May 2, 2017 3 min read

Aside from childhood homes, there aren’t many places that provoke sentimentality the way the schools we once attended do.

Walk in the front door and you’re immediately transported back to the feelings of excitement or apprehension you felt as a child, an awkward adolescent or a high schooler on the cusp of adulthood. The odor of sweatsocks in the gym or tater tots cooking in the cafeteria can remain vivid even as onetime students are not all that far from collecting Social Security checks.

Current and former students in the Canon-McMillan School District, along with teachers and administrators, will be grappling with no small amount of bittersweet nostalgia in the weeks ahead as the district looks to close three elementary schools. Cecil, First Street and Muse elementary schools will be shuttered at the end of the school year, as the students of those schools will be consolidated into one new structure in Muse.

As Rick Shrum reported in Tuesday’s edition of the Observer-Reporter, there’s a lot of history packed into those humble buildings. First Street school opened in 1924, the same year that J.Edgar Hoover was appointed to head what later became the FBI, Ellis Island closed, Vladimir Lenin died and Marlon Brando was born. The other two schools welcomed their first students in 1936, in the midst of the Depression, and were renovated in 1986.

Shannon Balch, the principal at First Street, said that parents and grandparents have been returning to the school, “talking about teachers and classes. It’s definitely bittersweet with such a history.”

While some current and former students are undoubtedly sorry to see these three schools recede into history, the new school will be better for both students and taxpayers. It will have up-to-the-minute technology upgrades, better security systems and air conditioning. Tulia Dziak, the current principal at Cecil who will be co-principal at Muse, pointed out to Shrum that Cecil has had to make do with a multipurpose room that functions as a cafeteria, gym and space for assemblies, while the new school will have dedicated spaces for all three.

It should be noted the consolidation of the three elementary schools is not an indication that Canon-McMillan School District is enduring declining enrollment. Even as the administrators of colleges and universities in the western half of the commonwealth lament the fact that they have a shrinking pool of high school graduates from which to choose, Canon-McMillan School District has seen increasing enrollment in recent years thanks to the growth in housing in North Strabane and Cecil townships.

It has been ranked one of the fastest-growing school districts in the state by Pennsylvania Department of Education. Plans are afoot to expand and renovate the district’s high school and its stadium, construct a new middle school in North Strabane Township, renovate one elementary school and construct another.

As it looks toward a robust future, the district will be celebrating its past thanks to open houses planned at the Cecil, Muse and First Street elementary schools at the end of the month. As they walk in for the last time, former students will be able to remember yet again what it was like to go through those doors for the very first time.