Last day of school

Milburn PTA co-president Kathy Englehart and her daughters, Megan, far left, Kiera and Erin, wore commemorative Milburn shirts.

Donovan Berthoud

Stacks of books and boxes awaited the moving trucks in Maia Halloran’s music classroom at Shubert.

Chris Connolly

Even before the final bell, classrooms at Shubert were packed and ready to go.

Chris Connolly

Therese “The Milk Lady” at Shubert Elementary carried a few last things to her car as the school prepared to close.

Chris Connolly

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No more pencils, no more books…

The old last-day-of-school chorus had a melancholy ring to it this year in Baldwin, as two schools — 83-year-old Shubert Elementary and 59-year-old Milburn Elementary School — dismissed their students for the last time.

While the kids at other schools wished one another a happy summer and said, “See you next year,” there was an unsettled sense to the farewells at these two schools. The students will be heading to new buildings in the fall, and some of the teachers and administrators will not be kept on. (The exact number of redundancies will not be known until the enrollment picture for 2012-13 year solidifies.)

Shubert
“This is an unusual Moving On ceremony,” said Dr. James Mapes, superintendent of Baldwin schools, who spoke at Shubert’s final year-end ceremony on June 20, “because all of you will be moving on.” The building in which Mapes spoke was already in a state of flux; blocks of moving boxes labeled “Send to Steele” or “Baldwin Middle School” were clustered in corners and Maia Halloran, a Shubert music teacher, was taking inventory of instruments bound for other buildings. There were also cardboard screens on display in the front hallway, on which students had written and illustrated colorful “My Favorite Shubert Memory” pages.

“My favorite Shubert memory is The 100th day of school. We had marshmallows, glodfish [sic], pretzels, M&Ms, teddy grahams,” wrote Christian Bailey.

On Memorial Day weekend, Shubert put its best foot forward and celebrated its past. The Shubert End-of-Year Committee commemorated the school’s legacy with a series of events including Shubert Idol — a concert — a Memorial Day float and the Shubert Carnival, which featured a magic show, games, refreshments, face painting and even a dunk tank.

But last week the fun was over, and there were glum faces at the Moving On ceremony. Toward the back of the auditorium, Andrea Jones, treasurer of the Shubert PTA, stood in front of a fan amid temperatures approaching 100 degrees when she wasn’t ushering parents to their seats.