Loonfoot Falls Schools: Yes, the Students Get a Map

School's starting soon. From the Valderrama down by the Interstate to Coalworth's, stores have shelves full of pencils, pens, paper, and all the rest. The school building's wall hides final preparations for fall classes.

I don't know if a town's school building tells you something about the town, but I do know that towns have different sorts of schools.

Watab's school, for example, was planned and built as a unified whole: two-story lobby and all.

Loonfoot Falls' school buildings grew in a more impromptu manner.

Work started on the oldest part of the present school complex in the summer of 1908.

The old Chester A. Arthur building still looks about the same as it did a hundred years ago: from the outside. Inside, it's gone through a major remodeling twice: once in the forties, adding a new heating system and insulation; and again in 1999, mostly to remove asbestos.

Until the fifties, elementary students used the first floor and high schoolers had the second: a simple, neat arrangement. Then elementary classes were moved to a new building, an auto shop grew out of the back of the old school, and the Polk Middle School went up next door.

The latest development is the new JFK high school building, more or less behind the middle school.

If you think that sounds complicated, you're not alone. The student manual has a map of the school inside: and I've heard that a few students get lost around the start of each school year.