One last class project

Park Street School — Springfield's beloved, if aging, elementary school — will close its doors as a public school for the last time this June after 115 years of service.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100503/NEWS02/5030355/1003/NEWS02

SHS alumni Published May 3, 2010 in the Rutland Herald

One last class project

By JOHANNA SORRENTINO Special to the Herald

SPRINGFIELD — Park Street School — Springfield's beloved, if aging, elementary school — will close its doors as a public school for the last time this June after 115 years of service. The district strove to keep the school up to code, but recent assessments of the building estimated it would take over $12 million for necessary upgrades to the heating, electrical, and ventilation systems. The school's closure is disheartening for many in the community, but one intrepid group of fourth-graders is using it as an opportunity to unearth and preserve a piece of their town's history.

And what a history it is. Park Street School teacher Alyson Bull and her team of fourth-grade researchers are gathering articles, photographs, historical artifacts, and interviews with former students spanning eight decades. The goal is to produce a short documentary honoring the building.

Bull said the project is a good opportunity to engage kids in a teaching technique called place-based education, where students use issues in their community to find real world solutions to problems.

The problem here? Unraveling a jumbled mess of dates, anecdotes, and facts — not to mention hours of interviews with school alumni — into a clear picture of the school's past. Bull said the project is helping her students understand why people are so sad about the building's closure.

The oldest part of the building was constructed in 1895 to serve the needs of a growing population. At the end of the 19th century, a lucrative machine tool industry hurtled the town of Springfield from a farming community nestled in the valley of two rivers to a bona fide little city by Vermont standards.

The Black River became a means of powering large brick factories that sprawled its banks, and immigrants arrived from Poland and Russia to fill jobs as machinists and engineers. Highly skilled workers created a culture of invention and technology, and the name "Precision Valley" became the area's primary moniker. Housing projects, restaurants, and shops were established to support a growing population of employed workers. Such a cosmopolitan place, and yet it lacked one thing: a high school.

When the Parks mansion burned to the ground in April of 1888, the town bought the lot located on a hill overlooking town for $2,500. Seven years and $52,000 later, the town had a new school. According to an article published in the Rutland Herald on Jan. 10, 1896, the building "in point of equipment, sanitary arrangement and adaptability to the needs of the town is not surpassed by any school building in the state."

The school's official dedication was a big to-do, in part because of the "large sum of money" that it took to build it, but the Herald article made clear: "not one voter or tax payer within hearing could but be convinced that the expenditure has been judicious and an investment that in years to come will yield interest at a percentage not computable."

The building featured large classrooms that could fit 50 students each, a space for recreation on stormy days, broad stairways of Western brown ash and white oak, birch floors, and "speaking tubes" connecting the principal's office with every room in the building. The acting principal at the school's opening, Herman Dressel, said the new building not only represented Springfield's success, but also its potential. He was quoted in the Herald article: "With our present commodious building, we can invite New Yorkers or Bostonians to build their country homes among us, to breathe our Vermont mountain air and to educate their children in our midst."

In the 1930s, an addition was built onto the school which included a marbled entryway, gymnasium and an auditorium. The auditorium, with a balcony and molded ceilings, was designed in classic revival style. Today, the writing on the walls behind the stage serves as a program for the auditorium's history: "Robin Hood", "The Miracle Worker", "Winnie the Pooh", "The Lady in Black."

The gymnasium, being one of the only regulation-sized basketball courts in the state, attracted big-name teams back when basketball was in its infancy, Bull said, and some of the alumni have talked about a particularly fantastic game between the Celtics and the Harlem Globetrotters. "A sense of pride is really emerging from these interviews," Bull said.

Springfield resident Joe Winot, Class of 1967, said before going into the interview with the kids he was worried that he wouldn't remember anything about his experience, but as soon as he stepped into the building, it all came back to him. Coming from schools in Proctorsville, he said he was used to classes of eight or nine kids. "It was a big-time school to us," he said. "It seemed funny going back. I thought it was great then, but now it's very outdated."

Springfield resident Mary McMahan said she felt privileged to be one of the last students to graduate from the high school on Park Street in 1968, before the new high school on South Street opened and Park Street became an elementary school. She said that same pride emanated from the fourth-graders who interviewed her. "It was nice to see enthusiasm for the building still," she said.

Bull said discovering the building's history has been an incredible experience for her students. "Clues about the building show them pieces of what elementary schools used to look like," she said.

Reading that the first "buses" to drop kids off at Park Street were, in fact, drawn by horses, floored them, she said. Finding the remnants of gas lines used to light the oil lamps for the building felt like archeology. Learning what the fallout shelter symbols in the corridors meant was sobering.

Bull said it's hard for her students to imagine that three-stoplight Springfield was on Hitler's bomb list for its role in making machine parts for the World War II, and yet it is literally written on the walls of their school. "It fuels their curiosity," Bull said.

After over 40 interviews, Bull said her students are finally coming to understand why their grandparents, parents, uncles, teachers, and others in their community are so sad about Park Street closing: It will join the ranks of other buildings of this era that sit empty in Springfield, ghosts of more lucrative times.

"It was a wonderful place," said Springfield resident John Follet, who graduated from the school in 1958. "You felt safe, like being at home. I'm sorry to see its use be discontinued."

MacMahan said she remembers a time "when the machine shops were booming, the budgets always passed, and the schools were always full." Bull said she challenges her students to imagine Springfield during this era, too, even though many of those machine shops, built with cutting-edge technology, are now falling down and empty.

"It's sad to see Springfield lose everything," Winot said. "But it's a sign of the times. A lot of old industrial towns are going through the same thing."

The school district has promised to maintain the school by keeping the heat on at a minimum temperature to avoid pipes from freezing in the winter.

No ideas for how the building will be repurposed have been officially recorded. MacMahan said she hopes all or part of the school can remain open for use by the community. "My parents went to school there, you know. One thing that was special about that school is that it kept connections in the community alive. I'd just be broken-hearted if the school wasn't used for something that maintained those connections. I'd love to see it become some sort of focal point for the community," she said.

Jeanice Garfield, a member of the Springfield School Board, suggested that parts of the building could be retrofitted to become a town hall. Winot thinks the building might be best used as senior housing or offices. "I haven't heard a lot of talk about it," he said.

Garfield said the school board has focused much of its energy on transferring Park Street School students to the districts' two other elementary schools at the start of the next school year. Union Street School and Elm Hill School were expanded and modernized as part of the consolidation plan.

She said the issue of what to do with the Park Street School building "has been simmering in the background. It's getting to be the time when we'll begin appointing citizens to help us decide." One thing Garfield said is clear: "There are a lot of people who don't want the school to be demolished."

The building was opened with much fanfare, and served as a focal point for the town's social events throughout the years. Now, Bull said she wants to help her students celebrate and honor the school at its closing. The school is planning an event in early June to show the documentary, and highlight tributes from other students at the school.

After housing the education of tens of thousands of students over the course of three centuries, it's safe to say the building had a good run — and that's something to celebrate.

Johanna Sorrentino, a former Herald reporter, attended Park Street School from 1990 to 1994. She is now working as an editor for a website in San Francisco.