Students, staff say final goodbye to Amenia Elementary School

AMENIA — Some cried at the end, some celebrated the beginning of summer vacation, but everyone gathered outside Amenia Elementary School on June 25 for one last goodbye to their school.

The Webutuck Central School District proposed to donate the Amenia Elementary School building to the town of Amenia earlier this year, and the decision was approved as a proposition during the public budget vote in May. While the Amenia Town Board is still deciding whether to accept the building at a nominal cost of $1 (it has been proposed to relocate Town Hall there), Webutuck is moving the kindergarten through second grade, which has been housed at the Amenia building, to its central campus location in time for the start of the 2009-10 school year. The kindergarten through second grade would then attend Webutuck Elementary School.

“I was a kindergartner here,� said librarian Beth Murphy, who first attended Amenia Elementary in 1966. “There are a lot of memories.�

Murphy acknowledged that while you have to look at each move as part of a greater, positive transition, leaving the building is still going to be hard.

“There’s been great staff and great kids,� she said. “I hope the town, and I think it will, does something amazing to keep the building vibrant.�

The students have already taken a tour of Webutuck Elementary, where they will be heading come September, to acquaint themselves with the new building.

Heather Farr-Killmer, a first-grade teacher, said that when it comes to the move, the children will probably adjust more easily than the parents will. In fact, some of her class has been helping put together moving boxes.

“I think it helps them understand the move,� she explained. “It makes it more real for them.�

Ashton Hudson is in Farr-Killmer’s class, and while he said that he liked Amenia Elementary, there were a few reasons to be excited about the move to Webutuck Elementary.

“My brother goes there,â€� he said, obviously excited to go to the same school as a family member. Ashton  later added that it would be his birthday in September, about the time he started up school again, proving once again that there’s nothing like a few birthday candles to bring out the best in a situation.

About the building site

In the 19th century the Amenia Seminary was built on the property, as a private secondary school since at that time there were no public high schools. According to Ann Linden of the Amenia Historical Society, it came to be quite a famous school, and attracted a number of students from all over New England.

In the late 19th century public high schools became commonplace and the seminary closed, replaced briefly by a boarding house and hotel known as the Iron Springs Spa.

The original Amenia High School was located across the street, and held all students from grades one through 12. When the population outgrew the smaller building, the Amenia High School brick building was built to accommodate the population, sometime in the late 1920s. It accommodated grades one through 12 until Webutuck High School was built in 1959, and since then has been an elementary school.

Of other interest is the town’s ball fields, which were built at the bottom of the hill, where parking for the elementary school is found now. They were the main fields until Beekman Park was built years later.