JACKSON – Staff, students, former students and parents came out to say goodbye to the Christa McAuliffe Middle School during a recent “Honoring McAuliffe” open house event.
A ceremony was held where memories were shared to note the many years the school has served the community. The district is closing the school and selling the building and property to make up for a budget shortfall created by cuts in state aid funding.
This farewell ceremony served to honor Christa McAuliffe Middle School, named after a teacher who went into space and lost her life in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Her motto “I touch the future, I teach” encapsulated her belief in the profound impact teachers have on shaping future generations and it served as the theme of the 90-minute event.
Two 8th grade sisters finishing up at the school came by for the final goodbye. “It is really sad being the last graduating class even though we have been here for three short years it definitely had an impact on us,” 14-year-old Brianna Kosarin said.
“Being here allowed us to introduce ourselves to all the different teachers and we’ve kind of become a bit of a family with them. It is sad as it is kind of like losing a home,” Bianca Kosarin, 14, remarked.
Bianca also served as class president and spoke during the ceremony held later in the evening. “It definitely had a big impact on our lives.”
Special Education teacher Lauren Komaitsky was wearing her McAuliffe Elementary School shirt. “I student taught here at McAuliffe in 2001 and got rehired officially in 2003 and was here until 2022. I switched over to Goetz for the last three years but I’ve been in the school district literally since college.”
Ironically, initial plans of closing a middle school in the district had Goetz as the school that would be closed and the building sold but those plans changed by the Board of Education.
“I taught literacy most of my career. This is a very special place. This is where we all grew up I’d say. We started in our early 20s, a whole group of us and became friends and we have a million amazing memories and moments with students in this building and with each other and it is an absolute heartache that it is closing. It was a huge chapter of our lives,” she added.
Teachers were looking around the building and sharing memories. Earlier in the day they had a special event of their own that included opening up some old memories planted from the past when the school first opened.
Teacher Jerri Porlow has been a part of the school since 1993 and appropriately, she was present for the opening of the school’s time capsule which was part of the staff event that involved, “retired people, people who got transferred to other buildings. We called it sweet endings. We had dessert and we opened the time capsule.”
The time capsule included various items, many of them space related in honor of the educator for whom the school was named after and it brought back memories for former Vice Principal John Dunzclman Sr. better known as the “Space Guy.” Dunzclman even wore a NASA space flight while the time capsule was unpacked, revealing school newsletters, a TV Guide with CBS News Anchor Connie Chung on the cover from 1993, miniature spacecraft and many photos that featured administrators and teachers of the past.
Also present was current Principal Debra Phillips who told The Jackson Times, “I’ve been in this school building for 17 years. It is not about the building it is about the legacy and traditions that we started here and adjusted as time went on.”
Phillips added, “times change, kids change, technology changes and so we’ve changed with the times and we’ve tried to keep this school as a place that felt safe for kids where they can explore and find out who they are, build relationships and give them a solid education so that they could take that next leg in their educational journey and be productive members of the Jackson community and beyond.”
Next year she will become the principal of what will now be called the Jackson Township 5-6 School which is now the Goetz Middle School.
Parent Jessica Canada came with her family to say goodbye. She told The Jackson Times, “My daughter has been here since last year in the special needs program here and next year she’ll be going to Memorial or rather Jackson Middle School, that will have 7th and 8th graders.”
She expressed sadness over the closure of the school. “You want your kids to graduate from where you graduated from. I’ve lived in Jackson my whole life. I went to Switlik. I went to Jackson Memorial (High School) but my daughter has been to Elms and then she came here for middle school. I liked it here because she had the same teacher throughout middle school – 6th,7th and 8th grade. She’ll have all new teachers when she goes to high school. It has me feeling sad. Hopefully, they can figure out our deficit so we don’t have to keep closing schools. We don’t get enough (state aid) funds and it is taking programs away from our special education kids.”
For Superintendent Nicole Pormilli, the event was a grim reminder of a similar event held last year when the state directed the closure of the Sylvia Rosenauer Elementary School. That 60-year-old school was sold as part of a sweeping round of cuts that the district experienced and it was sold in order to balance the school district’s budget.
The school board rejected that proposal, leaving the final decision to the state Department of Education and when a state monitor said they have no choice but to overturn the vote. Rosenauer alumni came out to say goodbye to that school during a special program held at that school.
