Celebrating Breaking Ground For A New Wellington

Shellie Lovallo came from her Homer Road home to see her daughter's new school.

Today, the new Wellington Elementary School is literally a hole in the ground, as construction workers are beginning a 14 month construction job.

Shellie's daughter, Sarah, was paying more attention to the strap of her shoes than the work going on or the special event about to begin.

"What drew us to Belmont was its schools," said Lovallo who came to be part of the official groundbreaking Tuesday, June 8, for a new 88,000 square foot Wellington Elementary.

"And it will be great to have a new, safe efficient school for Sarah," said Lovallo, noting that her daughter will be a member of the first kindergarten class when the school opens in September 2011. 

The Lovell's joined 60 officials, educators, builders and residents to begin the unofficial countdown until the doors to the school are open.

"It is 450 days until the start of school and that's pretty exciting," said Heidi Sawyer, a member of the Wellington School Building Committee who acted as host for the celebration.

She reminded those in attendance that it was exactly one year to the day since town residents voted by a two-to-one margin to approve the debt exclusion to build the school.

"That was a big thank you from citizens who has been waiting all those years ready for it to happen," said Sawyer.

And many of the following speakers also praised the willingness of Belmont residents to vote and work for the new project whether on the building committee such as Chairman Mark Haley or by garnering support for the development from the school administration to educators such as Wellington Principal Amy Wagner and Gerry Missal.

The new building will be actually two schools, with a pair of entrances that leads into their own wings, sharing one core area with a central administration, community and cafeteria. It will rely on natural light during the day and be flexible enough for teachers to change the layout of each room. 

Tim Cahill, the state's treasurer and the independent candidate for government, said the revamped Massachusetts School Building Authority, which is financing 40 percent of the Wellington project, has made approximately $7 billion in reimbursements to municipalities for school construction projects since 2007.

But it was praise of the community's shared vision towards promoting education that won the greatest acknowledgment.

Supporting the new Wellington shows  the town understands that an investment in schools is an investment in our collective future," said Superintendent George Entwistle.

Schools "comes from the core of our community" and the new Wellington "reflects the individual character of Belmont ... and the broader shared purpose," said Benjamin Levi, the project's architect.