Grown-ups flocked to the Tisbury School Saturday morning, in numbers unseen since the 2022 annual town meeting in the old gymnasium, for a public unveiling of the recently renovated building.
For most in the crowd, it was their first chance to see the inside of the school since the two-year, $81 million school revamp was largely completed earlier this year.
“There is no building in a community that is more important than its school,” said principal John Custer, in welcoming remarks outside the building’s stately 1929 facade.
“This school building project is a wonderful investment in children, education and families [and] Tisbury has every right to be proud of this,” Mr. Custer told the gathered listeners.
Town administrator Jay Grande, select board chair John Cahill, Tisbury School committee chair Amy Houghton, Island superintendent of schools Richie Smith and planning board chair Connie Alexander, a retired Tisbury School teacher, also took the podium at the ceremony for brief remarks amid enthusiastic applause.
“We will have this building for decades to come. Many generations of families will pass through these doors,” Ms. Alexander said.
Mr. Grande, who is in the final months of his employment with the town, smiled as he congratulated the Tisbury community while invoking the school’s tiger mascot.
“You are tigers. You kept going. You moved forward. I’m just so proud of this community,” Mr. Grande said.
Ms. Houghton and Ms. Alexander also praised the professional team behind the renovation and addition: Tappé Architects, project managers CHA and construction management company, W.T. Rich, which moved multiple supervisors to the Vineyard for the duration of the project.
“They have most certainly earned the status of Islander,” Ms. Alexander said.
Ms. Houghton also commended the Tisbury School staff for withstanding years of disruption, which included moving the older grades and their teachers to Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School for a semester in 2019 so lead paint could be removed from classrooms.
“You have endured what no one could ever imagine. And you have done it with pride, you’ve done it with spirit, compassion, respect, and compromise,” Ms. Houghton said.
Ten current Tisbury School students then came forward with scissors to snip ceremonial cuts in a broad blue ribbon stretching across the school’s old front steps.
Wielding a pair of shears the length of her own arm, seventh-grader Zoe Lundberg made the final cut, parting the ribbon and ushering in the most-anticipated part of Saturday’s event: tours of the freshly-renovated school.
Entering through the new main entrance, in a small addition facing the playground, tour groups followed Mr. Custer, assistant principal Melissa Ogden and other staffers who led them from bottom to top of the three-story school.
Not everything was open, yet. The renovation and addition ran into delays with the wing housing the new gymnasium and music rooms, which are still roped off from the rest of the school until they’re done.
But visitors were able to look into the gym through interior windows that showed half- and full-court basketball nets and backboards above a gleaming floor.
Contractors are still finishing the school grounds, as well. The playground has been installed, while a playing field for sports is nearing completion.
Inside, however, the school was ready for business when children returned in September, after nearly two years in modular classrooms on the William street side of campus.
Saturday’s visitors — who included parents, retired teachers, recent students now in high school and other community members — were wide-eyed as they filed through classrooms, already decorated with student artwork and Halloween decor.
The renovation took advantage of existing high ceilings and windows to maximize natural light throughout the building, which has
colorful, floor-to-ceiling murals of Vineyard Haven harbor on the hallway and cafeteria walls.
The double-height cafeteria is also wired with video screens, including a jumbo screen overhead that on Saturday was showing images and video from the construction project and earlier years at the school.
One three-story stairwell doubles as a world atlas, covered with maps on a grand scale — including one that shows Tisbury kids just where they are on the Island, as well as on the planet.
The maps were installed over the October holiday weekend and teachers have already begun bringing students to the stairwell for geography lessons, Ms. Ogden told her tour group.
Instead of a centralized school library and media center, Tisbury School has one on each of the three classroom floors, which are organized by age from kindergarten and primary grades on the ground floor to middle-school classes on the third.
Security is tighter at the new school, with entrances now requiring a staffer’s key card to unlock two sets of double doors.
Between the two sets of doors, a bench provides a waiting place for parents and visitors.
The school’s original main doors will not open again: There’s now a classroom behind them, its floor still adorned with a tiled initial T from the old foyer.
Town residents’ next chance to see inside the school is likely to be a high school forum on Nov. 6, or next month’s school committee meeting, usually held at 4 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month in the cafeteria.
The special town meeting on Dec. 17 has been booked for the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center in Oak Bluffs, suggesting the gym won’t be ready for town meetings until 2025.
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