Construction kept students away for a year. Now they're wandering new hallways at the old site of Gulfport Elementary.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published June 4, 2003
GULFPORT - They left the hallowed ground in tears more than a year ago, migrating 27 blocks east to take up temporary residence at another school.
They returned this week, grateful to be coming home to the site where generations of children have learned reading, writing and arithmetic.
Nearly 420 students returned to Gulfport Elementary Monday, eager to break in a building constructed where their old school used to stand at 2014 52nd St. S.
The school is one of three in the county where students attend on an extended 210-day year. Because of cutbacks, Gulfport students will go to school through June only, and will be on a regular 180-day schedule next year.
The first day at the new school began early for Mary Blinkhorn, 11, who awoke at 5 and was too excited to go back to sleep. She and her younger sister, Kathleen, who is 8, set out early with their mother, Jackie, to traverse the half-dozen blocks from their home to the school.
Several moms, including Jenny Perez, underestimated the time it would take to walk to school and arrived after classes had started. Perez walked the deserted hallways with 8-year-old Chloe and 9-year-old Kyle until another parent gave her directions.
Fran Paich and her sons Moggy and Bryce, both kindergarteners, also arrived late. Spellbound by their new surroundings, the kids got sidetracked looking for miniature frogs in the lush landscaping. They finally managed to find the right classroom with some help from a parent volunteer.
Once the school day began, it was business as usual. In Amy Seibert's class, Caroline Dunning, 6, showed her classmates photos of her family's weekend trip to Disney World. At lunch time, kids feasted on fried chicken and honey-wheat rolls. In Cheryl Copeland's music class, they sang "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" in three-part harmony.
Principal Lisa Grant, who was recently assigned to Gulfport from Maximo Elementary, spent the day visiting classrooms and introducing herself to the children. She welcomed them to their "new palace."
Construction supervisors also circulated throughout the day, inspecting what turned out to be a collaborative effort of the architect, the School Board and the city of Gulfport. Concerned that a cookie-cutter prototype would replace the charm and character of the 1920s-era edifice, alumni and Gulfport residents had asked if a portion of the school's Mediterranean style could be retained before the building was demolished last spring.
The contractor and the district agreed, substituting a red tile roof for the standard metal roof other elementary schools have. Decorative tiles and precast medallions were laid into the concrete and a decorative band was added to the building's upper perimeter. One of the school's two original arches was removed from the rest of the building and erected at the entrance of the new school.
Special care was taken to preserve most of the property's two-dozen oaks.
Despite the extra work, the school was built in just under 13 months, project manager Brian Murphy said. There was pressure to finish quickly because a new group of students is coming in August to Sanderlin Elementary, the school the Gulfport children inhabited for the past year.
Sanderlin, which will offer a Primary Years International Baccalaureate program, was one of three St. Petersburg schools built as part of a court settlement to end busing for desegregation.
At the end of the day, as safety patrols took their places and parents began arriving by car and on foot to gather their children, Grant, the principal, sighed with relief.
"Considering the kids didn't know where their classrooms were, everything went really well," she said.
