close

Ground broken on Bethel Park Elementary School

By Paul Paterra 4 min read
1 / 5
2 / 5
Dr. James Walsh, Bethel Park superintendent, addresses the crowd.
3 / 5
Past and present school directors and their families take a turn with the shovels
4 / 5
An artist’s rendering of a commons area in the new school.
5 / 5
The new Bethel Park Elementary School, for which ground was broken Jan. 9.

Ground has been broken on the Bethel Park School District’s new elementary school.

A ceremony to mark the occasion took place Jan. 9 and those involved did not let the cold and rainy conditions of the day deter the celebration, moving everything into a weather resistant tent.

“Despite what Mother Nature wants to say, this is actually a rather bright, great day for Bethel Park,” said Superintendent Dr. James Walsh.”Standing where we are will be the future of Bethel Park. We are about to break ground on the new educational landscape in Bethel Park.”

The groundbreaking marked the beginning of construction for Bethel Park Elementary School, which will be located at the current site of Neil Armstrong Middle School, 5800 Murray Ave. It is set to welcome students in grades K-5 in the fall of 2026. Some of those students took a turn with the ceremonial shovels.

“This is the culmination of many years of planning,” said Barry Christenson, school board president. “What we’re just setting out to do is driven by our vision to deliver excellence to 21st-century education. That goes from STEM to special education, every part of education.”

The facility, described as “cutting edge” will span 269,000 square feet and will be constructed in a way to distinguish between primary and intermediate-aged students.

Features include two cafeterias, two gymnasiums, two playgrounds and two libraries — an early literacy center for emerging readers and a main library equipped with integrated technologies and an outdoor rooftop patio.

The main gym, which will be adjacent to the lobby, also will function as a competition space with bleacher seating. A second gymnasium for kindergarten and first grace will be located on the ground floor and referred to as the “Slim Gym.”

Other features include three art classrooms, a Large Group Instruction room, music and instrumental rooms, an administration suite and three STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) labs. Those labs will offer a technology-infused, multi-disciplinary curriculum.

The new building also will include many intentional security measures, such as surveillance, access control and intruder detection components at all exterior doors.

“This school, when it’s done, will be something no one else has,” said Daniel Engan, president of Draw Collective, the building’s architects. “That really is attributed to the administration’s attention to detail, how they envisioned bringing all of these school students together in one environment

Engan also credited the teachers and staff members involved

“The end product is really going to really be a result of what the teachers and the staff put into the planning process,” he said. “It really boiled down to the teacher-student relationship in designing outward and all that attention to detail that everyone has given. It’s going to be a lot of fun to see the progress over the next few years.”

Walsh said there will be a site on which interested folks will be able to follow the progress of the project.

“You’ll be able to watch this process evolve over the next 36 months as we move the mountain and the building rises up out of it,” he said.

The $133 million project is part of the district’s plans to modernize its facilities.

In 2019, the school district retained professionals to perform a comprehensive district-wide demographic analysis and a facilities master plan/feasibility study.

Three options were presented — renovating/expanding the current five elementary schools, building a new K-3 elementary school and consolidating, and the option that was chosen, building a new K-5 school and consolidating the students from the five current schools.

That option was selected because district officials feel the building satisfies the needs for present and future elementary and middle school educational formats and offers support and flexibility for changing enrollment and program improvements.

Other recent modernization efforts include renovations at Independence Middle School and work at the facilities and operations center, including the parking area. Plans also are being finalized to add a new facility next to the high school’s artificial turf fields, featuring concessions, restrooms and storage space.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $/week.

Subscribe Today