16 Jun 2025

The Delta Program – An Alternative Education in State College: A History

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Part II

By Zachariah Hamer-Lang

Delta’s Time in the Fairmount Building

From 1981 to 2019 the Delta Program was located in the historic Fairmount Building located on 411 South Fraser Street in the Highlands District of State College. The original Fairmount Building was built in 1914, but has undergone several expansion projects. Before being home to the Delta Program, the building housed State College Area High School from 1914 to 1955 then becoming an elementary school. Delta’s first location was the College Heights School building located on North Atherton Street with the Fairmount Building was the second building of choice according to the 1974 Final Report of Implementation Details.

William Tussey, who worked as the Delta Program’s health and physical education instructor from 1975 to 2013, provides insight into why the change in venue for the Delta Program was necessary. Tussey explains that the “College Heights…facility was very limited”. One reason for Delta’s evening and weekend classes, Tussey adds, was because they did not have sufficient space in the small building of only four and a half classes. Delta instructor Shawn Arnold also references the issue of the lack of space in Delta’s first building remarking: “[The College Heights building] didn’t even have space for an all-school meeting. At some points at the College Heights Building they needed to call all school meetings outside”.

A mural from the Fairmount Building. Image from Abbey Drey.

The small and restrictive space of the College Heights building made the move to the Fairmount Building a welcome one. Besides providing needed additional space, proximity to downtown was another benefit of the space. Former teacher Masquelier, who began teaching at Delta in 1993, speaks about how beneficial the proximity to downtown is for Delta students: “Students had access to community service activities during the day. If they had a free period they could go volunteer at the Red Cross or at the Crisis Pregnancy Center, or wherever they wanted downtown they could just walk there.”

State College Area School District’s Fairmount Building

Delta students also benefit from being closer to The Pennsylvania State University campus, assisting in taking college level classes. Delta Program director Jon Downs observes that the [near] downtown location allows students to feel more involved in the larger community and feel more ready for the ‘real world’ adding that; “It’s kind of like a college vibe for high school kids, right? They were [near] downtown, all the college kids were [near] downtown.”

Despite the benefits of the Fairmount Building, there were also some drawbacks that came with the space. Because of the additions made to the building after the initial construction, the floor plan was often described as being difficult to navigate. Additionally, because of the age of the building, there were issues with infrastructure. Students needing aids for mobility were put at a disadvantage and potentially at risk in case of emergencies where evacuation was necessary. Another problem unique to the Fairmount Building was parking for students who drove to school. Masquelier recalls: “It was problematic for students who drove to school because there was no parking. They had to park on the street. It was two-hour parking and the cops, some people would say, targeted that area.”

The Legend of Mt. Nittany Mural on the ground floor of the Fairmount Building. Created by Reba Esh; Image from Danielle Crowe

Delta leaves the Fairmount Building in 2019

The Delta Program moved out of the Fairmount Building in 2019 after the completion of the Westerly Parkway Building in 2018. The response to this change, at the time, was mixed. Some alumni of the program protested the change, believing that it would make being a part of the wider State College community more difficult and prevent students from taking classes at Penn State. A 2014 article in StateCollege.com by Jennifer Miller details Delta alumni protests made to the State College Area School District board. Miller quotes John Erickson, a Delta graduate, who reminisces on the benefits of being downtown and fears the impact brought on by the change of location: “Delta enabled me to figure out who I was at a time when I was still growing up and it made it safe to experiment with different identities or try on different ways … Having Delta [near] downtown was very helpful, to go for a walk and blow off steam or think about my life … being [near] downtown, it gave us access to a lot of facilities that may not have been available.”

The Westerly Parkway Building did provide students with opportunities, such as easier access to classes at State College Area High School. Despite the flaws of the old Fairmount Building, the new building also comes with its own challenges. Masquelier shares his ambivalence about the move to Delta’s current building saying that he is grateful for the modern infrastructure of the new building, but he feels though the members of Delta’s community did not have enough of a say in the building process. “The architects seemed to ignore a lot of the suggestions we had,” Masquelier comments. “I think it’s a mistake for it to be facing the high school. I think it’s a mistake that they used the same construction materials for Delta as they did for the high school. I know it’s a cost thing, but we were talking about maybe doing it differently when we were in the building stage.”

Delta Today

As of 2025, Delta has been an alternative local educational option for fifty-one years. During this time, it has provided students with the opportunity to grow in a space where they are respected and encouraged to explore and contribute to their community. For these fifty-one years Delta has operated as a program within the larger structure of State College’s middle schools and the State College Area High School. However, last year, in 2024 the State College Area School District Board voted to separate Delta from its home schools and make it a distinctly separate middle school and high school.

This decision has elicited some negative responses from a number of parents and students. In a May 2024 article, parent Jen Nourse is voicing this point-of-view: “There is a concern that you’re about to dismantle, inadvertently, something that you don’t understand fully”. Delta program director Jon Downs views this decision more positively “The main difference is we’re going to keep our own data. Right now, if a student takes the Keystone exam or an AP exam, that data goes back to State High or Park Forest, whatever the students’ home school is. Every student’s data has to be associated with the identified school that they’re aligned with.” This emphasis on data has some members of Delta’s community concerned. Student Zofia Sullivan remarks: “[w]hile I agree that data is important for a variety of reasons, my fear is that reducing Delta’s essence to its test scores oversimplifies its impact.”

Downs explains that Delta having control over its own data is an opportunity for them to show what students achieve at the program. “Students are happy coming to school here. Maybe that might be at a higher rate than some of our peers. I guess we’ll see. I think it presents this opportunity to show that finally in a concrete form not anecdotally, but in hard data the magic of this place.” Shawn Arnold also speaks favorably about this change “We evolve with the times,” he states. “Whether we like it or not we face a lot of pressure from standardization movements in the 20th and 21st century, and we have to respond to all of those things. Even though we were a program and we’re a school now, it’s not like we weren’t beholden to all those expectations of public schools. […] There are certainly some other things starting to get tightened up as we became a school, but we’ve always had to adjust to those things.”

Delta’s transition from an alternative within the public school system to two separate schools (Delta Middle School and Delta High School) will be another shift in Delta’s evolution. It is difficult to say what tangible impact this will have on the culture of the current program, but I believe that the community of parents, teachers, and students is resilient. Delta has faced changes and challenges in the past and has continued to provide an educational space where students feel welcomed, respected, and empowered.

Sources

Zachariah Hamer-Lang was raised in the Midwest before moving alongside his family to State College in 2019. He attended the Delta Program during the 2021-2022 school year for his final year of high school. He is currently an undergraduate history major at The Pennsylvania State University with a sociology minor set to graduate in 2026. After graduating he hopes to go on to graduate school and one day become a professor of history. He enjoys spending time with his cat, reading horror novels and watching scary movies, and spending time outside. 

To get in touch with Zach reach out to zhamlan20@gmail.com.