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St. Mary's paints picture perfect project

Two murals in the second-floor hallway of St. Mary's School were completed by students. Reminder Publications photo by Danielle Paine
By Danielle Paine

Reminder Assistant Editor



LONGMEADOW Parents students and teachers at St. Mary's School have several reasons to beam with pride while walking the halls of the school lately.

Last month, two monstrous murals of sunny scenery were finally completed. Everyone in the school took part in the project that began in September, explained Principal Joan McDonald.

The idea for the hallway masterpieces came to McDonald and staff after the students painted a reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" for an auction to raise funds for their new state-of-the art-computer lab.

"We thought they did such an amazing job that we would bring their art work into the school," McDonald said.

The art classes, housed in what McDonald affectionately calls "the messiest room in the building," are taught by working artist and teacher Karen Dupree. Through the school's annual ACE benefit, they were able to begin the art theory classes for every grade level beginning two years ago. Prior to that, homeroom teachers taught arts and crafts in their classrooms.

"This is not an arts and crafts program, this is an art theory program," McDonald said. "Art just relaxes them and opens up part of their mind that is so crucial to the seven academic subjects."

By the end of this year, budding St. Mary's artists will add one more mural to the school's second floor hallway.

"The kids did a wonderful job on those and so did the parents who came into help us with the art classes while I had to be in the hall with the mural," Dupree said.

Last year's ACE benefit raised funds for a different source of St. Mary's School pride, their new computer lab.

For $35,000, McDonald purchased a Smartboard system, 15 state-of-the-art workstations and two projectors.

Grade one through eight students spend are learning the equipment which teaches them everything from using a mouse to navigating through Microsoft's PowerPoint and Excel programs.

The new machines replace older models that were donated to the school by a private corporation. Before that, the school's parent association had purchased the computers for the first lab, 10 years ago.

The last recent gem in the crown of St. Mary's school came by way of a phone call in December, informing McDonald that her staff's two years of hard work to become accredited had paid off.

"It sets us apart from many schools and most public schools that are not required to be accredited because it is such a labor intensive process," McDonald said. "It really showed us our strengths and weaknesses."

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges granted the school accredited status after a long and thorough examination of the school. McDonald said the first year alone was just spent writing curriculum for every subject, grade level and classroom.

For four days in October, a visiting committee observed classes, combed through curriculum, interviewed every employee right down to the lunch servers and even examined the building's structure. In the end, St. Mary's had met the majority of the board's 82 standards.

"It shows our high standards offered here, our professionalism, our concern for our students, and that we are truly living our mission statement," McDonald said.