690 Saint Paul

I wait with anticipation to see our new school facility tomorrow. We spent the last school year in educational limbo...teaching and learning in an abandoned eight story Bausch and Lomb factory. Half of the factory building was refurbished a few years earlier to make room for a charter school which opened and then closed again. The building sat empty with crumbling cement, shattered windows, abandoned furniture and boxes of leftover school files and supplies. Our elementary school building needed to be repaired. We needed to relocate for one year. The city made a deal with a landlord. The Bausch and Lomb factory was reopened and we entered 690 Saint Paul in September '08.

From day one we experienced difficulties. There were dripping ceilings, soaked and stained tiles, a backed up sewer system on the first floor which flooded out the entire kindergarten, a mouse infestation, the occasional bat in the stairwell and an entirely unsafe and unreliable elevator which broke down a number of times. The landlord was not sympathetic. We spent most of the year wondering whether or not we were working on top of a toxic dump, located conveniently under the playground at the front of the school. One day, people stole into the school and got onto the roof. They threw stones or bricks over the edge onto Saint Paul, thankfully missing people and cars and instead, hitting windows at the Department of Social Services. All in all, 690 Saint Paul was a serious challenge to morale and the learning process. We soldiered through. Deo Volente, this new school year in a new building will be a wonderful change for all.