With a red carpet, cookout and tours, GM schools ready for reopening

 

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2022 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Next Wednesday, Aug. 31 will be the first day of schools for children in the Green Mountain Unified School District and unlike so many schools around the country, not one of the three has a teacher vacancy. But the high school is down two para-professionals and Cavendish Elementary is still looking for a guidance counselor.

Each school has its own way of beginning the year and as the students return to classes with fewer Covid restrictions, here is what they can expect to find.

For her first opening day at Cavendish Town Elementary, new Principal Amy Bohren and her staff are literally rolling out the red carpet for a “Hollywood themed celebrity breakfast” at 7:45 a.m.

“This won’t be popular culture style celebrities,” says Bohren, “but our own local celebrities.”

Included among these will be two former principals — Bob Snarski and George Thomson. Snarski (a member of the last class to graduate from the Duttonville school in 1960) ran the Cavendish school from the early 1970s to 1989 when Thomson took over and was principal until 2018. Bohren says both have great stories to share about the school. When breakfast is done, parents will line the 60-foot red carpet and as the school’s 75 students move outside to participate in the school’s traditional start of the day around the flagpole.

Chester-Andover Elementary will hold its traditional Parent-Teacher Group sponsored back to school picnic on Monday Aug. 29 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. with hot dogs and hamburgers donated by Black River Produce and cooked by members of the Chester Fire Department.  Principal Katherine Fogg, in her last year before retirement, says that the first day is all about settling in the school’s 236 students and getting into a routine.

“The teachers are eager to get their students into their classrooms and begin to get to know each other and their expectations,” says Fogg.  “We’ll let them settle in and have our first school-wide assembly next Friday.”

Green Mountain High Principal Keith Hill said that the back-to-school process begins not on Wednesday, but Tuesday when seventh graders arrive for a half-day orientation.

“The whole seventh-grade team will be here – including teachers and guidance – to welcome them,” says Hill. “They’ll have breakfast together and meet and greet.” After that, the students will walk through their schedules including a tour of the building to see how they get from one class to another. Those students who spent half a year at Green Mountain after a broken water main in 2018 shut down Chester-Andover may be more familiar than others.

On Wednesday, the entire 350-member student body will arrive and the school year will open with an assembly in the auditorium where new teachers will be introduced and the students will hear about opportunities like clubs and sports.

“We’re really excited,” said Hill. “We can’t wait to have the students back in the building.