I am very pleased to announce that another school building has become available and is now a very strong candidate for the future home of the Whole Life Charter School.

The building, at 1331 Ivy Hill Road on the border of Springfield Township, is packed to the rafters with new school goodness because it is, in fact, a new school building. Completed nearly three years ago by the West Oak Lane Church of God for use as a religious school, the building has remained largely unused because few students ever enrolled in the proposed religious school. It is an amazing school building, however, with 22 large naturally lit classrooms, a state-of-the-art gym/theatre, a gleaming new industrial kitchen and cafeteria, and an array of office spaces that will easily accommodate the needs of our administration, health and therapeutic professionals.

A state-of-the-art school building

This beautiful building is also completely ADA accessible; bathrooms are wheelchair ready and an elevator is installed for easy access to the second floor. It has a full playground for our lower school students with several outdoor play structures atop a padded play surface. Wired completely throughout for internet access to every room, the facility has a capable communications infrastructure that includes pre-wiring for telephones and cable hook-ups for television in every room we entered during our walk through. 1331 Ivy Hill Road also comes equipped with a complete security system that locks down every room in the building so that intruders can not enter classrooms even if they manage to gain access to the school building.

There are several other major advantages to this building over the other building we have designated in our application at 1200 Mermaid Lane. The first is its zoning. Unlike 1200 Mermaid Lane, it is already zoned as a school building. This is one less hurdle we will need to leap over should we receive authorization. The second is its placement. 1331 Ivy Hill Road is more than a quarter mile away from any Springfield Township residential neighborhood meaning that there should be no concerns over additional car, bus, or foot traffic from even our nearest neighbors (Ivy Hill Road is the border between Philadelphia and Springfield Township. 1331 is on a stretch of Ivy Hill Road that is almost entirely commercial). A full 135 space parking lot will easily accommodate our parking needs. 

1331 Ivy Hill Road is also 1100 feet closer to public transportation. SEPTA routes 18 and 77 are less than two football field lengths away. For those children arriving by school bus or by car, the parking area provides school bus ingress and egress which will allow us to safely load and unload all of our students independent of how they are transported.

It is pure understatement to say that we are very excited that this building has become available. 1331 Ivy Hill Road is an outstanding facility that would offer a wonderful, safe, state-of-the-art school environment to students at the Whole Life Charter School.