to as the funding a matter of academic fairness, citing the current Commonwealth Courtroom ruling that the college funding system in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional and inequitable for low-income areas just like the group round Peirce. .

“Our younger persons are price it. They deserve this constructing,” stated.

In the meantime, architect Kevin Blackney, whose agency designed the constructing, stated that the college was designed by the group. “You don’t know the way rewarding that’s,” he stated.

Members of the Dobbins Excessive College marching band serenaded the gang on the festive ceremony.

Amongst these in attendance was Joan Monahan, 88, who graduated sixth grade from Peirce in 1946 after serving because the chief of the coed physique, she stated. Her daughter designed the child-friendly furnishings on the new college.

Brooks labored with Sylvia Simms, Quibila Divine, and Shakeda Gaines as a part of a formidable contingent of North Philadelphia ladies to get the brand new T.M. Peirce constructed. Their battle rippled throughout the town’s politics and civic life.

In 2017, Brooks rode the marketing campaign, in addition to different battles on behalf of youngsters within the neighborhood, to a seat on the Metropolis Council, the place she nonetheless serves.

Simms’ advocacy bought her an appointment to the College Reform Fee, which ran the district when it was beneath state management till 2017, the place she continued to battle for a brand new college. Divine now works to assist homeless residents by means of the City Affairs Coalition, and Gaines is a deputy chief of employees in Brooks’ council workplace.

Audio system at Wednesday’s ceremony acknowledged their presence and their position. “We by no means gave up,” stated Simms after the ceremony.

College students stuffed up the primary two rows of seats within the auditorium after the ceremonial ribbon reducing of their spiffy navy blue uniforms with a emblem on the chest that learn: “T.M. Peirce, twenty first Century Studying.”

“It is a top notch, state-of-the-art facility only for you,” Brooks instructed them. “Benefit from it.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior author for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, the place she covers Okay-12 faculties and early childhood schooling within the metropolis. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.