Fountain Hill Elementary — The activity hub at the open house event was the school’s gym, where there was music, giveaways, refreshments and a display of renderings showing what the new school will look like. Some alumni also brought class pictures to share.

For a few, it was their high school. For most others, it was where they learned their ABCs, played endless amounts of dodgeball and did a lot more. For all of the alumni who came and visited Fountain Hill Elementary School one last time on April 10, it was a unique place that will always live in their hearts, even though the building itself will soon be gone.

Bethlehem Area School District plans to demolish the red brick school on Church Street in Fountain Hill borough at the conclusion of the school year. In its place, a new Fountain Hill Elementary School will rise, with officials hopeful that it will be ready to welcome incoming students in the fall of 2027. While the new school is under construction, all current Fountain Hill Elementary students will be bused or driven to attend classes in leased space at an Allentown area charter school.

The current school has been part of the community for nearly a century, and to help give the thousands of area residents who at one time attended Fountain Hill a chance to say goodbye to their cherished alma mater, district officials held an open house that featured giveaways, food, displays and the chance to revisit the classrooms alumni remembered from years ago.

The oldest part of the Fountain Hill school was built in 1937 as the borough’s first and only high school, and it was there that in the 1950s the Tigers fielded two state championship basketball teams. Fountain Hill High School’s largest graduating classes numbered only in the dozens, which eventually led the borough to consolidate its district with the Bethlehem Area School District in 1966. After briefly serving as a junior high school, a large addition was built and Fountain Hill became an elementary school in 1973. The addition featured “open concept” learning environments that lacked permanent walls; an architectural design trend in public schools that was in vogue at the time.

Several other Bethlehem elementary schools such as William Penn and Thomas Jefferson that were built around the same time feature similarly open floor plans; plans that today are generally viewed negatively, due in part to security concerns that are now prevalent throughout American society. According to a February 2024 BASD planning document, “The New Fountain Hill Elementary School Project,” planning for new Thomas Jefferson and William Penn schools is set to begin early next year.

The plans show a new Fountain Hill Elementary that will occupy a slightly larger footprint than the current building does. It will have a rear entrance via a skywalk from Moravia Street, which is at a significantly higher elevation than the school’s main entrance on Church Street. Another exterior change will be the addition of grass behind the school, which is currently a paved area.

The open house event for alumni also drew former teachers and staff to the school, which has a current student enrollment of around 500.