Join Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free publication to maintain up with the town’s public college system.
The Philadelphia college district reopened Frankford Excessive Faculty on Monday after finishing a virtually $30 million renovation to remediate asbestos that had posed a well being danger to workers and college students.
The renovations, which included including air-con and new lighting, saved the college closed for greater than two years. The constructing’s reopening marks an enormous step for the district’s goal to modernize its growing older infrastructure — and reveals the nice price of sustaining buildings constructed greater than a century in the past.
The district has closed a number of faculties lately as a result of considerations over publicity to asbestos. In June, the U.S. Division of Justice introduced prison expenses towards the district for failing to observe legal guidelines that require well timed asbestos inspections between 2015 and 2023. The district reached an settlement with the Justice Division to keep away from prosecution.
“We’re reopening potentialities and alternatives for our college students and our educators,” Board of Schooling President Reginald Streater instructed an viewers of Frankford educators within the college’s refurbished auditorium on Monday. “After we open the doorways this fall, our college students return to a faculty that’s secure, welcoming and wholesome.”
In April 2023, inspectors discovered that asbestos had been flaking from the partitions and ceiling of the 115-year-old Frankford Excessive Faculty constructing, posing a well being danger to workers and college students. Publicity to asbestos is related to many well being considerations, together with lung most cancers.
After the invention, college students attended class just about by the top of the college yr. For the next two college years, ninth graders attended class at close by Roberto Clemente Center Faculty. Older college students had been restricted to a part of the college known as the “annex,” which was constructed within the Nineteen Fifties.
“It was very annoying, and it was a bit of unhappy, simply to see that we had been closed due to the asbestos,” mentioned bodily training instructor Terry Ward. “However now to see it opening is superb.”
Ward, who graduated from Frankford within the Eighties, mentioned the college feels reworked from when she was a pupil. The constructing has freshly painted partitions, new home windows, refurbished flooring, and new LED lighting. The district additionally put in greater than 80 new air-con items and dozens of recent Smartboards. Some rooms, just like the cafeteria, have gotten new furnishings as nicely.
Nonetheless, items of the college’s historical past stay. Stained glass home windows circle the college’s auditorium, and previous work line a part of the primary ground hallway.
When courses begin subsequent week, Ward will probably be instructing within the college’s third-floor gymnasium. She mentioned she remembers how sizzling the room would get throughout basketball follow when she was a pupil, with no cooling and home windows that wouldn’t open. However with the brand new air-con, she mentioned she seems to be ahead to spending the college yr instructing within the house.
“The children’ eyes are going to be brilliant,” mentioned Ward. “It brightens the neighborhood.”
District agrees to asbestos inspections each 6 months
The reopening of Frankford Excessive Faculty required the set up of wall and ceiling paneling all through the constructing to guard the plaster beneath. In some areas, that plaster accommodates asbestos, which is simply secure when it’s contained.
The district’s settlement with the Justice Division contains the district’s dedication to examine buildings each six months and frequently restore any injury.
Adam Anderson, who teaches media and tv courses at Frankford, has labored for the college since 2009. He mentioned he’s conscious which means he might have been uncovered to asbestos particles in the course of the years earlier than the college closed, and has even talked to his physician about it. However for now, he mentioned, he’s not scared.
“Is it one thing that I’m gonna monitor for the remainder of my life? Positive,” mentioned Anderson. “Is it one thing that I’m fascinated about at this second? No, as a result of I’m form of simply excited to be again within the constructing.”
To Anderson, the asbestos remediation has introduced different advantages too. He used to fret in regards to the creaky floorboards in his classroom, which might typically disrupt college students throughout recording periods. However with refurbished flooring, the classroom stays quiet.
The brand new house, he mentioned, “truly represents what our college students can do.”
After college officers minimize a ribbon in entrance of the college’s primary doorways Monday, Frankford workers returned to their work of readying the college to welcome college students on the primary day of sophistication Aug. 25. In an workplace upstairs, Yanelle Boyd, a pupil local weather help staffer on the college, mentioned one in all her goals for the college yr is to assist infuse the college’s spirit into the renovated constructing.
Boyd graduated from Frankford in 2017, and remembers the hallways coated in pupil murals and trophies. Although the district says these objects have principally been preserved, they’re now not on distinguished show.
“We’ve got to make new reminiscences — and I’m excited to make these new reminiscences,” Boyd mentioned.
Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public faculties, early childhood training, and points that influence college students, households, and educators throughout Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.
