LIBERTY TOWNSHIP — When Josh Bauer looks out the window at Mother Teresa School he no longer sees bricks. The kindergarten student sees a field, part of the 23.5 acres the school now sits on since its move from Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Monroe to its own 11,000-square-foot, steel-and-block building on Jackie Drive in Liberty Township.

        Over the Christmas holiday, parents moved the school's furnishings, equipment and supplies to the new school. They also have begun landscaping, built coat/book bag racks, and on New Year's Day, mopped floors and put down a coat of wax before students entered for the first time last week.

        “It's awesome,” said 8-year-old Sarah Menke, a third-grader from West Chester Township. “I like it because it's bigger.”

        Much of the credit for the smooth start goes to the parents who worked so hard, said third-grade teacher Sue Keffalos of Fairfield Township.

        "We have (a lot) of parent volunteers,” Ms. Keffalos said. "It's what really makes the school.”

        Since its 1998 opening with 20 kindergarten students and Principal Sister Anne Schulz, the private Catholic school has outgrown the five classrooms it had shared with parishioners in Mother of Sorrows' religious education building.

        The building, constructed for $700,000, has eight classrooms, a cafeteria, and a large multi-purpose gathering area used for physical education classes and as a chapel.

        Phase two is planned as a mirror image of the existing building with eight more classrooms and should be done by June 2003, said parent Lynn Skinner, a member of the school's board of education. It will be built at the south end of the school. Eventually, phase three, which includes a gymnasium, will be added.

        “It went pretty smooth considering we built it in record time,” Mr. Skinner said. Ground was broken June 24 and the building was completed six months later.

        The school has quadrupled since its opening and now has an enrollment of 83 students in grades kindergarten through three. Next year, a second kindergarten section and a fourth-grade class will be added, Sister Schulz said.

        Each year thereafter, another grade will be add ed through eighth. Class size is limited to 20 students in kindergarten, 22 in grades 1-3 and 25 in the upper grades.

        First-grade teacher Kathy Sellers likes not having to move projects in progress on the days when the church uses the classrooms.

        “I like having our own space, to be able to set our own routine,” Ms. Sellers said.

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