Christ the Teacher Catholic School breaking ground on $4.3 million addition

Christ the Teacher Catholic School in Glasgow, the largest Catholic elementary school in Delaware, will soon break ground on a new $4.3 million addition featuring two new classrooms and a gymnasium.

The school, which serves children from the Bear, Glasgow, Maryland, Newark and Middletown Odessa Townsend areas, opened in 2002 and is the first Catholic school built in Delaware since 1962.

It is operated under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and currently has 590 students in preschool through grade eight, with more than 620 registered for the 2018-19 school year.

"It's an exciting time for us because you don't hear of Catholic schools expanding too often," Assistant Principal Stephen Adams said. "Especially in the Northeast, New England area, you hear of schools closing before you hear about them expanding."

Since 2011, Catholic school enrollment in Delaware has gone down by more than 20 percent. There were a total of 25 Catholic schools in 2011, either operated by the diocese, local parishes or independently. Now there are 22, with a combined enrollment of about 7,450 students, according to the state Education Department.

When Christ the Teacher Catholic School opened in 2002, it had 357 students in grades kindergarten through six, Adams said. Since it expanded into preschool, seventh and eighth grades, enrollment has been fairly steady, hovering just below 600.

The school draws about 100 students from Middletown, which doesn't have a Catholic grade school of its own, Adams said. Some of the students from Townsend, Odessa and Maryland drive to Middletown, where they can catch a bus to Glasgow, Adams said.

“The need for additional space was evident before the doors first opened, when hundreds of prospective school parents came to learn more about the new Catholic school coming to southern New Castle County," Sister LaVerne King, the school's founding principal, said in a statement.

The new addition will be 16,700 square feet and will include a varsity regulation-sized basketball court, double-practice volleyball courts, two pre-K classrooms, storage space for the school and athletic equipment, office space, concessions and a lobby area.

The school has more than 25 athletic teams and currently rents out space from local public and charter schools, which costs a fair amount of money, Adams said. They've won 12 championships since 2005.

“Our current gym is too small for varsity games and practices; we need to constantly rent other facilities and use borrowed space," he said. "Our athletes have never played a varsity basketball game on their home court.

"The new classrooms will enable us to offer a robust, full-time pre-kindergarten program which we have previously not been able to offer because of space restrictions."

In fact, the school only has one pre-K classroom right now. Three-year-olds attend preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays for half of the day, while 4-year-olds attend half-days on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Adams said.

“Families would call and request full-time prekindergarten, and we’d have to turn them away," he said. "Every other room is bursting at the seams with children and staff."

The new pre-K program will start this fall, using shared space, and will move into the new building once it is completed.

St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, one of four local parishes that sponsor the school, is also breaking ground on a large social hall, which will give the community a “much-needed" gathering area with a kitchen and space for meetings and events.

Monsignor John Hopkins, pastor of St. Margaret and an administrator at the school, said the social hall has been in the works since 1999, when the parish was founded.

Originally, services were held in a warehouse in the Pencader Corporate Center. The church's current building, which is located on the school's campus on the corner of Frazer Road and Route 40, was built in 2006 and opened in 2007. More than 1,600 families attend.

Adams said St. Margaret sometimes uses the school's existing gymnasium to hold events. Once the social hall is built, there will be fewer scheduling conflicts.

The school is also sponsored by Holy Family Parish in Newark, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Bear and St. Joseph Parish in Middletown.

An official groundbreaking for the new project will be held at 2 p.m. May 30. Construction will begin for both buildings in mid-June with an aggressive timeline and a targeted opening date of August 2019.

Adams said as of now, there are no plans for future expansion and enrollment at the elementary school is pretty much capped at current levels. That could change depending on the success of the prekindergarten program and future demands on the school.

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Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.

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