Last Longfellow field day: Sending children to next adventures with love
Station to station, the last class of Longfellow Elementary School children made the most of the 133-year-old school’s farewell field day.
They plunged into the water games, joyfully soaking schoolmates, teachers and themselves.
They laughed through tricycle derbies. Painted the playground in chalk. Waved at bubbles. Painted faces. Ate up grilled burgers and hot dogs.
“The day is special because . . .,” sixth grader Aleigah began, hesitating as she tried to describe the sunny celebration all around her. “. . . it’s . . . just having fun. Just having fun.”
Longfellow’s field day celebration May 18 had to come with special joy and energy, Principal Dr. Jimmie Bullard said.
“I wanted this day to be great for students, parents and our staff to show our Longfellow love and our Longfellow pride,” she said. “(To have) a good, really good, last time together to show how much we care about and appreciate each other.”
Longfellow and Troost elementary schools are both closing at the end of this school year under the Kansas City Public Schools’ plans to reorganize its schools as it adjusts to lower enrollment across the district.
LINC Caring Communities, which provide before- and after-school programming and other broad services to KCPS families, are working with the district to help the Longfellow and Troost children and their families transition to new schools in the next year.
Bullard thanked the LINC Caring Communities team that has served Longfellow families all six years that she’s been principal, especially as the families now look to move on — and particularly on this day of celebration.
“This is just a fun-filled day filled with love and excitement for the kids and the new beginnings after this year,” she said.
Longfellow’s students, according to the KCPS transition plan, will be dividing up to Garcia, Faxon and Phillips elementary schools if they choose to go to their designated neighborhood KCPS schools.
Troost students will be dividing up to Banneker, Hartman, Hale Cook and King elementary schools.
LINC will have Caring Communities programs waiting at all of the KCPS elementary schools to help the children and their families make the transition.
LINC’s blue-shirted team, scattered across the sunny blacktop at Longfellow, wanted to be sure this last field day was special, said LINC Caring Communities Coordinator Nina Falls.
“We want the students here at Longfellow as they go to other schools to remember that this was fun,” Falls said. “And we loved them and we took care of them here.”
“But they’re on a new adventure,” she said. “A new beginning. And we’re proud to send them off.”
Bullard wished for the children the same kind of family-like support, wherever they go.
“My hope,” she said, “is that whatever school they end up at, they are successful, that they find a staff and a community that loves them, that cares for them.”
