SWAMPSCOTT, MA — As Swampscott prepares to welcome students to the town’s first new elementary school built in more than 70 years this week, Superintendent Pamela Angelakis said there is a combination of excitement, anticipation and nervous energy among staff, parents and students.
Staff, which had been allowed in the building last week to help put together classrooms and get a better sense of where everything is in the new townwide K-4 school, had its convocation on Monday with the first day of school across the district set for Wednesday.
Angelakis praised school leadership for helping create extensive opening protocols designed to ease any anxiety among students and parents about where everyone should go — and how to get there — in the first days inside the new, expansive $98 million campus.
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“The level of detail is absolutely incredible,” Angelakis told the School Committee. “Because there are a few young parents at the community meeting (earlier this month) that were asking (questions) like: ‘Will my child be met at the bus?’ and ‘Will my child go inside, will they know what to do?'”
“They have the level of detail absolutely down to a science. I’m so impressed.”
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Angelakis noted that there is some work that still needs to be completed in the building and that workers will be conducting those operations after school hours during the first “couple of months, anyway” of the school year. She said some construction supervisors may be in the building to answer questions and troubleshoot during the school day but that all those in the building have undergone CORI checks and will be verified as belonging there upon entrance.
She said she recently met with teachers at the school and “giddy is the word that comes to mind” about their reaction to the new building.
“The excitement was just absolutely palpable,” she said.
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She said Swampscott police have committed to “work very diligently” with the schools for “as long as it takes” to make sure parents and families are adhering to drop-off, pick-up and parking rules for the surrounding neighborhood.
“There was concern from people that they want to be able to walk their child in (to the building),” she said. “We explained that we’ve been doing this drop-in roll since we opened Blaney and Hadley. It’s working.”
She said resident-only parking spaces will be clearly marked and urged parents to respect the neighbors amid the large influx of vehicle traffic and student walking traffic to the nearby streets.
“The police are going to help us enforce that,” she said.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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