Norwich school year almost gets off to smooth start

Norwich - The first day of school went smoothly Tuesday until it was almost over.

Two minor accidents Tuesday afternoon snarled downtown traffic, including school buses on their way to collecting elementary school students, leaving some students late by more than an hour. Police said one accident occurred at the intersection of Main and North Main streets, and the second at an intersection on Laurel Hill Avenue.

Superintendent Abby Dolliver said some buses picking up students from the John M. Moriarty and the Samuel Huntington elementary schools were delayed by as much as an hour. No one was injured and no school buses were involved in the accidents, city officials said.

Dolliver said the traffic delays added to more mundane first-day bus issues - students on the wrong bus - but everyone was accounted for and home by 5 p.m.

Dolliver said in the future, if major bus delays are expected, the school system will call parents through the School Messenger system so they won't become frustrated at not being able to reach their school principals or First Student bus company officials.

"It was going great until now," Dolliver said at 5 p.m.

At 7:45 a.m., a student approached the new side window between the main entrance and the office at Kelly Middle School and told school secretary Joan Eaton that she was new and didn't know where to go.

"Everybody's new, honey," Eaton responded. "The building's new."

Kelly Middle School is in the midst of a $40 million expansion and renovation that has opened a new office complex, a renovated and air-conditioned gymnasium, brightly lit hallways, several new classrooms and a new paint color scheme, including bright red lockers that instantly met with students' approval.

"It feels like I'm in high school," eighth-grader Reginald Veillard said.

Middle school students also had to wear school uniforms for the first time, a policy that received a much colder response from some students. Like their elementary school counterparts, middle school students must wear blue or khaki pants, shorts or skirts, blue-collared shirts with solid-colored sweatshirts or jackets.

"I hate them," eighth-grader Victoria Duffy said.

"You'll get used to them," said her friend, Melissa Walton, who moved to Norwich from Colchester and doesn't mind the uniforms.

Dolliver and Board of Education Chairman Charles Jaskiewicz, who also heads the School Building Committee, started their day at Kelly Tuesday morning.

"There are still some things that need to be tweaked," Jaskiewicz said of the opening.

In the office, a camera that is supposed to give office staff a view of the outside entrance was not yet installed. Sitting at her new side window, Eaton can determine whether to let a visitor directly into the office, or open the main door to the school hallway.

In October, 15 new classrooms, an elevator, new bathrooms, the art room and two new rooms created where the former gymnasium stage used to be will open.

Music classrooms will open in October, when the new classroom wing opens. The two-story rear classroom wing will close, and students will move into the new wing. Renovations to the 16-room rear wing are expected to be done by next August.

The last wing to be renovated, the 13 classrooms near the library, will close in the fall of 2011 and be completed by January 2012.

It was a year of change for the entire district. The Greeneville and Bishop elementary schools were closed in June. The Thames River Academy alternative high school moved to the Bishop building, and Norwich Adult Education moved into the former alternative high school building.

c.bessette@theday.com