By Denise Smith Amos
Enquirer staff writer

HYDE PARK - At Summit Country Day School, the wounds of last winter are barely visible on the private school's 114-year-old brick building.

In January, part of Summit's main school building collapsed in a construction accident caused by crews digging too close to a foundation. Though no one was hurt, the building's facade collapsed into a two-story-high heap, leaving classrooms and offices exposed and part of a top floor barely attached to the roof.

The school closed briefly. Some students were moved to temporary classrooms or shuttled off campus for the rest of the school year.

Tuesday, all of Summit's 1,050 students will be back to campus for the first time since the collapse.

Summit's main building has been repaired, bricked up and painted over.

And Summit officials on Friday unveiled the project that caused the collapse, a new $11-million Lower School. The two-story school will house 439 students, from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade.

Though on the outside it matches its two sister schools, the Lower School is bright and modern inside.

Pale yellow walls, a three-story entry tower, extra-large classrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors and a jumbo skylight let the sun in. The school also boasts wireless Internet access, an art room that leads to a sculpted garden, three playgrounds - including one on the roof - two fireplaces in its libraries, and a colorful, regulation-size gymnasium.

About three quarters of the school's parents toured the building Friday. The Nourse family from Anderson Township was one of them.

Elizabeth Nourse, a third-grader, gushed about the automatic sinks in the restrooms and curving "hotel stairs" in her new school. But her sixth-grade brother, Alex, who attends the middle school, said he was jealous.

"It's got bigger classrooms and a better gym," he said.

David Smith, also of Anderson, drove his 12-year-old daughter Christine around the building, noting its 80-car garage below.

"It's cool," Christine said. "It's better than it was before."

Added Smith, "Maybe (the collapse) could have been prevented ... but people made the right decisions after the fact."

Head of School Joseph T. Devlin thinks this year, his second at Summit, will be easier. "I feel like this is my first year again - the way I would have liked my first year to have been," he said.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com