Delays plague pre-K-8 school

Construction of the Penn-assisted public school in University City has been delayed once again, leaving current tenants of the project site at 42nd and Spruce streets -- the University City New School and the Parent Infant Center -- wondering what effect it will have on their plans. According to University Vice President Stephen Schutt, Penn's pointman on the building project, ground will be broken on the pre-K-8 school within the next few months. "Construction work on site will begin, at [the] latest, by early in the new year," he said in an e-mail. Groundbreaking on the project was most recently delayed to early November -- it was originally scheduled to occur last March -- but that window came and went without any activity. Despite the new round of delays, Schutt maintained that plans are moving along "very actively and well," and that the school's partial opening for kindergarten and first grades is still expected next fall. "We may be slightly later in breaking ground than we thought at the beginning of the fall," he said. "But there is no real problem." But though the first two grades are still expected to start next year, the building will not be ready for them in time. Students will have to await its completion while attending class in what is now the UCNS, a small private elementary school located on the same block as the construction site. The UCNS, which will be forced to vacate its current facility to make room for the new school, has been struggling to adapt its plans to the project's fickle timetable. The original plan called for UCNS -- which leases its property from Penn -- to finish out the current academic year before moving. Despite changes to the plan between then and now -- at one point, UCNS was going to vacate by mid-January -- the official timetable, according to Schutt, still calls for UCNS to move this summer. Due to financial limitations, its new location -- at least for the time being -- will likely be Calvary Church at 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue. While the church is not an ideal venue, UCNS Principal Betty Ratay said the school will make the best of it until funding can be secured for a new facility. "I don't think any decent school should have to go out of business," Ratay said, stressing that money is the biggest concern for the 100-student school. "Moving is not only finding a place but affording it." While Penn initially offered to integrate UCNS with its new school, Ratay and her board declined because of the inevitable changes it would have meant. Not only would UCNS have been under the authority of the Philadelphia School District, but the students -- who hail from all over the city -- would have been unable to attend unless they were in the defined West Philadelphia catchment area. "To join them under those conditions would actually be to disappear," she said. To further complicate matters, the PIC -- a child-care facility also located on the block -- will occupy the UCNS building once construction of the Penn-assisted school is complete. But in order to move, PIC needs to raise enough funds to renovate the UCNS building so it will meet child-care regulations, something that PIC officials are hoping Penn can help them with. "We anticipate that it will cost us between $750,000 and $1.5 million," PIC Director Marni Sweet said of the move. "We are hoping that Penn will help us with some of that."