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First Day of School Is This Monday, August 30

Andy Hart

August 26, 2010

Hartford Public Schools will open for the 2010-2011 school year this Monday, August 30. Many of the system’s 2,300 students will be returning to familiar surroundings, but there are also several newly renovated and expanded schools that will be opening for the first time this year.

Capital Prep, which has made the U.S. News and World Report’s list of America’s Best High Schools for the past three years, will open at its new home: the former Barnard-Brown School near the intersection of Main Street and Albany Avenue. Capital Prep was formerly located on the campus of Capital Community College.

Mary M. Hooker Environmental Sciences Magnet School on Sherbrooke Avenue has been extensively renovated as has Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School on Plainfield Street. The expanded Annie Fisher building will also house the Montessori Middle School as well as the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) School.

However, the opening bell will not ring at Quirk Middle School on Albany Avenue this year. The school has been closed and will undergo extensive renovations, according to a spokesman for Hartford Public School. The building will be retained by the school system and will probably become the new home of the Global Communications Academy.

Another one of the city’s middle schools, Bellizzi, is also not opening this year. The school building, located at the intersection of South Street and Campfield Avenue, is now home to the Dwight/Bellizzi Asian Studies Academy. All Dwight School students and staff will eventually go to the Bellizzi building, but this year grades Pre-K - 3 will still be at the Dwight building on Wethersfield Avenue, the oldest school in the city.