By Jonathan Thrope

Although the school year is coming to a close, the $74 million Staples High School construction project is charging forward.
The Staples cafeteria is barely recognizable as it gets a makeover. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jonathan Thrope for WestportNow.com

According to Project Manager Susan Chipouras, students will be met by a significantly improved building when they return from their summer vacation.

Chipouras said that when students come back, they will be met by a completely renovated No. 4 building as well as an almost completed cafeteria.

There will also be considerable improvements to the parking lots, as buses will be able to drop students off in the front of the school and not have to take the circuitous path that they did this school year.

Staples senior Rei Chiang, winner of the coveted Staples Key Award, receives congratulations at tonight’s annual awards presentation. Finalists for the award were Aaron Lennon and Alicia Berenyi. The students are nominated by the staff and then voted on by the students.  It is the highest honor for a senior. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

Senior Alicia Berenyi receives congratulations from her mom and grandmother after tonight’s annual Staples High School awards ceremony. Alicia was a finalist for the presitigious Key Award and was among the winners of the Principal’s Award. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow photo

They’re more of them, so they’re harder to see, but now you can match the boys with the girls who posed before tonight’s Staples senior prom. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

Today was graduation day for the senior class at Westport’s Greens Farms Academy. Among Westporters in the 57-member graduating class were front row l-r: Cassie Herman, Katherine Dolan, Natasha Rabinowitz, Brad Auerbach, Phil Myerson, Brett Aresco, Tess Herman;  back row l-r: Jordan Kunkes, Eduard Stolpen (peaking through), and Brent Morris. Commencement speaker was Prof. Tom Gerety, director of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

The Westport school district today released the early dismissal schedule for June 22, the last day of school for students:

Staples High 11:45 a.m.

Coleytown Middle and Bedford Middle, Saugatuck Elementary   12:15 p.m.

Coleytown, Greens Farms, Kings Highway and Long Lots Elementary 1 p.m.

Kindergarteners are scheduled to ride home on the bus that brings them to school in the morning. 

Stepping Stones Pre-K extended day will dismiss at 1 p.m.

Staples graduation will take place June 22 at 2 p.m. in the Staples Field House.

Fifth graders from Westport’s Coleytown Elementary School enjoy themselves at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Each year the fifth graders, accompanied by teachers and parents, go on the field trip after spending good part of the year studying about ancient Greece and Egypt. Teacher Jennifer Graham is pictured in front of the Temple of Dunder with some of her students. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jennifer Jackson for WestportNow.com

Award-winning documentaries produced by high school students? Elementary school children, too?

That’s what the Area Nine Cable Council and Cablevision of Connecticut thought about the work of Westport students from Staples High School and Green’s Farms and Long Lots elementary schools.

These students took top honors and awards totaling $5,000 in U.S. savings bonds for their productions cablecast during the school year on Cablevision Educational Access Channel 78, school officials announced today.

Staples High School freshman Jonathan Karman, Carter Meyers, a sophomore, and Ben Blyer, a senior, won the overall excellence award and $2,100 collectively for their four-minute project entitled �Trash: the Lunchroom Dilemma.” Their faculty advisor was James Honeycutt.