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Back to School, Back in the Day: The Knockout Pit

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Some first day of school images in New Canaan persist through the years: bright new outfits, embarrassing photo shoots at the bus stop, tearful kindergarten farewells, nervous classroom energy, locker combinations, crisp notebooks, teacher introductions, excited and awkward classmate reunions. The playground equipment and areas have been double-checked—for example, the New Canaan Department of Public Works last month diligently crack-sealed parts of playgrounds at East and West. Yet for many years, and for scores of nostalgic New Canaanites who attended Center School—demolished after the 1982-83 academic year to make way for the Center School Parking Lot ($120 per year for a permit) opposite Maple Street from New Canaan Library—the centerpiece of the playground was a narrow, long, recessed, cement “pit” around the back of the school itself. A place of physicality, perhaps even violence, as well as fierce competition and glory—and, of course, wholly unfathomable at an elementary school today—the Knockout Pit at Center School remains a singular touchstone for alumni more than three decades later, despite no official historical record of it and at a school far better known and remembered among educators for its innovations in student learning and curriculum. “My best memory of the school, other than some friends, is the Knockout Pit,” said Bill Taylor, a 1981 New Canaan High School graduate who attended Center in the early-‘70s.

Bunny Potts

Board of Ed Recognizes Two New Canaan High School Seniors, 13 Retiring Educators

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The Board of Education on Monday honored two graduating New Canaan High School seniors and 13 educators who are retiring after this academic year. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mary Kolek (who is herself retiring and earned kind words from Board Chair Hazel Hobbs during the meeting, held in the high school’s Wagner Room), spoke for a few minutes about both seniors who received Student Leadership Awards from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education or “CABE,” as well as the teachers and administrators soon to retire. Here’s a snippet from Kolek on each honoree. Students

(CABE each year recognizes two students for distinguished leadership in school activities and daily lives, “And I have the pleasure of presenting those awards tonight,” Kolek said.)

New Canaan High School senior Kit Mallozzi (also a NCHS Students Advocates Award winner, headed to Syracuse University in the fall): “One has only to talk to Kit for a few minutes and it’s clear, she’s one of the world’s great optimists. Her nomination submission portrays Kit as someone who embraces life, a friend to all and a ray of sunshine.

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The WPA in New Canaan: ‘Fantasy and Beauty’

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The next time you visit South, East or West School, seek them out. They hang high and proud in each of our three public elementary schools. Their vibrant colors and scenes virtually burst from the walls with playful images that spark creativity and imagination for the hundreds of students passing by them every day, perhaps unaware of their rich history—not only in New Canaan, but in the United States as well. And had it not been for a few key New Canaanites, these treasures might have been lost forever. The paintings were originally commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, a Depression-era government program developed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative.