Middletown Township approves preliminary plans for new early learning center behind Penncrest High School
The K-1 Center is set to house all of the Rose Tree Media School District’s kindergarten and first grade students.
Middletown Township council on Wednesday approved preliminary plans for the construction of a kindergarten and first grade center next to Penncrest High School, marking a significant advancement for the Rose Tree Media School District in its years-long attempt to construct a new school.
Five of the six township council members present at the meeting voted in favor of the preliminary land development plan. The singular dissenting vote, Leslie Campo, represents the district where the school will be placed and said she voted down the proposal after she “heard the voices” in her district.
The K-1 Center is set to house all of the Rose Tree Media School District’s kindergarten and first grade students, with specially designed classrooms and facilities for 5-to-7 year olds and enough space for full-day kindergarten, an offering the district is currently unable to provide to families. The K-1 Center will also be home to the Linking Learning to Life program, which serves Rose Tree Media students ages 18 to 21 with disabilities.
The school building is estimated to cost around $84 million, with an additional estimated $7.5 million for a proposed athletics addition. A realignment of Rose Tree Road, part of the district’s plan, is set to cost around $3.7 million, but will be partially grant-funded. The school district has received a $2.5 million PennDOT Multimodal Transportation Fund grant for the road realignment and has applied for a second grant, according to Barbara Wilson, the district’s coordinator of communication.
In a statement, Rose Tree Media Superintendent Joseph Meloche said the preliminary approval “represents an important and positive step forward in our efforts to provide a modern, developmentally appropriate learning environment for our youngest students” and that the district looks “forward to continuing our collaborative work with the Township as we move through the remaining steps toward making this important generational investment in our students and community a reality.”
The school’s preliminary plan was approved with around three dozen conditions from Middletown Township, including that the Rose Tree Media School District will make financial contributions toward traffic safety infrastructure on neighboring roads and will install fire hydrants and reimburse the township for any service costs.
» READ MORE: As Rose Tree Media pushes for new K-1 school, Middletown neighbors urge township to ‘just say no’
One condition requiring the school district to “develop and implement strategies to strongly encourage and incentivize” families to utilize school buses to limit traffic drew some skepticism from the district.
“My concern is that folks are gonna see the word ‘incentivized’ with some sort of financial remuneration ... I just don’t know that it’s something that we want to put on the shoulders or the pocketbook of the school district,” Meloche told township officials at the meeting.
Council members said that given the outsize concerns about traffic around the school, the district will need to go “above and beyond” to get kids on the bus and out of parent drop-off lines. Meloche said the district is willing to encourage bus ridership and will share its plan with the township.
The school district will be required to fulfill the various conditions and nail down specifics of the plan ahead of a final approval vote by council, which will officially allow construction to begin.
The district plans to open the school for the 2029-30 academic year.
The Rose Tree Media School District says rising enrollment has pushed students into modular classrooms and made it continually impossible to offer full-day kindergarten, even as neighboring districts have begun to provide it in recent years. A previous plan for a new Rose Tree Media elementary school was denied by neighboring Edgmont Township in 2023, spawning a legal challenge from the school district that was later withdrawn.
Enrollment in the Rose Tree Media School district grew from 3,897 students in the 2006-07 school year to 4,269 students in the 2024-25 school year. The district estimates its enrollment will peak in the 2032-33 school year with 4,592 students, even as the number of children living in the Philadelphia suburbs has fallen steadily since 2010, following national trends.
The school district has said expanding or converting existing school buildings is not a viable option.
The K-1 Center has seen considerable pushback from residents who live around the site. During an hour of public comment on Wednesday night, neighbors warned that the school’s construction would irreparably erode their neighborhood’s bucolic character, add noise and light pollution, and create dangerous traffic bottlenecks.
“The corner where this school is proposed sits right at the junction between a busy highway corridor and our residential road. Design-wise, this building is an eyesore with a blatant disregard for the neighborhood ...” said resident Alison McCoach. “When a plan is fundamentally flawed, forcing it through is not leadership, it’s recklessness.”
A handful of speakers voiced support for the school and referenced a petition in support of the project, which has garnered nearly 850 signatures.
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