Students in Groton off to new schools after closing
Shuttering of Pleasant Valley means moving for some grade-schoolers
Groton — Jessica Bradford stood outside her Nereus Avenue home with her middle child, wanting to make sure her daughter got on the right bus — bus 3 — to Charles Barnum Elementary.
“We saw the bus go by and was like” — she gasped — “is that your bus?” Bradford said. She wasn’t used to having so many buses run through her neighborhood of military families near the Navy Lodge. And after she and her daughter stepped outside, bus 14 to Mary Morrisson Elementary drove by.
“I’m scared,” Janessa Bradford said about starting fifth grade at a new school. “None of my friends are in my class. We all got split up, so I’m probably not going to see them until recess and lunch.”
Most of her friends are going to other schools, she said, like Northeast Academy, Catherine Kolnaski and S.B. Butler.
Janessa and the others at her bus stop are all former Pleasant Valley Elementary School students who are off to a new school. Pleasant Valley closed at the end of last school year, a response to budget cuts in the district.
Jessica Bradford noted that there was a meet-and-greet on Monday, and she felt she was in the know about her daughter’s school change.
Sonja Collins said of her fifthgrade son, “He only got one year at Pleasant Valley. It was a bummer. It was nice to be able to walk to school.”
But she added, “We’ve heard good things about Charles Barnum, so we’re going in with positive thoughts.”
The largest share of former Pleasant Valley students are now at Charles Barnum, and many are at-
“We’ve heard good things about Charles Barnum so we’re going in with positive thoughts.” SONJA COLLINS, MOTHER OF A FIFTH-GRADER WHO IS ENROLLED AT CHARLES BARNUM ELEMENTARY, WHERE THE MAJORITY OF FORMER STUDENTS FROM PLEASANT VALLEY SCHOOL ARE AFTER IT CLOSED
tending Mary Morrisson. Former Pleasant Valley Principal Kathleen Miner is now principal of Mary Morrisson.
She said that Pleasant Valley students visited Mary Morrisson in the spring, and there were letters sent home over the summer.
“We were all out there to greet them this morning, which was kind of fun,” Miner said, and parents were welcomed and offered coffee.
Asked if her transfer from Pleasant Valley made it easier for the students switching schools, she laughed and said, “Well, they were glad to see me.”
At the end of the school day, Janessa Bradford said her first day of school was good and she is now less nervous. She is particularly excited about an upcoming field trip to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum.
Others who stepped off her bus did so while singing the 1958 song “Lollipop,” in high spirits despite their bus arriving 43 minutes later than scheduled.
Superintendent Michael Graner attributed this to two accidents that kept buses stuck in traffic before arriving at Charles Barnum, and to the “new geography” of the bus routes.
But he otherwise felt the first day of school went well and said students settled in nicely.
Having visited Charles Barnum, Mary Morrisson, both middle schools and the high school, Graner commented, “It was just an absolute delight to observe the children that came in, ready for school.”