Former students, teachers, community say goodbye to Palmer Elementary

On Saturday, Palmer Elementary School will be open to all one last time.Anyone will be able to roam the Easton Area School District’s halls to take in its odd, sprawling shape, green-tiled walls and wooden stage.Then, the plan is to demolish the school and build a new, more efficient elementary school in its place. Since February, Palmer’s students have attended classes in the district’s middle school in preparation for the school’s demolition.Those plans are stalled thanks to an unresolved dispute between the district, township and nearby landowner who hasn’t given them a stormwater easement across his property.The building itself is in need of significant repair, said Principal Meredith Nauman.Even though there’s no date for the new Palmer school to open, residents and others can walk through the building, which opened in 1953, one last time.New playground at Easton Area Middle School will accommodate Palmer Elementary kids taking classes there while their school is being rebuilt“Palmer has been around for 70-something years, and we know it is important to the Palmer community, not just to our current students, but to many generations of Palmer residents,” Nauman said. “It was important to give folks a chance to walk through one more time, take a look at some of the old spaces that were there.”The school has some unique features, like fireplaces in the kindergarten rooms and tile floors that spell out words. Nauman hopes people will be able to see the school’s normally out-of-bounds basement that was used as a fallout shelter.Visitors will also be able to check out other Palmer novelties, including old yearbooks, old China that once belonged to the PTA, registries from the early 1900s and other artifacts.“There’s some really neat pieces of history there we’d love to share with everybody one last time,” Nauman said.Palmer physical education teacher Susan Lehr said there are mixed emotions about losing the school. She attended the school as a student and started teaching there in 1992.“For me personally, it’s like a bittersweet kind of thing,” she said. “It’s all I’ve ever known and it just has that unique character to the building. On the other hand, with advancements in technology all the newer schools have, heating systems that work, AC that works, that’s always a bonus.”Lehr said the school will try to recreate the Palmer bazaars of old with games. More than 30 years ago, the school hosted a three-day event where people could play games like ring toss and goldfish.The school was built as two buildings ― Cole, built in 1951 and Auld, built in 1956. The gym was built in 1956 and a tunnel connecting the buildings was put in in 2002, Lehr said.The walk-through will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Entrance is free and snacks will be for sale.Morning Call reporter Michelle Merlin can be reached at 610-820-6533 or at mmerlin@mcall.com.
Source: Morningcall