Grand View School

I work at an elementary school library, and most days, I thoroughly enjoy the staff that I work with but the kids... they are amazing!  It is a great way to see children express an interest in something and then watch them dig through shelves of books to find something about it.  Grand View was built in 1922 and had its first graduating class in 1923.  2012 will be the final graduating class of the building that it currently is in.  A new building is being constructed on the same site.

I went to Grand View as a child myself.  In fact, the Library was my Grade 4 classroom!  I have many memories sliding down that big hill in the winter.  My brother, Bill, and I would spend a couple of hours rubbing the paste floor wax on the bottom of our wooden toboggans.  When that was dry enough, we'd get my mom's electric floor polisher and make that wood gleam bright and it would be so smooth, too!  Soon, we'd be trying to go from the top of the hill and race down to see who'd get closest to the road.  Sometimes, we actually made it there.

But this year, that hill has become the new site for the new Grand View School.   I have mixed feelings about that really.  I love the old building and the history that it holds.  It just seems so majestic sitting up at the top of the big tobogganing hill.  However, working in the building isn't as grand as my memories.  It's hot almost all the time upstairs where I work.  And if it isn't hot, it's cold.  It is difficult too carrying bins of books up and down those stairs.  Yesterday, a Book Fair was delivered.  That took three men several trips carrying up boxes of books to the Library so a display could be set up.

I am looking forward to a new building, air conditioning and an amazing view from the Library in the new school.  It is supposed to be well planned too.  I have sort of resisted the urge to get excited about the new school because I feel like I'll miss something in the old one.  However, change is necessary, and I'll have to be ready in September.  One good thing... the staff will still be amazing to work with and the kids... well, they don't change too much.  They'll still be digging through even more shelves of books looking for something that is about their favourite thing.  Some things never change.  :)