School district on the move

Christina exiting Newark for Wilmington
By EDWARD L. KENNEY / The News Journal
02/26/2005

Christina School District employees are getting a workout this weekend as they haul out boxes and other items for the move from the district's old office on Main Street in Newark to a new one in downtown Wilmington.

The move to a larger building on Lombard Street, the former Drew-Pyle Elementary School, provides more room, a consolidation of staff and visitor parking space, district spokeswoman Wendy Lapham said.

But it also allows the district to put its reformed Networks School for the Entrepreneurial Sciences in the Newark building, at 83 E. Main St. That building sits amid many businesses and is an ideal site for walk-up traffic when the school with retail storefronts opens in fall.

"That location lends itself beautifully to the nature of our program," Networks director Carlene Zierfuss said.

What formerly was referred to as the NETworks Career Training Program (the NET stood for Newark Employment and Training) has been scattered in several buildings on Elkton Road. It was primarily geared for special-education high-school students who attended classes at their assigned schools but spent part of the day in career training in one of the buildings, Zierfuss said.

Once the Main Street building is reconstructed, the program will be open to all high-school students in the district, and they eventually will be able to attend their regular classes and receive entrepreneurial training in the same building, she said.

While they are being trained to be entrepreneurs, the students also will operate businesses such as engraving, a caterer, a copy center, and frame and flower shops, all open to the public, she said. The program also will seek partnerships with the surrounding businesses for referrals.

The interior of the Main Street building will be remodeled, said Kelli Racca, the district's supervisor for planning and capital projects. That reconfiguration will accommodate Networks as it currently exists and should be completed by fall.

A second phase of construction should begin within two years and will include a 16,000-square-foot addition on the Delaware Avenue side of the 20,000-square-foot building. That addition will create classroom space so the students can remain in one building for their schoolwork and the entrepreneurial training, Racca said.

The entire project should cost about $5.7 million, and it will be paid for out of district funds, she said.

About 145 students are enrolled in Networks, and the number will be capped at 200 to maintain a good teacher-to-student ratio, Zierfuss said.

Creating interaction with the public should be a big plus, she said.

"They can have that real-world application," she said. "It will come to life for our students."

The relocation and expansion of the Networks program and the move to new administrative offices is part of a district transformation proposed by District Superintendent Joseph Wise.

Newark City Council passed a resolution last March asking the district to keep its headquarters in downtown Newark, where it has been for 23 years, but by September it approved the plan to relocate and to remodel the building to accommodate the Networks program. The building was a school as far back as 1884.

Contact Edward L. Kenney at 324-2891 or ekenney@delawareonline.com.

© 2005 delawareonline.com/The News Journal