{"id":62754,"date":"2025-12-16T22:37:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T22:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62754\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T22:37:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T22:37:06","slug":"new-thomas-holme-school-opens-in-northeast-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62754\/","title":{"rendered":"New Thomas Holme School opens in Northeast Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter<\/a> to keep up with the city\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia school officials unveiled a new building for Thomas Holme School Tuesday, creating more space for Northeast Philly\u2019s growing student population as the district plans for school closures and other big facilities changes.<\/p>\n

The new building has one of the largest capacities of all district elementary and middle schools, with space for more than 1,000 students from pre-K to eighth grade. It replaces the previous Holme school, which was built in the 1950s and had a capacity of 795 students, according to district data.<\/p>\n

Holme\u2019s enrollment, which is now at just over 800 students, has crept up steadily over the past several years as the population in the city\u2019s Northeast neighborhoods has ballooned. Elsewhere in the city, enrollment has fallen over the past decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The nearly $90 million project, built on the previous building\u2019s footprint, is meant to provide more space and better facilities to Holme students, who have spent the past two and a half years learning in a temporary swing space at Austin Meehan School, a 10-minute drive away. Along with updated classrooms and learning spaces, the 130,000-square-foot building includes music rooms, a dance studio, a new gym, and a cafeteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis building represents our commitment to delivering the learning environments our students deserve: safe, modern, healthy, and inspiring,\u201d said Board of Education President Reginald Streater at the Tuesday ribbon-cutting ceremony.<\/p>\n

The building \u2014 one of several new or updated schools unveiled this year<\/a> \u2014 will open as the district pursues a facilities planning process that officials say will lead to closing and colocating some schools, along with modernizing and repurposing others. <\/p>\n

\"AThe new Thomas Holme School includes a dance studio and several music rooms. (Rebecca Redelmeier \/ Chalkbeat) <\/p>\n

But district officials have not yet shared which schools will be closed, colocated, or otherwise affected, and they have delayed the timeline for the process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dozens of Philadelphia schools have hundreds of empty seats, while others, especially in the Northeast, are overcrowded<\/a>. Families and teachers in the Northeast have complained that overcrowding has stretched educators thin and left students without support<\/a>. The new building may help alleviate some of those concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey definitely took into consideration the fact that this is a growing community,\u201d said April Tomarelli, an educational facilities planner for the district. \u201cRight now, this will definitely meet the needs of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Holme students gave feedback on the building\u2019s design plans, they have yet to see inside the new building. The school expects to move into the new space in January.<\/p>\n

Holme Principal Micah Winterstein said he looks forward to seeing students\u2019 faces when they experience their first day at the new school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe space they walk into will say how much we value them,\u201d said Winterstein. \u201cI think every kid deserves a space like this, but I\u2019m so excited for our kids to walk in and know that this is theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter to keep up with the city\u2019s public school system. Philadelphia school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7623,539,28,69,71,70,7625,33668],"class_list":["post-62754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-chalkbeat","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly","tag-thomas-holmes-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}