New Haven Independent

They were all there Thursday to greet Anthony Lapo and the 399 other kids who arrived at 8:30 inaugurating the fine new Christopher Columbus Family Academy (CCFA) in Fair Haven, one of two school construction projects brought to completion this month in time for the beginning of the academic year.

The dual-language school’s students had a newly rebuilt home — and a new name: They’re now officially called “blue dashers,” after insects that go through a metamorphosis as they adapt to their environment.

With everything gleaming and the ribbon just removed, staffers like Nunez-Evans, the school’s library and media specialist, said that she loved every feature of the new place

Everyone had favorites, of course: in Nunez-Evans’ case, the library best.

“Light shines in,” she said motioning to the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on Grand and Blatchley Avenues. “And then our kids, lit up with learning, light our way out when they leave at the end of each day.”

The superintendent, mayor, and media were around him. All the kids waving pompoms beneath plastic construction helmets provided by Gilbane Construction, which built the city’s 27th new school for $38.5 million. So Anthony and his fellow seventh- graders were ]overwhelmed by the attention.

But he did say he loved the new gymnasium; the old version of the school didn’t have one. Nor did the old Strong School on Perkins and Grand, where the school has been sojourning during construction.

Sue Weisselberg, the school construction coordinator (pictured with alderwoman Migdalia Castro), was enjoying the space too. She took special pleasure in the vast linked interior architecture created by the shining new gym separated by a stage/performance space from the cafeteria, all three spaces connected.

“This means we can have big or little performances, or do things in the round,” she said. “This configuration is the first of its kind in the city.”

Columbus is a dual -anguage school; that means academic subjects are taught in Spanish one week and English the next. Science is the second theme at the school. For that reason, principal Abbie Benitez said her favorite feature of the new building is the outdoor courtyard. “Now we can study science not only in our fabulous new laboratory, but outside as well.”

With art teacher Melissa Sands by her side, Benitez revealed how the school mascot and name, emblazoned in gleaming green and blue paint on the gym floor, came to be officially the Blue Dashers, or, the Escurridizos Azueles.

“A blue dasher is type of dragon fly,” she said. “We were by the Quinnipiac River and a whole bunch of them came as we discussed the mascot name. Here was an insect that was quick and fast and went through metamorphosis. And that’s what our kids do. They enter being mono-lingual and leave being bilingual, and we do it fast. Hence, we’re blue dashers, from this day on.”

The kids did research and helped create the design on the gym floor. Art, said both Benitez and Sands is also intrinsic to the dual language and science theme. Art helps students use their imaginations to see what’s not right before them, to conceptualize, Benitez said. “That’s critical to the scientific imagination.”

Sands’ favorite spot is, of course, her beautiful new art room complete with a kiln. Her take on art’s role was a little different:as a bridge in a dual language school. “In our school,” said Sands, “my purpose is to help kids tell their story in the visual language of art, where they don’t need either Spanish or English. We cross the gap.”

So when the school left the old building, every student and staff person left a handprint on this painting, called “Columbus Family Portrait.” Now the painting, which expresses, she said, a sense of family and community, hangs in the lobby of the Blue Dashers’ new building.

In formal remarks, Superintendent Reginald Mayo said the building was created “because we love you.” He elicited a verbal pledge from the students not to write graffiti on their new digs.

Mayor John DeStefano added that CCFA brings the fourth and final new school in Fair Haven to completion. (John Martinez, Clinton, Fair Haven Middle are the other three.) In all, he said, that accounts for $200 million out of the total $1.5 billion municipal school construction program.

He acknowledged the builders; the architects, Svigals and Partners; the community support, such as the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity that gave all the kids new book bags; and, most significantly, the teachers and staff. “The most important thing, of course,” DeStefamp said, “is not the building itself. It’s what you do in the building. But doesn’t this building pick you up!”

Pom poms pompommed, and cheers rose high into the shining new rafters.