Angels of past 'singing now'

Students, staff and parents celebrated the last day of school Friday at Buena Vista Elementary School with a big party.

There was singing and dancing, cookies and lemonade and a slide show of the past school year.

But this was no ordinary last day.

In less than a week, the school will be stripped of school books, pencil sharpeners, desks and chairs and the empty buildings turned over to the City of Colorado Springs to house the West Center for Intergenerational Learning.

Buena Vista is one of eight elementary schools closed this year in Colorado Springs School District 11 to cut costs because of the district's declining enrollment. The Montessori school housed there will move to Washington Elementary, and the regular students will attend class at West Middle School, which will have children in preschool through eighth grade next year.

Friday's celebration drew former staff and students, including Ann Tilton Newport, who told the assembled crowd about her time as a student at BV.

She began kindergarten there in September 1929, when Roy J. Wasson was principal.

Wasson went on to become superintendent of D-11.

Newport recalled the red, yellow and blue chairs in the kindergarten room, the polished wood floors and the auditorium that was across from the office. The upper floors were added when she was in fifth grade.

There were a couple of extra buildings on the grounds then, she said. One was a house where the janitor and his family lived, and the other was a small building that housed the bathrooms. "There were flush toilets, though," she said.

The wooden desks had ink wells and penmanship was important then, she said.

"They actually had a district person who came around and checked our penmanship," she said, adding that she still has a starred paper from one of those visits.

Newport, who taught elementary school in Aurora, reminded the children that while the building may no longer hold class, "the halls and classrooms will still be filled with the angels of the past. I think I hear them singing now."

This year's students then stood and sang their own rendition of a "You're a Grand Old School" to the tune of "You're a Grand Old Flag."

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