By JEANNINE NOTA-MASSE It's already October! The beginning of the fall season and the beginning of the school year are similar. You're dipping your toe in, getting a taste of the fall, yet it's mixed in with memories of summertime and you still want to
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It’s already October!
The beginning of the fall season and the beginning of the school year are similar. You’re dipping your toe in, getting a taste of the fall, yet it’s mixed in with memories of summertime and you still want to keep one foot on the sand, not ready to let go of summer just yet.
Our school year starts off the same way. We dip our toes into new routines and schedules, getting a little taste of the school year while still reminiscing about summer. But before we know it, we are all in.
We are in full-on school year mode with all new classes, homework, sports, new after-school jobs and new routines, and suddenly, summer seems like a wonderful, yet distant memory. Our summer memories are wonderful, but the year ahead will be even more exciting as we embark on new adventures.
This summer, we completed a construction project that was just like dipping our toe into the water at the beach, while keeping one foot planted on the sand. At Eden Park Elementary School, we renovated one entire wing of the school as a model for potential improvements throughout our city. We have one foot in the future, but yet, we still have one foot planted firmly in the sands of the past, as our other school buildings are in desperate need of updates.
The Eden Park Pathfinder Project was an ambitious two-month construction project designed to show our educators, our students, our families and our community what our students’ lives will look like as they embark on future careers. We are hopeful the new learning spaces will prepare them for 21st century lives and jobs in ways our current schools can’t, with our feet still planted back in the 20th-century sand. They will learn the 21st-century skills needed to make them competitive locally and globally as we send them out into the world after high school graduation.
On Oct. 19, we invite everyone to come to Eden Park Elementary School for a public event. An Open House will take place for everyone in our Cranston community and anyone else from around the state who wishes to visit, from 12 p.m. until 2 p.m. It will give everyone a taste of the future as we prepare as a community to be all in with the next stage of our school building construction projects.
These projects will reach all sides of our city, will affect all of our students in one way or another, and they will also affect our students for generations to come. Just like the memories of our past summertime activities will be wonderful and nostalgic, our past school building memories will be also wonderful and nostalgic, but the future of our schools will be even more exciting, innovative and wonderful.
I ask you to join us on Oct. 19, and I ask you to continue to support us as we embark on this educational journey in the 21st century together. Jeannine Nota-Masse is superintendent of Cranston Public Schools.
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