"New Building, Same Heart," Lower School Celebrates Re-Opening
The Lower School officially re-opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the morning of the first day of school.
Students in first through fourth grade arrived with their families to find a refreshed, lighter, brighter Welles Building. The renovations included a reconfiguration of spaces so that the homeroom classes are now in the “heart” of the building adjacent to the central commons with updated science, music, and library spaces anchoring the corners of the building, new flexible learning breakout spaces, increased natural lighting throughout, improved air quality, as well as new lighting, paint, carpet and fixtures. Pops of color, furniture designed for innovative learning, and child-friendly accents throughout rounded out the renovation.
“New building, same heart” was Head of Lower School Meaghan Mallin’s opening theme for her faculty, staff, students and families. “Our Lower School space now better reflects who we are as a learning community: joyful, energized, and child centered. All around there are cues to our children that say, “this is your space.” Of course, what really sets our Lower School apart is the culture and community we share together within our walls. We feel very lucky to share that magic in this beautifully updated building!”
In addition, work also began this summer on the new Susan Haigh Carver ’51 Dining Hall & Commons following an official ground-breaking ceremony last spring.
The Schlesinger Library was completely transformed to serve as the temporary cafeteria for the 2017-2018 school year, allowing for the same hot and cold food choices.
Additional on-campus improvements include:
The MakerSpace, which is now much larger, has moved to Upper School.
The School Store will move to a new, more central location on the ground floor of Grace House.
The Lower School and Middle School both received new roofs.
Additional faculty and staff parking was added at this time in order to mitigate disruption during the school year.
This summer’s projects are part of the school’s long-term Campus Master Plan spearheaded by Campus Master Planning Taskforce co-chairs Randy Salvatore and Stephanie Bowling Zeigler ’81, and overseen by Director of Facilities Ed Kirk with support from the Facilities team in partnership with Claris Construction.
More information about the school’s long-term plans can be found at www.countryschool.net/futurecampus.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
