Renovated McCaw Elementary is dedicated

By Jean Reid Norman

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | 11:49 a.m.

On the Gordon McCaw Elementary School playground April 22, students, teachers, parents and dignitaries gathered to dedicate a new version of the old school.

Over the past two years, a new building with indoor hallways and classrooms clustered into pods took shape on a grassy hill on the school grounds while students continued to study in classrooms built in rows in 1953 with outdoor corridors.

The project was finished just days before classes began in August. The old school came down over the summer.

Playgrounds were not completed until January, and murals in the school are still taking shape. A ballfield is still unusable while grass is taking root.

With seven months in their new school, the entire student body of McCaw gathered on the blacktop last week to celebrate. They sat attentively while dignitaries from former student Mayor Jim Gibson to the current Student Council members made their remarks.

They cheered when the McCaw student choir sang, accompanied on piano by Principal Jackie Walker.

And they applauded politely when former principals Dale Riddle and Neil Twitchell were introduced.

Gibson asked the students whether they had Miss Hunt or Mrs. White, and hearing no reply said they were his kindergarten and first grade teachers at McCaw, respectively.

“Now do you know why this is a favorite place for me?” he asked.

Twitchell, principal at McCaw from 1978 until his retirement in 1987, noted he still has three grandchildren attending the school at 330 Tin St., a block from City Hall.

Riddle, who led the school from 1965 until 1972 and still lives just a few blocks from the school, said he watched the new building take shape next to the old one over the past two years.

That connection to its history, Walker said, is part of what makes McCaw special. She noted that several teachers were also students at McCaw in their youth and that parents come in to register their children and say they had been students as well.

“It creates a legacy for these kids,” Walker said.

But the rededication was about the new as much as the old.

Both former principals said the new building is beautiful, but what is more important is what goes on inside the classrooms.

“It’s wonderful to work in a building like this,” said Twitchell. “But the quality of a building only reflects the quality of those who make education work — the staff, principal, students and parents supporting them.”

The challenge over the past two years of construction was remaining flexible, physical education teacher Isabel Goldstein said. Classes continued in the old building while a brand-new one was built next door.

Recess was a challenge, she said. The construction made the usual outdoor play areas off limits, so the teachers “wound up being very creative working out the logistics.”

Walker said that the new building has increased pride among students.

“They are more serious about learning,” she said. “The kids are getting a sense of ownership of a new building, that someone cared enough about them to do this.

“In the old building, face it, they thought it was run-down.”