Sussex Academy gets renovations for upcoming school year

“Focus on excellency, if this is perfect make it better,” said Tom Carper to students of Sussex Academy.

Director of Sussex Academy, Dr. Patricia Oliphant says she needed an area to educate students in a stable environment to better prepare them for tomorrow’s workplace.

“Its important for their personal development,” says Dr. Oliphant “We’re going to have a much larger student body and we need a place for them to eat and a place where they can perform”.

Before this year, the Academy only had students from 6th to 11th grade.

With these renovations, officials hope to increase enrollment and have their first graduating class next year.

The main upgrades for Sussex Academy includes a new auditorium, cafeteria, library and performing arts stage.

The new library, which school officials say was modeled after a library in Taiwan, will be 4,000 square feet and include a quiet room for students to concentrate , a group project area and a computer lab with around 24-30 computers.

Theater students will now have a stage and the room will be able to sit over 600 students.

To eat lunch, students in the past had to go to the lobby in the gymnasium, now the cafeteria will seat over 400.

Renovations all made possible by a loan through the USDA where officials believe educating in this state of the art environment today will prove for brighter future for Delmarva tomorrow.

“Schools like this kind of set the bar on getting kids the preparation to go out to learn to engage the world,” says USDA Rural Development State Director Bill McGowan, “And to come back to Sussex county and to continue to make Delmarva the special place that it is”.