Cheltenham school board moves to close Elkins Park School

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Cheltenham School District’s board of directors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday evening to shutter Elkins Park School at the end of the academic year.

The school is the only one in the district currently serving fifth- and sixth-grade students, but the aging building on the 10-acre campus is deteriorating.

“We knew that we had to pivot and potentially look at doing something different,” Superintendent Brian Scriven told WHYY News.

Rebuilding the 70-year-old school would have cost taxpayers upwards of $80 million, but reconfiguring the district’s grade structure and renovating the remaining schools to accommodate Elkins Park students will cost just $34.7 million.

Cedarbrook Middle School to make space for sixth graders

Starting this fall, instead of operating four K–4 elementary schools, one 5–6 elementary school and a 7–8 middle school, Cheltenham will run on a K–5 and 6–8 model.

Rising fifth graders will remain at either Cheltenham Elementary School, Glenside Elementary School, Myers Elementary School or Wyncote Elementary School.

Incoming sixth graders will continue instruction in the existing temporary modular classrooms adjacent to Elkins Park School. Faculty and staff will be reassigned.

In 2026, Cheltenham School District will begin building permanent additions to Cedarbrook Middle School, which currently teaches seventh and eighth graders, and Glenside.

Cedarbrook will gain 19 new classrooms for sixth graders. The district expects to complete construction by fall of 2027.

Elkins Park ‘outlived its useful life’

The closure of Elkins Park School and the subsequent shift to a new grade structure has been years in the making. In 2022, Cheltenham School District initiated a feasibility study to manage its aging infrastructure. The district determined the amount of aging facilities surpassed its financial capability to build from scratch.

Additionally, officials discovered enrollment did not support having as much total educational space. Elkins Park School is the primary casualty.

“It basically has outlived its useful life as an instructional institution, the conditions are such that renovation is not possible,” Scriven said.

In January, administrators presented a number of options to decide the fate of Elkins Park School. A complete teardown and reconstruction proved too costly. The question was not whether Elkins Park School would be emptied but when — and how.

Officials mulled keeping students in place during the renovation of Cedarbrook and leasing a new space but ultimately recommended that an immediate move to the elementary schools and the modulars would be the most efficient option.

“It makes transitions for students in those age groups much more manageable and it puts them in a position where they get the support that they need within that school environment that they’re currently in,” board president Pamela Henry said.

A relatively quiet final meeting

In February, the community provided feedback at the public hearing and officials made some revisions to the plan.

At Tuesday’s meeting, board member Daniel Schultz couldn’t recall when he exactly attended Elkins Park School. However, he could remember that it was around the time “Titanic” was released in movie theaters. In his remarks, he said it was all his classmates could talk about.

“When I think about Elkins Park, I think a community has a building, a community has a people, and a community has a history, and Elkins Park has all three of those things,” Schultz said. “So as we transition away from it as a building, I know that we are going to find ways to honor that community and that history and reflect on what Elkins Park has meant for generations of our students.”

Public comment over the loss of Elkins Park School was nonexistent during the vote.

“It’s not for lack of access,” Schultz said. “It’s because we have so thoroughly discussed this and weighed stakeholder input.”

The future of the building is still undecided. For now, high school students in the Empowerment Program in Cheltenham will still utilize Elkins Park School for studies.