With the start of the school year fast approaching employees from custodians to principals are busy putting the final touches on their schools.
Stanley Elementary School teachers Betsy Czarnowski and Patty Cummings spent Friday morning painting numbers at the foot of 61 parking spaces so school employees knew where to park. The school recently adopted a tandem parking system in which a lottery system is used to determine who parks where.
"We happen to live nearby," Cummings said. "It's impossible for the staff to figure out where they are designated."
Czarnowski said last year teachers had taken to tying flags on a nearby fence to remember parking spots.
"Sometimes you have to count the spaces to figure out where to park," she said. "It's just little things like that we decided needed to get done."
At the newly opened Fitzgerald Elementary School, incoming first-grade teacher Danielle Melanson opened boxes and organized supplies in her new classroom.
"It's very exciting," she said smiling. "I've been wanting my own classroom."
For Melanson things have come full circle. A Waltham native, she attended the old Fitzgerald Elementary School. Now her former third-grade teacher is her co-worker.
"My mentor teacher is Susan Bigham and she's teaching right next door," she said. "Basically I was hired about two weeks ago so it's been a lot of fast planning. Other than that I've been meeting with Susan and she's given me a lot of advice."
Finishing class lists and school schedules has been a part of pre-school year responsibilities for principals across the district.
"We're finalizing homeroom class lists and making sure teachers have all their duties set up," said Plympton Elementary School Principal Peter Silverman. "Lots of teachers have been in and out during the summer. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of preparation."
Northeast Elementary School Principal Nadene Stein said she's still receiving shipments of school supplies, which will be distributed to teachers and administrators.
"I've given some tours to new students. I did that this morning. New teachers have come down with questions," Stein said on Friday. "Here at Northeast they redid our floors to be ready for the school year."
Waltham High School Principal John Graceffa said he is also ironing out the details for before opening the doors on Wednesday.
"We're doing our usual thing. We're finalizing all of our student schedules What we do is we balance the numbers in classrooms so they are equal," he said. "It's an exciting time for the teachers. I'll be printing all weekend to get schedules and rosters for them."
Throughout the summer, the school custodians waxed floors, power-washed walls and made sure the city's nine public school buildings were ready for the school year.
"We take all the furniture out of the classrooms, we scrub the floors, we put new finish on them," said Plympton Elementary School custodian Miguel Negron, one of four custodians at the building. "We usually work from the top to the bottom floor."
Graceffa also praised the work of the high school's custodians.
"The building looks great. The custodians have done such a great job," he said. "Throughout the whole summer we basically break down every classroom and power-wash the walls. It's a tremendous task. We go through the whole building."
Silverman said since Plympton housed a summer program this year, custodians had an extra challenge.
"The custodians, who've done a wonderful job, are in the final mode of getting the building ready," he said. "We housed a summer program for five weeks and that worked very well, but our custodians had to work around it."
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com
