Bear Creek School
COMPLETED: August 2011
DEDICATED: October 2011
During the spring of 2005, the Elizabethtown Area School District contracted with McKissick Associates to study the impact future enrollment patterns would have on its schools. In addition to the McKissick study, the district conducted its own analysis of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's (PDE) enrollment projections. The district examined how the enrollment estimates would affect its facilities including but not limited to the impact on academic, co-curricular, and extra-curricular programs.
From both studies, the district determined that all of its schools were currently operating at or near 100% capacity. Factoring in future enrollment projections, the district had concerns that the anticipated increase in student population would cause the functional capacity of the schools to be exceeded and potentially impact the level of instruction delivered to students.
Several key factors the district used in making this determination were room usage statistics, class size information, the number of rooms available for increased programming, and the number of teachers in the middle and high schools without a permanent classroom.
In deciding how to ensure a first-rate learning environment in all of its schools, the district's focus shifted in August 2005 from studying the enrollment projections to finding a solution. After careful analysis, the district determined that simply expanding and/or renovating existing schools to the level needed would not only be cost prohibitive, but also inadequate in meeting the educational needs of the district.
As such, the district contracted with Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates to develop an intermediate elementary school that would serve students district-wide in grades 4-6. This solution would positively position district facilities in relation to the functional capacity of each school. Also, the district determined that there still existed a need to renovate several existing facilities that had begun to show extreme signs of aging. As part of the first phase of the building project, the district will also renovate East High Street and Mill Road elementary schools.
The district will regularly update this section of the website with the most current information on phase one of the construction and subsequent phases as they develop. Below you will find an archive of presentations delivered by Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates that detail the proposed solution to the project. The most recent presentation reflects the current proposal. Contact Troy Portser, Director of School and Community Information for the district, if you have questions about the district's building program.