The ongoing renovation project at Hayfield Elementary School near Kingstowne has resulted in some unexpected friends for the students.
During the $7.5 million project, the school was in the process of getting a new fire alarm system, which was continuously going off during the installation.
"No sooner would I get the students back in the school and the alarm would go off again," said principal Barbara Vaccarella. "The local fire department down the street came and stayed until the problem was fixed. We got to know our local fire department."
Now the crew at Fairfax County Fire Station 37 comes and has lunch with the students every Friday.
The school staff has not only been using the renovations to make friends, it has turned the work into a learning opportunity for the students. Blueprints created by the art classes decorate the walls. Tiles made by every student and staff member were incorporated into the hallways. Lesson plans weave in elements of the construction. And every new temporary wall built to keep the young ones from wandering into dangerous places eventually gets a freshly painted mural.
"When education is your career, you have to be flexible. A new day can always be exciting. You have to keep your sense of humor. You have to be able to laugh," Vaccarella said. "The contractor's job is to tear down and rebuild. An educator's job is to educate."
IF LAUGHING IS THE key to surviving a full-school renovation, Carol Shehan's sides must be aching.
"It's been fun," said the school librarian.
Of course it helped when she finally got to open her new library, complete with more shelves, a reading pit, television studio and most importantly, new furniture.
"I was happy it had matching chairs," Shehan said. "Before, we had space and nothing else. The architect helped us an awful lot, and we took field trips to other schools and saw what to avoid. We never even had a checkout desk before."
Hayfield is getting a lot of things it never had before, such as smaller conference rooms for one-on-one instruction, technology wiring, teachers' lounges, a PTA room, custodian office, stage with a sound system, fine-arts wing, and more overall space. In some cases, the school is gaining walls. A 1970s addition was built in the open classroom-style without walls separating the rooms. The work is expected to be finished in 2003.
For Vaccarella, it has been a learning experience as well. She has never worked in a school that was undergoing such an extensive renovation, especially while still trying to conduct classes.
"My training is as an educator, to be an instructional leader. My training is not in reading blueprints, dealing with contractors. I've learned a whole new vocabulary," Vaccarella said. "But if I say, 'Somebody tell me what a backhoe is,' they do. They spend time with us."
THE PRINCIPAL HAS ALSO made sure the staff, parents and community have been learning throughout the process, especially when it comes to safety. She created a safety committee and published the members' names so that if anyone in the community sees something suspicious, he can report it. She makes sure all the construction workers are wearing their badges. The school sends home a newsletter every week, and every two weeks or so, it contains a construction update.
"We have lots of eyes and ears out there in the community. You set the tone at the very beginning. [The workers] knew from the beginning, if they didn't have their badge they had to leave," Vaccarella said. "We have not had one theft or one inappropriate act."
Which is a good thing, because the entire experience is being recorded as part of the school's history. The students have been working on a book of the ongoing project, complete with photographs.
"The students, I think they love it," Vaccarella said. "I think the kids are fascinated by how space can be reconfigured."