"Here is to success!" said Peru RPCV Fred Poses, a trustee who co-chairs the group's capital campaign committee, which is trying to collect $10 million in donations to improve facilities, recruit teachers and increase financial aid. "Raise your shovels up high!"
Eagle Hill celebrates new space
By Vesna Jaksic
Staff Writer
July 27, 2004
Eagle Hill School held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for its newest academic building, the last facility expected to occupy the Glenville campus.
The approximately $4.5 million, 11,000-square-foot building will house eight classrooms, art and music rooms and physical fitness facilities, said Mark Griffin, the private school's headmaster. The additional classrooms will allow each teacher to have his or her own classroom for the first time, he said.
"This is the ending, really, of our master plan," he said.
Eagle Hill School serves about 210 children ages 6 to 16 who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. About 40 students live in a dormitory on the campus at 45 Glenville Road. That dormitory, is also used for classroom space, along with two other buildings, but officials identified the need for a new building several years ago, said Ken deRegt, chairman of the school's Board of Trustees.
"The idea is that we finish off this academic and social quad," he said. There are currently buildings on three of the quad's four sides.
DeRegt was one of about 20 trustees and school employees who attended yesterday afternoon's ceremony. Wearing hard hats and holding up shovels, the group gathered to celebrate the birth of what they said will be a state-of-the-art academic facility.
"Here is to success!" said Fred Poses, a trustee who co-chairs the group's capital campaign committee, which is trying to collect $10 million in donations to improve facilities, recruit teachers and increase financial aid. "Raise your shovels up high!"
There are no plans to increase enrollment at the school, but the new building will allow the faculty to better serve current students in larger and more modern classrooms, said Lee Zackrison, the school's director of development.
While dirt and a wired fence were the only things visible yesterday on the site of Eagle Hill's newest academic building, Poses had a big smile as he looked toward the construction site.
"This is an amazing place," he said. "And what makes it an amazing place is the people. Even though the building is important, it's the professionals who work with the kids here every day."
Copyright © 2004, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
