By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Ellen Vermokowitz headed a study committee that recommended Goffstown build a kindergarten in 1983. Now, as most children born that year have just graduated college, the walls are going up on Goffstown’s first-ever kindergarten.

One issue, however, remains unresolved: The school needs a name.

The Goffstown School District hopes to solve this problem with the Name Our School program, in which local citizens are asked to produce a name for the new kindergarten.

The school district maintains rather simple guidelines for naming local schools, said Vermokowitz, who sat on the naming committee for Mountain View Middle School in 1990.

“The school board prefers that the school be named after a historic event or geographic location, and not after individuals,” she said.

An ad hoc naming committee has been collecting names for the kindergarten, and will make a presentation to the school board in June, Vermokowitz said.

The construction of the kindergarten marks the end of a two-year period following the passage of a $3.3 million kindergarten article in March of 2004.

Litigation followed from neighbors of the original project site on Tibbetts Hill Road, delaying construction until voters approved the transfer of town-owned land across from the waterfront at Glen Lake to the school district in 2005, and construction began last November.

Voters approved a warrant article for $306,510 for funding increased construction costs on the kindergarten this year, with money to be withdrawn from existing funds and thus bringing no tax impact. Approval of this article gave the green light to a kindergarten completion by Oct. 2.

“We’re really excited about it,” said Vermokowitz, vice chairman of the Goffstown School Board. “With the mild winter this year, we’ve been very fortunate. We didn’t have to go into winter conditions at all,” Vermokowitz said.

Pro Con Inc., of Manchester is serving as construction manager, and Frank Marinace Architects of Hampton as the architect for the $2.8 million project, according to information from Pro Con. The 16,000-square-foot school will have 10 classrooms.

Goffstown children who will be 5 years old by Sept. 30 will be eligible to attend kindergarten classes, which will be open for morning and afternoon sessions.

For more information, call Bartlett Elementary School at 603-623-8088 or Maple Avenue School at 603-497-3330.

With plans to open the kindergarten now a reality, Vermokowitz said she considers this an exciting time for the school district.

“We’re on site, we’re building, and we’ll be ready to open,” she said.