State College Area School District opened the new academic year with five new (or mostly new) buildings, and the public now will have an opportunity to take a look inside the years-in-the-making projects.
Open houses will be held over the coming weeks for the new State College Area High School Delta Program buildings and Corl Street, Radio Park and Spring Creek elementary schools.
Elementary school open houses will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on the following dates:
– Spring Creek, Wednesday (Sept. 25)
– Radio Park, Oct. 15
– Corl Street, Oct. 24
The joint dedication ceremonies and open houses for the Delta and State High buildings will begin at 8 a.m. on Oct. 12 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of Delta on the north side of the Westerly Parkway campus. A ribbon-cutting will then take place at 8:30 a.m. at the entrance to State High on the south side of Westerly Parkway.
At 9 a.m., an hourlong dedication ceremony will be held in the high school auditorium, near the O’Bryan Lane entrance, with speakers including State High Principal Curtis Johnson and SCASD Superintendent Bob O’Donnell. Students will present orchestral, choral and musical theater performances.
The State High and Delta buildings will be open at 10 a.m. for self-guided tours, with student ambassadors, faculty and administrators on hand to answer questions and provide direction. Open classrooms in the high school will be limited to the first floor and the Career and Technical Center, but visitors will be able to walk throughout the building.
Work on the elementary schools began in 2017. The projects, which combined totaled $60 million, were completed in phases over the past two years and updated schools that had not been significantly renovated since the 1960s. Corl Street and Radio Park underwent renovations and new construction, while sister schools Houserville Elementary and Lemont Elementary merged in the newly constructed Spring Creek Elementary at the Houserville site.
Lemont Elementary was formally closed and the building is being sold to become a private special education school. Houserville Elementary was demolished and a parking lot for Spring Creek Elementary is where the old school once stood.
The high school and Delta buildings mark the culmination of the $137 million State High project, which saw planning dating back to the early 2000s, a voter approved referendum for debt financing in 2014 and construction starting in early 2016.
Phase one of the project was completed in January 2018 when students moved into the new main classroom building on the south campus. Work continued at the South Building, while much of the old North Building was demolished and a new home for the Delta Program was constructed. Delta students began this school year in the new building, moving from the program’s longtime home in the Fairmount Building downtown.
