Bricks and mortar make a building, but people make a building a school.

One year ago, construction began on the new Raymond A. Geiger Elementary School, located on outer College Street. Behind the scenes, people have been meeting and planning to create a new school community.

The new Geiger School, which will open for the 2009-2010 school year, marks the culmination of years of proposals, applications, building committee meetings and public hearings. Initially, the project developed to replace Pettingill School, built in 1926. As district-wide needs were considered, the scope and design of the project provided for reducing overcrowding at Montello School, as well. Staffing at Geiger will include all Pettingill faculty and a dozen teachers from Montello School.

Pettingill and Montello personnel have been meeting during three workshop days this year to get to know one another, establish priorities, build team relationships and discuss the importance of establishing practices that nurture a sense of community among students, parents and educators. Research shows that schools that pay attention to building and maintaining community have greater student success and help children feel connected.

During the first workshop session, teachers engaged in “getting to know you” activities and made a list of “wishes and dreams” for the new school. They also began examining the seven principles of school community-building, as outlined in the Responsive Classroom publication, “In Our School.” These principles guide decision making at every level of daily life at the school. The principles address the needs of the whole child, family involvement, social interaction and adult modeling.

The second session, held in January, extended the discussion of wishes and dreams to narrowing the list to those things that could actually happen. Teacher teams reflected on the seven principles and presented their “commitment statements” to their colleagues. School-wide procedures will include “morning meetings,” designed to strengthen bonds within the classroom and across the school.

The March workshop included work with consultants from the Center for Hate and Violence Prevention. The new school population will be diverse, both ethnically and socio-economically. The faculty engaged in bias awareness activities and discussed plans for helping children develop respect for themselves and others. The afternoon was spent fine tuning plans for opening the school.

Developing school community and teaching teams doesn’t happen in three days, but the framework is in place at Geiger Elementary.