‘Welcome to the Viper Dome’
Opening the new Viola Desmond Elementary School reminded Principal Tina Morabito of another new build, closer to home.
“It was interesting because 25 years ago I built a new home with my husband and after that experience, I said ‘I will never do a new build again,’” said Morabito.
“Now I’ve got the biggest build of my career.” It’s 68,000 square feet.
It’s a spacious, well-lit, three-story ‘home’ for 720 students now, with 21 classrooms, five purpose-built Kindergarten rooms and more. Students arrived from the five school communities of Glen Brae, Glen Echo, Sir Isaac Brock, Elizabeth Bagshaw and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Morabito’s touches are everywhere: the light-purple walls, the light wood furniture, the vinyl lettering of the welcome message (in Viper font) that greets you in the foyer.
“When I retire, I am going to come back and be (sad). This was my baby,” said Morabito, as we started to tour the school just east of the Red Hill Valley, south of Queenston.
She has more ideas for the home of the Vipers, which is holding its Open House during Education Week 2022.
It was one of several HWDSB schools that were opened or significantly renovated during the pandemic, including Collegiate, Greensville, Mount Albion, Nora Frances Henderson, Rockton, Spring Valley and South Meadow.
Let’s take a tour of a school that opened to little fanfare during the pandemic…
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- Viola Desmond (1914-1965) was a Canadian businesswoman and civil libertarian famous for having mentored young Black women in Nova Scotia, and for her courageous stand against racial discrimination. A friend of Morabito’s daughter is the artist behind the portrait in the foyer.
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- “On the very first day of our opening, we were in our shields and our masks, and I thought, ‘We have to document this. Fifty years from now, kids are not going to understand.’ So, I got everybody a Viola T-shirt, and we had our masks, and we took a picture out in front of the sign.”
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- What are the chances that the head caretaker of the new school is also named Viola, last name Goodale? “She was at Sir Isaac Brock as well, and she is phenomenal!” Morabito said. “She has worked so hard.”
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- Vice Principal Kelly Devenish says it’s helpful to be able to spot a specific student on the playground, from the large picture windows at the end of the upstairs hallways.
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- A mix of old and new in a first-floor Kindergarten classroom.
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- Students finding books in the bright Learning Commons.
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- A welcome message to the Home of the Vipers, in the font named Viper.
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- Students choosing a mascot loved deciding among vipers for Viola, or dragons for Desmond. Morabito even hopes to secure an artist to paint a massive mural in the gym to say, ‘Welcome to the Viper Dome.’
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- Students are blooming in FDK 7. Artwork makes any new school building come alive.
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- “You Can Do It!” Words to live by greet students as they enter.
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- The schools works to create a safe, accepting space for everyone.
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- Devenish (L) and Morabito. The Kindergarten play area will soon have turf laid, for an all-weather ground cover.
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- Compared to the older schools it replaced, natural light is one of the features that makes the new school stand out, especially in places like stairwells and the Learning Commons.
Updated on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.