South Portland says farewell to Kaler Elementary — for good
SOUTH PORTLAND — Encouraging signs mounted on the brick pillars still guided former Kaler Cougars back to their old school on June 10, for an alumni open house held five days before the final day of classes on June 15.
The South Portland School Board voted at the end of March to close James O. Kaler Elementary, citing a painful budget season. Students now enrolled will attend one of four remaining district elementary schools.
Three generations of one family walked the halls together. Cathy Counts began attending in 1959, when classrooms held 35 desks each. Her daughter Erika McIntire started in 1985 and remembers a baseball diamond where the current building stands; she says the school feels like family and recognizes some teachers as former classmates. Erika’s daughter Margaret, finishing third grade, favors art and gym.
“The teachers here are nice,” Margaret said.
In the rainbow halls, South Portland High junior Nora Kennie spotted former kindergarten teacher Sue Curato. “You’re my kindergarten teacher!” Kennie said. Curato asked her age. “I feel like a giant,” Kennie replied. She fondly remembers field days and singing to Kesha in the fourth-grade talent show, but is sad she cannot walk through the school one last time in cap and gown. She will be a senior in the fall.
Amanda Fickett, whose ancestors sold the city the farmland that became the school, has decorated her South Kelsey Street farmhouse front yard with Peanuts characters for years, inspired by her late grandfather who always recognized Charlie Brown. She painted the old doghouse red after his death. Some students stuck their heads into it, looking for Snoopy. Fickett said she was devastated by the closure, but the display stays. Charlie Brown will wear a coat in winter; Linus appears around Halloween. “I still want kids to have that continuity,” she said.
Dana Campbell, owner of Campbell’s Market on Broadway for 40 years, attended Kaler in 1962 when the school had eight classrooms and three teachers lived within 500 yards. “Everybody knew everybody,” he said. He offered free coffee and tea to staff after hearing of the closure, hoping the gesture draws former educators into his store. He remembered playing baseball on the Kaler field in summer, traveling to other neighborhood schools, and called it “so much more than just going to school for eight months out of the year.”
Rachel Morin, now a second-grade teacher at the Young School in Saco, was a Kaler first-grader 19 years ago. Nikki Remsen, today assistant principal at Skillin, taught her phonics and math. “Oh my goodness, it’s so crazy you’re a teacher now,” Remsen said. “It was just yesterday you were in first grade.” Morin began working in South Portland Parks and Recreation programs at Kaler at 16, later running them full-time while earning her degree at the University of Southern Maine. She remembered carnival games, field day, and a fifth-grade project building a board game about migratory birds. She described winning the lottery when assigned to student-teach at her alma mater. “This is where I learned how to teach,” she said.
The last day of school is Monday, June 15.
