I attended Chalk Hill Middle School in Monroe in 1969, the start of the first complete graduating class grades 6 to 8 in what was then a state-of-the-art facility for a growing community fed largely by Bridgeporters, including my parents, relocating to the suburbs. I was 11 years old. Twenty first graders massacred last Friday in the bloodiest assault on children in U.S. history will never see that age. The surviving kids from Sandy Hook in Newtown will soon relocate to Chalk Hill closed in 2011 as a result of education budget cuts but still standing strong as education officials ready it as a metamorphosis for Sandy Hook students requiring a sanctuary from the despair.
Chalk Hill is located on Fan Hill Road just minutes from the Newtown line. On Monday Governor Dannel Malloy signed an executive order suspending and modifying state statutes to permit the towns of Newtown and Monroe to facilitate Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School to temporarily utilize Chalk Hill School for its classes.
You never forget teachers with impact. For me at Chalk Hill it was Miss Koenig, Mr. Gomez, Miss Hussanita, Mr. Giampaolo (Mr. G) and Mr. Kvancz, and others. I was not the brightest bulb in the socket at Chalk Hill. In fact I was one of the dim ones. I didn’t say much. I didn’t do much. Picked on a lot. Beat up occasionally. The teachers tried to shield me from the bloody noses.
Last Friday Sandy Hook teachers and teachers’ aides turned themselves into human shields in the line of fire to protect the kids. The principal Dawn Hochsprung, the teachers Mary Sherlach, Lauren Rousseau, Victoria Soto, Anne Marie Murphy, Rachel Davino.
Someone once wrote, and I don’t know who, “What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased.”
