Schools could get a little bigger

By Elizabeth Stieber
Times Staff Writer

As the city’s public elementary and middle schools begin their transformation to kindergarten-to-eighth-grade status, plans have been launched to build annexes to certain schools.
Under the School District of Philadelphia’s capital-Improvement plan, Edwin Forrest School — already a large kindergarten-through-fifth-grade elementary school in Holmesburg — is among the buildings chosen for upgrades.
During a public meeting last week at Forrest School, parents and nearby residents learned about the school’s planned addition, a "primary education center" that will be built somewhere on the school’s vacant paved property facing Bleigh and Walker streets.
About three-dozen teachers, parents and neighbors attended the meeting, as well as representatives for City Councilman Joan Krajewski (D-6th dist.) and state Rep. Mike McGeehan (D-173rd dist.).
The project is only in the design phase, and the Philadelphia School Improvement Team asked the community for input and ideas during the meeting.
The 30,000-square-foot addition will include 13 classrooms — five kindergarten, four first-grade and four second-grade rooms — and a multipurpose room that will serve as both the cafeteria and auditorium. The building will be air-conditioned.
Planners also envision a parking lot, a play area with basketball courts, and landscaping projects.
The construction, which will begin next year, should be completed in time for the beginning of the 2007-08 school year.
The addition will be built with the students and community in mind, said Timothy Trzaska, the project manager.
"Our goal is to give you a beautiful school that meets (the community’s needs and is a place for children to learn," he said.
Forrest principal Patricia Epps agreed.
"We are going to work together," she told the residents. "We want you to be involved in this new project."
Neighbors suggested better lighting, fencing and other safety-related ideas.
Originally, Forrest School was not slated for any construction under the capital-improvement plan, said Karen Lash, president of the Forrest Home and School Association.
However, home-and-school members met with school district officials to discuss overcrowding at Forrest. More than 870 students are crammed into the Holmesburg school, which is expected to convert to a K-8 school in the next few years.
To keep Forrest a neighborhood school, new boundaries will be drawn, the principal said, and other communities are getting either additions or new schools.
The goal is to decrease enrollment and comfortably fit third- through eighth-graders.
This public meeting is the first of many that the Philadelphia School Improvement Team will hold as the project progresses, officials said. ••