A brand new $44 Million Dollar Elementary School building is now ready to welcome students come January 3rd

The first new public school building built in North Philadelphia in seventy years had a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, December 20, 2023.

- Thera Martin

Come January, after the holidays, children will return to T.M. Peirce Elementary School. The old Peirce was over one hundred years old and was found to contain lead and asbestos.

PA State Senator Sharif Street, who represents the 3rd Senatorial District, was on hand for the ribbon cutting and grand opening of the brand-new Pierce Elementary School. Senator Street remarked, “I think back on that day when Councilmember Bass had scheduled a tour of the old Pierce Elementary School building and one of her staff people noticed that there was asbestos in the building. There were folks from the community who were with us on that tour, and they said no one was going to do anything about this. And then, as we started having meetings, there was a lot of anger; there was a sense that nothing was going to ever happen.

I called Dr. Hite (former superintendent of Philadelphia Public Schools), who made a commitment that we were going to build a new building. I talked to the Board Chair Wilkerson, who said Dr. Hite is very ambitious, but we’ll do what we can. I want to thank Wilkerson, current Board Chair Streeter, and Dr. Watlington for seeing this project through to its fruition, the completion of this building. Our young people are worth it. They deserve this investment, and the community around it deserves it as well. The teachers deserve to be in a building that is free of lead and asbestos. But it’s beyond lead and asbestos. It’s about having a space that encourages and fosters learning. It’s about a space that allows collaboration.