Emotional End at Crest View Elementary Before School Repurposed
At Crest View Elementary this week, everyone is a graduate. The Brooklyn Park K-5 school has served the community since 1960, but now its students, faculty and staff are saying goodbye.
Emotional End at Crest View Elementary
It is no easy task to get kindergarteners to sit still. This special event might do the trick as the kids gear up for graduation. Principal Stephanie Webster knows this one is extra special. She got on the microphone before the kids graduated:
“These are the last, most famous kindergarteners to grace these hallways,” Webster said.
Every grade is graduating. Kindergarteners with a ceremony, 1-4 with a walkthrough and 5th grade with an extended ceremony.
That’s because Crest View Elementary is being torn down and rebuilt as a community education space. The decision was made based on many years of research, as well as declining enrollment.
Principal Webster addresses families ahead of the school-wide graduation ceremonies.
A Memorable Experience
Webster said the school had a long runway to prepare, but it’s still a bittersweet time. The district’s done a variety of things to help the school celebrate its past and present students, including an alumni event earlier this week. The all-school graduation is meant to be special for the students specifically.
“I want it to be amazing, and an experience that is memorable,” Webster said. “It also has a lot of sadness attached to it. So we are kind of vacillating between those two emotions.”
Though the building will still have a place in the district, it won’t be this elementary school any more. One kindergarten graduate, Saran, said she’s sad to celebrate:
“I don’t want to leave the school because there’s really fun things here,” she said.
At the ceremony, Saran and her classmates all got to share what they want to be when they grow up. She wants to be a zookeeper. Her classmates shared a range of different career ambitions: some want to be police officers, others doctors and many want to be teachers.
Crest View kindergarteners perform a song for their loved ones at their graduation ceremony. This is these students’ first and last year at Crest View.
Family Ties
Laura Wagenman, a Crest View education coach, and Stacy Harvey, a Title 1 teacher at Crest View, watched over all the graduations proudly.
“I think this is, for me, the most emotional part of the week. Because it feels like this is the ‘saying goodbye’,” Wagenman said. “It is the celebration of all their hard work. Our kids show up, our families show up. And I just love our community– I couldn’t ask for a better place to be.”
It’s hard for them to not be sentimental for the tight-knit community it has built over the years.
“We also feel a bit like we are breaking up a family,” Harvey said. “That’s difficult for both staff and students, so there’s sadness along with it. But we are so proud of our kids and know they’ll do well wherever they go.”
As each kid graduates, with whatever dreams they have in mind, that sentiment is clear: Crest View’s community will always cheer them on.
Kindergartener Sedona smiles with her teacher at Kindergarten graduation.
