From their home on a towering totem, a carved bear, black fish, thunderbird and sandpiper have welcomed thousands of students scurrying down the halls of McIlvaigh Middle School in Tacoma.

Now it is time to pay respect to the cedar pole, Puyallup tribal member Connie McCloud told a recent gathering of students and officials at the East Side school.

It’s time to let the totem know it will rest in storage before rising to greet countless more students at a new school, she said.

The blessing and farewell celebration at McIlvaigh capped a year of preparations for the merger of McIlvaigh and Gault middle schools into First Creek Middle School.

The new school is under construction next to McIlvaigh, just off Portland Avenue, and is slated to open in September.

Enrollment is projected at 800-plus students next year, which would make it the largest middle school in the Tacoma School District, said Gault Principal Delores Beeson.

McIlvaigh has about 450 students; Gault has nearly 360.

“We are excited about this new journey,” said Beeson, who will be the principal at First Creek. “It doesn’t mean it will be a perfect one, but it will be a fun one. We’ll learn a lot.”

The consolidation got off to a rough start in late 2006, when the school district announced Gault students would have to move to the McIlvaigh grounds the following fall. Some parents said they felt betrayed by the loss of their neighborhood school and feared a combined campus would be less safe and less conducive to learning.

The school board eventually voted to delay Gault’s closure until 2009, timed to the opening of the new First Creek school.

Faculty at McIlvaigh and Gault have not left the merger to chance.

They’ve attended the same staff development workshops and they’ve planned activities and curriculum to bring their staffs and students together. They even brought in a coach to help them communicate more effectively.

“We wanted to make sure it was a smooth transition for everyone involved,” Beeson said. “Teachers needed to know they’re on the same page.”

Student opportunities have abounded. Sixth- and seventh-graders wrote letters to each other. The schools’ choral and instrumental groups performed together. The track and field and baseball teams combined to compete this spring. And Gault eighth-graders invited McIlvaigh students to join their mock legislative delegation at the YMCA Youth and Government week in Olympia.

For the first year at First Creek, student government will be led by two co-presidents, one elected by Gault kids and the other by McIlvaigh kids.

There also has been play time. The Gault students hosted McIlvaigh students for a “meet-and-greet” with swimming, an inflatable obstacle course and other games. Two weeks ago, the schools’ sixth-graders and seventh-graders met for a day of canoeing, tag, nature walks and sports at an outdoor camp in Thurston County.

“It was fun. We spent time with the Gault kids to get to know them a little better,” McIlvaigh seventh-grader Jonathan Choeu said. Though he already knew some Gault students from elementary school, he said, “I thought they were better than us ’cause look at our school,” he said, gazing around the drab 1960s-era McIlvaigh campus.

After reacquainting himself with the Gault kids, Jonathan realized they were just like his friends at McIlvaigh – a sentiment echoed by several students at both schools.

With the two combined, Jonathan said, “It’s going to be better.”

Both student bodies will leave dilapidated buildings. McIlvaigh will be razed; the district hasn’t decided 83-year-old Gault’s fate.

“I think it’s going to be pretty cool. I heard the wires will be installed inside the walls, they won’t be taped to the walls,” said Selena Sok, elected by Gault classmates as their First Creek co-president. “I’m just excited it’ll be a new building and I’ll get to be one of the students to start off at First Creek.”

McIlvaigh seventh-grader Julia Escobar looks forward to making more friends, but will miss the building where her mother works and her two older sisters attended middle school.

“I know most of the teachers and I’m used to being around the school,” Julia said.

The totem will be a lasting reminder of McIlvaigh. Carved out of a sacred cedar tree by a Lummi tribal member and erected in 1983, the pole will eventually be moved to First Creek.

McCloud, cultural coordinator for the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority, said the pole is a living spirit that watches over the McIlvaigh community.

“It shares the stories about your neighborhood … It has shared the stories about you growing up,” McCloud told students at the June 11 ceremony. “From those students before you, and your brothers and sisters who came behind, it knows who you are.”

Debby Abe: 253-597-8694

debby.abe@thenewstribune.com

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