Greek Schools around the Philadelphia area are starting back up next week with St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox church in Upper Darby kicking off, September 10, 2013. The remainder of the schools will open in the middle of the month and by September 25th all area schools will have begun their academic year 2013-2014. More than 13 Greek Orthodox churches comprise the metropolitan area, with an estimated number of 800 total Greek school students. Of those 13 churches 10 of them have Greeks school programs that run through the academic year. St. Thomas Greek Orthodox church in Cherry Hill, leads the way with the areas largest Greek school program with more than 160 students (last years figure) and St. Sophia in Valley Forge Pennsylvania has the newest program.

Odyssey Charter school in Wilmington Delaware a publicly-funded Kindergarten through 6th grade elementary school opened it’s doors in 2006 and is funded by AHEPA Wilmington local chapter 95. Although not tied to the archdiocese, this area school program has Greek language classes taught each day. This feature of Odyssey Charter School is provided by credentialed instructors from Greece. More than 700 students attend the school.

Archdiocese Greek school programs generally run twice a week in the evening with a two hour class session. Classes run K through 8 for many of the schools and have religion and dance built into their programs. St. Demetrios in Upper Darby, has a vigorous program with a three hour class sessions. St. George Greek Orthodox school in Trenton New Jersey is now in it’s third academic year with their new bi-lingual full-day time preschool. Under the direction of President Dr. Spiros Spireas and Greek school board chairperson Dr. Georgia Triantafillou, a Professor of Mathematics at Temple University the school continues to build as part of the church community.

We have included a photo album of images captured last year from St. Demtrios, St. Luke, Evangelismos and St. Anthony, some of our area Greek Schools we visited last year.

Cosmos Philly will be visiting some of the Greek schools in the Delaware Valley featuring opening day in the coming weeks.

If you would like to have Cosmos Philly come out and feature your school, contact us.