As Northeast student population expands, an $88 million school rises on Academy Road

The Philadelphia School District’s facilities needs are massive: $8 billion and counting, with an average building age of 73 years.

But on Friday, students, parents, and dignitaries celebrated possibility with a formal groundbreaking for a new, $88 million school on Academy Road in the Northeast.

Thomas Holme Elementary is a pile of dirt and rubble now, but its new structure is expected to be ready for student occupancy in January 2026. The 88,000-square-foot school — named for Pennsylvania’s first surveyor general — will rise on the same site as the old Holme.

Though the number of students in Philadelphia’s traditional public schools has generally been shrinking, Holme, like many schools in the Northeast, is growing: It was built in 1950 as a K-5 school; it’s now a K-8. The old building’s capacity was 795; it now educates just under 800 and, principal Micah Winterstein said, a child showed up at the new site on Friday to register.

“We outgrew the building,” said Winterstein. “And we anticipate even more growth.”

The new building will have room for about 1,300 pupils. Students helped design the building — the facade, the playground, the stormwater management system.

Holme students are currently learning in the old Meehan Middle School building, about three miles away; they receive bus service to the temporary site.

Officials were jubilant about the project.

“What a great day in Northeast Philadelphia, a $90 million investment in our children, right there,” said City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, motioning behind him, where heavy equipment rumbled across the vast site at the juncture of Academy and Willits Roads.

State Sen. Jimmy Dillon (D., Philadelphia) said the new school was “our promise to these kids and their families that they deserve a safe, modern, and inspiring facility to learn and grow in.”

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said it was “really important that we provide our children with 21st-century learning environments, and we’re well on our way here today.”

To get its arms around its considerable capital needs, the school system is about to begin a much-anticipated facilities master-planning process, which is expected to result in not just new buildings in some places, but also school closings and building colocations in others.

Reginald Streater, the school board president, acknowledged the enormity of the task, especially given the fact that the school system cannot raise its own revenue but instead depends on the city and state for the bulk of its funding.

Still, he said, the Thomas Holme project is proof of what the district can and will do, even with limited resources.

“We’re going to be expanding where we need to expand,” Streater said.

That sounds good to Ose Ogbeifun, 5, a kindergartner at Thomas Holme. After the politicians and school officials took their turns with the shovels and hard hats, the Holme students who came to the groundbreaking had their turn, and Ose was beyond enthusiastic — about the digging, and what’s coming in a little over a year.

“I’m so excited!” she said.