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BEAR CREEK TWP. — “Spacious” may be too small a word. Compared to its old, cramped quarters, the new Bear Creek Community Charter School building looks downright cavernous. “We call this the loft,” CEO Jim Smith said while standing on a second floor balcony-like area during a tour of the building Monday. “I don’t even know what we’re going to do with this.”
Staff members got their first official look at the $22 million project during a “transition day” designed to familiarize them with the building, which Smith said is “$800,000 under-budget and 30 days behind schedule” — though still not so far behind to delay a grand opening set for the weekend of Dec 11, 12 and 13 The school was made possible, in large part, by a low-interest USDA loan of about $12 million, to be repaid over 40 years. The school’s non-profit foundation is raising the rest of the money.
Workers swarmed about the the hallways and pretty much everything Smith showed off was less than complete, but one thing that stood out was just how much room students will enjoy, inside and out.
Two wings, each two stories, will house students by grade groups. Each grade group has its own bathroom and each bathroom includes an outside station to fill reusable water bottles. “We could be self-sustaining for three days without food, water, electricity and sewage service,” Smith boasted.
Lights automatically turn on and off as people enter and exit the rooms, but there’s more. “If it’s sunny out, the lights dim on the sunny side of the room while they stay brighter on the darker side,” Smith said.
The hallways have small alcoves, learning spaces for students who may need more individual help. A video feed is wired into the walls with connection outlets and mountings for flat screen monitors in all the halls. Each classroom includes a smart board that allows a person to interact with the image by touching it. The school is so hi-tech the planned computer lab became obsolete before it was done.
“We’re going mobile, with carts of computers for each class,” Smith said, so the computer lab is now a “flex room.”
The dining area seats 160 and “for the first time we have a full-service kitchen,” Smith smiled. “And we have our own executive chef. We serve the best toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup in any school.”
The gym could make area high schools jealous, able to seat 1,200 with portable seats for performances on a stage that, when not in use, closes up to be the music classroom. “And it has a separate entrance so it can be used for the public after school hours,” Smith added.
The common area includes a fireplace and a floor made of wood salvaged from an old New Hampshire barn. The entryway includes two light fixtures dangling from the high ceiling that were in the original building when it first opened as the “Oliver School,” named for Civil War hero Brigadier Gen. Paul Ambrose Oliver. The family bequeathed that building to Wilkes-Barre Area School District, which used it as Bear Creek Elementary until closing it in 2002, prompting area residents to set up the charter school.
The original bell for the old school will be hung beneath a large peaked roof outside the entryway, and will ring at graduation ceremonies and special events, Smith said. And a two story wall inside the entry will sport a mural showing the school’s legacy, from the first graduating class of the Oliver School at the bottom to the class that will be in the new building Jan. 4.
A generous courtyard separates the wings, with a gardening spot for each grade to grow vegetables and other plants, and that’s just a sliver of outdoor space. Stepping out to “the back porch,” complete with a row of rocking chairs, Smith beams his broadest.
“We have a total of 96 acres, with 26 acres developed. We have a yurt, (a round, tent like shelter) a pond, nature trails, a campsite with a pavilion, a natural wetland and what the architect assures me is the largest soccer field in Luzerne County.”
Despite all the extra space — the current school became so crowded many students ended up taking classes in modular rooms — enrollment is being kept under 500. “We have 467 students, and a waiting list of 170,” Smith said. “I don’t even want to think of how many more we’ll get after people see this place.”
