Schools

Spanish spoken here

Work transforms a portable building used for storage into a classroom.

By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE, Times Correspondent
Published August 23, 2007

Charlie Cartwright, 14, (left) dons a sombrero while talking with Alicia Grigsby, the new Spanish teacher at Notre Dame Catholic School, before the dedication ceremony of the new Spanish building.
	[Times photo: Keri Wiginton]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Keri Wiginton] Monsignor John A. Cippel gives a dedication address in Spanish at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Spanish building named in his honor at Notre Dame Catholic School.

SPRING HILL - Notre Dame Catholic School Spanish teacher Alicia Grigsby spent the past school year sharing a classroom with a math teacher or pushing a cart to other rooms as a mobile teacher. As the math program expanded, she was left with even less classroom space.

The school looked for a solution and found it in a portable building used for storage on the school grounds. It wasn't ready to serve as a classroom, however. It needed a lot of work.

"We completely refurbished the portable," said Notre Dame business manager Ed Carpio.

The bathroom tiles were repaired and replaced. Walls were repaired and painted. Grigsby has turned it into a bright classroom with Spanish flavor that has Latin American flags across the ceiling; labeled containers of oro, rosa, amarillo, azul and other colored beads; and posters. The bathroom doors are identified for ninos and ninas.

The portable now has a name: La Casa del Padre Cippel. Monsignor John Cippel was the school pastor from 2000 to 2004. He remained as spiritual director until his retirement in 2006. The Rev. Richard Jankowski is the current school pastor.

"I'm very honored," Cippel said. "I just think it's wonderful that they remembered me. These were some of the best years of my life."

The room's name hangs outside the entrance and was unveiled at a recent building blessing and dedication. That included a ceremony outside the building with Cippel, Jankowski, school principal Sister Eileen Marie Woodbury, Grigsby, school staffers, guests and students.

Notre Dame Catholic School, established in 1985, serves 213 students from early childhood to Grade 8 from six parishes.

"We're growing," Carpio said. "We have grown by 24 percent over a four-year period." All students take Spanish lessons every day.

Parents have been supportive of the transformation.

"I think it's fabulous," said Karen Stalter, who has a second-grader, a sixth-grader and a child entering the early childhood program this year. "The children need to have Spanish. It's an integral part of living in Florida."

Some parents donated labor, skills, materials and money for the refurbishing. The parents of one student offered to pay for half the cost of the work if the room could be named for Cippel. The school obliged.

"I was happy it was being dedicated to, and named after, Monsignor Cippel," said parent Patricia Arndt. She has sixth- and eighth-graders this year, and her husband, Thomas Arndt, donated the labor and tile for the bathroom floors.

Seventh-grader Savannah Venable, 12, appreciates how the addition of La Casa del Padre Cippel will benefit her and her classmates. "I think it's a better idea because last year we were confused. I think it's a much better idea to have a building for the Spanish groups."

Seventh-grader Brittany Blackburn, 12, agrees. "I think it's going to be better because there will be more room for everything and for supplies, and I think it will benefit our school."

A poster on the side of the portable reads: "The little portable that could" or, as Cippel called it during the dedication, "La pequena casa que pudo."

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 21:07:34]