Mayor Nutter and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman welcomed students to the newly built, $80 million high school, on Langdon Street near Sanger, in Oxford Circle.
Ackerman began her day at the home of Fels freshman Mo' Naire Walker, 14. She walked with him to school, attended a bell-ringing ceremony to mark the first day, then addressed the student body alongside other officials.
She ended her day at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, 6th and Duncannon streets, to hear Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, speak and to watch President Obama's televised address to students nationwide.
As part of a five-year, $1.5 billion capital program, Fels is one of two new high schools to open this year. Abraham Lincoln High School, at Ryan and Rowland avenues, in the Northeast, is the other.
"It's just overwhelming," Coutts said after listening to Ackerman, Nutter and other officials address the school's 1,500 students.
"They deserve this. They worked without heat, electricity. This is a dream come true. Northeast [High] may have a TV show, but this is the dream."
Coutts was referring to the high school where actor Tony Danza is co-teaching a sophomore English class for the A&E reality show "Teach."
A district spokesman said that Danza's first day went smoothly.
The new Fels boasts 44 instruction classrooms and 28 specialized-instruction classrooms, which include computer and science labs, a black-box theater, television studio, and art and dance studios. The school also has a six-lane indoor pool, a 7,300-square-foot library, a 1,500-seat gym and two indoor courtyards.
But for all its recent praise, the school has had a bad rap.
For two straight years, Fels was identified as one of the state's persistently dangerous schools.
