With relish, students at Fulton School dined on hot dogs during indoor picnics Wednesday as they wrapped up the final chapter in the school's history.
Students and staff are saying farewell to the school that will close this week for good.
"It's the end of the road," said Chad Kolebuck, who since April has been acting principal of the Toledo public school, as children gathered for the start of the picnic attended by parents, students, and current and former staff members.
Today is a work day for teachers, and Friday is the last day of school at Fulton, said the principal in the school's office where for decades students have visited, such as when they had bellyaches and needed to call home or if they were looking for a lost book and wanted to find it before someone did call their home.
The school is being shuttered along with another elementary building.
Closing Nathan Hale, 1701 Shenandoah Rd., and Fulton, 333 Melrose Ave., both with low enrollment, will save the district $1 million in personnel and utility costs.
The Fulton School was brand-spanking new in 1962. Dedicated in November that year, it was described as a beautiful new building, facing Melrose, "with a special playground for the kindergartens. It has a modern beauty in its safe and practical appointments, along with many aids to education," according to a publication called The Fulton Story, 1894-1962.
The "old Fulton School" was proposed in August, 1892, as an answer to problems caused by overcrowded conditions in other Toledo schools.
In 1893, a judge presented a petition to the school board for Seventh Ward residents to have a school building at Fulton and Delaware. The low bid for the new school project was accepted in 1894; the building and property cost $38,000. The original Fulton School building later was expanded, but was abandoned when the new Fulton School opened.
Relda Griffith, who taught second grade in Room 145 for 36 years at the school, organized the picnic as a way to observe the official end of Fulton School. "I thought we should do something for the closing of the school, just something where we could get together as a family," she said. She retired in 2002, but said yesterday, "I missed the kids and went back as a substitute teacher in 2004."
The closing, she said, is bittersweet. "I understand why they are doing it," she said, noting that dwindling enrollment doesn't justify the expense of keeping it open.
In addition to the picnic, students danced in the gym, the only part of the old Fulton School that remains, Ms. Griffith said. On the playground, voices joined in song. During a kickball game, it was teachers vs. students.
And too yesterday, the children and adults took time to remember their school. Tomorrow, they will say good-bye.
Contact Janet Romaker at:
jromaker@theblade.com
or 419-724-6006.
First Published June 4, 2009, 3:08 p.m.
