‘A wonderful place.’ Bellefonte community says goodbye to beloved elementary school
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Benner Elementary School hosted a farewell event before closing for good.
- Families watched a documentary film and toured the school’s hallways and classrooms.
- The school closed to help make way for the new Bellefonte Elementary School.
A beloved Bellefonte school received a warm send-off Monday evening when hundreds of community members gathered to celebrate its legacy.
A farewell event at Benner Elementary School gave generations of community members one final chance to walk its halls and explore its classrooms. The school officially closed alongside the Bellefonte Elementary School on Tuesday, the final day of the 2025-26 academic year, after educating Bellefonte Area School District students for decades.
The line to enter the school stretched well into the parking lot on a warm summer-like evening as community members waited patiently to pick up complimentary keepsakes, including Benner Elementary-themed wristbands, buttons and authentic field day ribbons. The hallways were filled with excited students, alumni and past and present teachers who reflected on the memories made inside the small but tight-knit school.
Dan Park, Benner Elementary’s principal, beamed as families strolled through his building’s halls. He addressed the hundreds of attendees inside the all-purpose room shortly after the event started and encouraged them to follow the school’s motto: “Smile wide with Benner pride.”
“The community has set us apart,” Park told the Centre Daily Times. “They’re supportive, and everybody’s always here when you need something. The kids are great, and when they move on, they remember Benner and all the things they learned and did here. It’s a great, small community with a school that provides an atmosphere where kids can grow, feel safe and feel loved.”
Celebrating community history
The evening’s festivities began with a roughly 45-minute documentary produced by Bellefonte teachers Matt Maris and Carla Cipro, who incorporated bite-sized history lessons, interviews with key community figures and footage of former Benner Elementary students walking through the hallways in their gaps and gowns years later. The video is available on the district’s YouTube page alongside a similar documentary produced for Bellefonte Elementary.
The documentary screened Monday evening underscored Benner Elementary’s close community, no doubt influenced by the many one- or two-room schoolhouses that once operated around Bellefonte and across Centre County.
Benner Elementary opened in 1962 alongside Marion-Walker Elementary in Hublersburg following a nationwide push to consolidate small schoolhouses and improve educational experiences for teachers and students alike. Up to 80 such schoolhouses were once used across Centre County, though few nearby were left in use by time Benner Elementary opened.
The new schools offered improved conditions from their schoolhouse counterparts, which often lacked proper heating. Reports published in the Centre Daily Times in 1962, shortly before the Benner and Marion-Walker schools opened, noted that a few remaining schoolhouses had contaminated wells, requiring teachers to bring water to school or send students to neighboring homes with pails in the morning.
Judy Catherman taught at Benner Elementary for decades before retiring in 2007. She said what the school offered was strengthened by its strong community, joking that the only thing missing was air conditioning.
“It was a wonderful place to work filled with incredible people,” Catherman said. “We had great kids, great parents and great teachers. I think many will miss the smallness as [the district] moves on to a bigger school.”
Roy Rakszawski, Bellefonte’s superintendent, said the district hopes to preserve the school’s strong sense of community as it opens the new, larger Bellefonte Elementary School this fall.
“Benner is a little smaller, and that lends itself to a tighter sense of community,” Rakszawski said. “It’s been here since the early 1960s, allowing generations of families to come through here. There’s a strong sense of tradition and pride that goes back a long way.”
What comes next?
It remains unclear what will become of the Benner and Bellefonte elementary buildings as the district transitions to the new Bellefonte Elementary School. The district’s school board is expected to discuss options for the future use of the buildings in the coming months.
The new Bellefonte Elementary is on track to open in time for the start of the 2026-27 school year. The 96,000-square-foot building along Airport Road, constructed for $55.3 million, can accommodate up to 750 students and offers more modern amenities, including outdoor learning spaces and a media center.
%202.JPG)