Officials Hold Groundbreaking For New $51 Million Elementary School

Officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday afternoon on the new $51 million Neshaminy School District elementary school.

Administrators and past and current school board members celebrated the commencement of construction with the ceremonial event.

Ground work on the site next to Maple Point Middle School in Middletown Township began last month and building construction is set to begin in May, said Don Irwin, the district’s business administrator.

Neshaminy School District Substitute Superintendent Jason Bowman said the building will be welcomed by the community and should be completed by next August.

The two-story building is being constructed to hold up to 900 students in kindergarten through fourth grade, according to Bowman.

Michelle Burkholder, the district’s director of elementary education, highlighted the new classrooms and collaborative spaces designed for the new building. She said the school will be a “21st Century learning environment.”

The new school is intended to take the place of the aging Pearl S. Buck Elementary School in the Levittown section of Middletown Township. It is planned to open at the start of the 2024-2025 school year.

School board member Kellen Sporny said he lives nearby and can hear the trucks working at the site.

“It’s like music to my ears,” he said.

Sporny said he is looking forward to the new school and its construction is a culmination of hard work by a lot of different people in the district.

Former school board member and president Stephen Pirritano was on hand. He had been a longtime advocate for the new school in the northern part of Middletown Township.

In order to pay for the majority of the project’s costs, the district issued a bond last spring.

According to district officials, $5 million in anticipated federal stimulus money will be used in addition to funds that have already been designated for the project.

Per a study conducted by Statistical Forecasting LLC, the district estimates enrollment will increase from 8,991 to 9,625 by the 2025-2026 school year, necessitating the need for a replacement for Pearl S. Buck Elementary School.

The Buck building sits on 13 acres of land in Middletown Township’s Levittown section. It was opened in 1968 and has received no major renovations, according to information provided at a 2014 school board meeting. The only other district school not renovated since opening was Oliver Heckman Elementary School on the Langhorne Borough and Middletown Township border. Heckman was closed in 2016 and has sat vacant since.

The district implemented a facilities road map in 2014 that called for updating buildings, closing some, and building new ones.

The district is expected to next look at the aging Walter Miller Elementary School in Levittown.

The Neshaminy School District currently operates six elementary schools.

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