City councilors, current and retired educators, members of several city boards and dozens of residents turned out to celebrate in the gymnasium.
EASTHAMPTON – “If it takes a good family to build a new house, then it takes a great community to build a new school house.”
So said school committee chairman Peter Gunn at Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the new Easthampton High School. The city has been working for more than 10 years to improve its school facilities and several speakers offered their gratitude for what they said was the community’s commitment to great education.
Among them were Mayor Michael A. Tautznik, state Sen. Michael R. Knapik, D-Westfield, Massachusetts School Building Authority executive director Katherine Craven, high school building committee chairman Michael W. Buehrle, Sr., and others.
City councilors, current and retired educators, members of several city boards and dozens of residents turned out to celebrate in the gymnasium.
The high school ELF Jazz Band provided music for the occasion and senior Shealyn Berube sang the National Anthem. Principal Dr. Vito Perrone said the school was all about them and their peers, present and future.
“They breathe life into those instruments and they breathe life into this school,” said Perrone.
Voters provided a vehicle for funding last year when they passed a debt exclusion override by about a 3-1 margin. This will allow the city to take out a bond to pay 36 percent of the $40.7 million project. The MSBA will foot the other 64 percent.
“It just goes to show you what everyone in our city thinks about kids and the education they’re going to have,” said Buehrle.
Gunn spoke to the students of the city, some of whom were in attendance.
“Think of it as a social contract, a mutual obligation between the generations,” he said. “We, the adults, will build it, but you will continue to finish it with what you achieve here in the years and decades ahead.”
The new school is set to open after spring vacation in 2013. The current facility is more than 50 years old and its condition was such a concern for the New England Association for Schools and Colleges that it was given “warning” accreditation status, which is two steps away from termination.
“This city put its children first and really put its future first,” said Knapik. “We all know bricks and mortars are bricks and mortars, but what goes on in the school is ultimately what shapes” the future.
The shovel turning took place next to the faculty parking lot. Tautznik, Gunn, Knapik and Craven were among the first to break ground.