The Harrisburg School District is slated to purchase this property at 1010 N. 7th St. to serve as its administration building.
The Harrisburg School District soon may have a new home base for operations.
At a school board meeting on Wednesday, Receiver Dr. Lori Suski approved the purchase of a large office building on N. 7th Street for the district to use as its new administration building.
In February, the district decided to reconfigure several of its school buildings, moving some grades to different buildings and closing others. As part of the plan, the current Lincoln Administration Building on State Street will become an elementary school.
The district’s administrative offices are now slated to move to the 48,704-square-foot former Penn State Harrisburg Eastgate Center at 1010 N. 7th St.
The district entered into a purchase agreement with Penn State to buy the property earlier this month, but needs to officially settle the purchase. Wednesday’s approval by Suski allows the district to move forward with the settlement.
A February letter of intent to purchase the property, issued by the district, stated that it would buy the property for $3.1 million.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, Suski approved an agreement with local nonprofit Ngozi, Inc. to serve as the fiduciary for a new program aimed at helping to improve student behavior.
In March, Suski approved a proposal to create a new Safe Passages Program that will be operated by local nonprofit Concerned About the Children of Harrisburg (C.A.T.C.H.) at the Harrisburg High School-John Harris Campus. As part of the program, nine adults will be present in the school during lunch and school dismissal to help diffuse student behavioral issues.
The program will be piloted over the remainder of the school year. Participants will be paid, through Ngozi, Inc., an hourly rate of $15 for up to three hours per day.
“The hope is that the students will be able to build relationships with these adults,” said Kia Hansard, co-founder of C.A.T.C.H. “They’re building a relationship so that if something were to happen, that relationship is there and hopefully those individuals would be in a position to diffuse it.”
Additionally, Suski approved the district to hire EConsult Solutions to perform a disparity study for the district at a cost of $150,000. The study will evaluate the district’s use of minority-owned businesses and other diverse vendors in its contracting processes and make recommendations for improvement.
For more information, visit the Harrisburg School District’s website.
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