Nearly 30 years ago , when I roamed the halls of the then Abington Jr. High School with almost 1,000 other students , it was unthinkable that the building would ever have to be demolished and rebuilt. It’s not that even then — decades after it first opened and my mother’s class walked those same hallways — that the school was in perfect condition. It’s that the school had everything that my teenage brain could fathom—three floors of classrooms, multiple
Philadelphia — where some of the oldest houses of learning in America are located — is facing similar challenges. William Penn Charter High School , named after Philadelphia’s founder, was established in 1698. In East Falls , the Mifflin School still boasts its original 1835 structure on its grounds.
In October of 2024 , seven Philadelphia area schools require a reported $8 billion in aggregate for renovations, including
Back in Abington Township — in town that still proudly displays a Benjamin Franklin era mileage marker outside one of the earliest Presbyterian Churches in the state of Pennsylvania — is not facing the prospect of preserving historic places, but rather , the possibility of knocking it down.
Abington Middle School (formerly Abington Junior High School) has been a house of education for the Township’s youth between elementary and high school for the last six decades. Back in 1964 — even with Abington’s educational school complex already steeped in history complete with buildings featuring a gorgeous early 20th century exterior design from right after the Gilded Age — still couldn’t offset the need for a modern school to accommodate the burgeoning township’s school population.
Now the need for education modernization has come to Abington once again. On May 20 , a vote by the Township residents could support a $285 million proposal for a new middle school in Abington. The proposal will come at a cost of higher taxes for Township residents — who will need to decide on the plan to move forward or rather to simply repair the current school.
It’s not just needed because of our never ending quest to have the American education system catchup to other countries around the world. It’s that without the latest, most modern schools , that goal is simply not achievable. To provide the best education we need to provide the educational facilities.
While retrofitting old classrooms with updated audio/visual and modern technology can be done for an immersive experience , those upgrades also demand significant funding for implementation. This combined with the cost of upkeep of the facilities of an aging school from the 1960s , make the proposed lofty cost of a completely new building at the least understandable.
Building a new middle school is attractive for people looking to move into the Township. In fact — studies show that the construction of a new school improve the graduation rates, encourage kids to go to class, and improve the rates of graduation.
With every walk that I take to this day past a myriad of signs around the neighborhood both for and against the investment vote and culminates under the shadow of that towering, three-story glass and mortar structure, I am still taken with how impressive that it is. There are plenty of reasons why taking on the project of building an entirely new middle school in the township requires a vote of approval to proceed. It will cause an noise of a construction on the campus the likes of which haven’t been seen since 1963, a transition period for current students, as well as higher taxes to fund the project for those who live in the Township—all of which are significant challenges.
Build it — anyway.
Michael Thomas Leibrandt is a member of the Old York Road and Wissahickon Historical Societies and lives and works in Abington Township.
