Dr. Timothy Matlack, the top of a towering crane peaking out from behind massive piles of rock and stone that flanked him, asked the kids gathered around him Monday morning a few questions.
The Antietam School District superintendent asked the elementary school students if there was anything going on behind him.
“Yeah,” a chorus of young voices responded.
He asked them if a building was going up, and they again said yes. When he asked them if it was there when they left school on Friday, they replied no.
And when he asked them if it will be ready to welcome students, they responded with excited cheers of hope.
“Probably not,” he said with a smile. “But maybe they’ll hear us and work even faster.”
Steel construction began Monday on the new Stony Creek Elementary School. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
The building that began to appear Monday on the site of the former Antietam Middle-High School — so far only a bit of concrete and a few steel beams jutting out of the ground — won’t be completed in a day. It won’t be finished in a week either, or even in a year.
But for members of the Antietam community, the wait for Stony Creek Elementary School will be well worth it. It will be a gratifying conclusion to a very trying time.
Matlack, standing outdoors behind a podium placed where his district’s middle-high school once stood, recalled the devastating start of that era on July 9, 2023.
“We watched, unfortunately, as floodwaters come over the banks of the creek and poured into the building,” he said.
On that day, powerful thunderstorms caused catastrophic flooding to the area that devastated the middle-high school. The damage to the building left it unusable, and sent the school district scrambling to find ways to educate students who were only a few weeks away from returning for a new school year.
Since that day, the district and community have repeatedly pivoted, adjusted and reconfigured. They retrofitted buildings, they shifted school configurations, they erected temporary classrooms.
And, all the while, they planned for the future.
An artist’s rendering of the Stony Creek Elementary School. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
On Monday, that future officially arrived. Or, at least the first part of it.
The district held a special steel beam signing event, marking the start of construction of Stony Creek Elementary School. The building, which will serve kids in grades kindergarten through third, will be located on the site of the now-demolished middle-high school.
It is expected to open for the start of the 2027-28 school year.
Matlack said the ceremony was a chance to thank all of the people and entities that helped make the creation of a new school possible, from state officials who help secure over $11 million in funding to local officials to the design and construction teams.
“We have not arrived here alone,” Matlack said. “Mounts climb together.”
One of those who has climbed with the Antietam community is state Sen. Judy Schwank, who played a vital role in helping secure state funding for the project.
Dr. Timothy Matlock, Antietam School District superintendent, signs a beam as administrators, school board members, state and local officials and project partners look on during the Stony Creek Elementary School steel signing ceremony on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
“It is a good day to me a Mount or what?” she asked the crowd of students Monday.
Schwank said she’s not aware of another school district that has gone through trials as staggering as Antietam has faced over the past few years.
“And you have always risen to the challenge,” she said, saying there has been a communitywide effort to support the district.
And that effort will pay great dividends for students, state Rep. Jacklyn Rusnock said.
Rusnock said getting a chance to watch a new school rise from empty ground is a special experience for students, and so will be getting a chance to learn in a brand-new space.
“Experiences are what shape our view of the world,” she said.
Rusnock also thanked the district’s teachers for being flexible, dedicated and creative while the district dealt with the sudden loss of a school building.
“You’ve been doing what needs to be done to keep the wheels of education turning,” she said.
Prior to ending Monday’s ceremony with local and school officials signing a steel beam that will become part of the new school, Matlack invited a few elementary students to share their thoughts on what it may be like.
A handful showed off drawings they had created, brightly colored with rainbows, flowers and gleaming suns. Several students read aloud their wishes for the school.
Eloise Kramlich, 7, a first grader, shows a picture she drew of the new Stony Creek Elementary School as Principal Nicole Schieck watches during the school’s steel signing ceremony on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
They hoped for cheerleaders and a mascot and flowers. They pictured red bricks, nice people and new friends.
Any they dreamed of trampolines, new friends and stained glass, all sitting below a shiny crown placed on the roof.
First grad students line up to sign the steel during the Stony Creek Elementary School steel signing ceremony on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)