COLCHESTER, Vt. (WCAX) – Fences are usually built to keep people apart, but at Colchester Middle School, a fence is bringing people together.
Seventh-grader Andrew Comeau and his friends are typical middle school students – they use recess to get their hands a little dirty.
“One day I thought we should clear out this little area and maybe come back and build a fort that would be our main meeting point,” Comeau said.
The final product lasted about two weeks before Colchester Middle School assistant principal Dovid Yagoda said it had to be shut down. “We have had forts in the past and that presented us with some challenges because when we can't see children, we worry,” Yagoda said.
The group of about ten boys knew it was coming, but not when. “At recess they showed up and just tore everything down,” one student said.
“We really enjoyed building it and as a group we were all really upset that it was gone,” another added.
Comeau says they didn't fully understand why either. “At first we actually thought about rebelling against them and rebuilding the fortress and just leaving everything to them,” he said.
But with his parents' guidance, they decided to write an email to the school administration and that's when everything changed.
“We decided to make a little lemonade out of the lemons,” Yagoda said.
The new goal would be to replace the orange hoarding near the previous fort with something a little more natural. The students and Yagoda spent about two weeks developing the plan, creating models, obtaining fake building permits and even learning how to use twine to tie it down.
The group split into groups of engineers, lumberjacks and construction workers and relied on good old trial and error.
“Right now it's very different from our original ideas, but I still think it's going pretty well,” said one student.
Yagoda says it's all part of the school's effort this month to teach students how to advocate for themselves. “We want kids to be curious and say, 'Hey, I want to check this out,' and then follow their passion to make the learning relevant to them. And then we see kids really succeed,” he said.
The project still has a long way to go, but the first of several phases has already been completed.
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