Tokeneke School

Tokeneke Elementary School is one of five elementary schools serving children in Kindergarten through fifth grade in the Darien school district of Darien, Connecticut.

In May 2007, the "Kids Care Club" at the school raised more than $12,000 for the charity World Vision to build a bore well for clean water in the village of Makungwa, Zambia. To raise the money, students found sponsors for a "Walk for Water" event in which they walked from Hindley School to Weed Beach, filled buckets with water and walked back to Hindley, simulating what millions of people must do to get water. ["A THIRST TO HELP", picture caption in "The Darien Times", June 14, 2007, page 23A]

Student Thomas Denham in Betty Steuer's fifth-grade class was Connecticut's 2008 National Geographic Bee champion, winning a globe, $100, some other prizes and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the national contest. Denham won the contest when asked what nation Tuscany was in (Italy). The previous year he placed second in the statewide bee. Previous Darien winners of the state contest were Liam McCarthy (in both 2005 and 2006), and Erik Mengwall (in 1989). [Polanco, Monica, "Darien is home to bee champ", article, "The Hartford Courant", April 5, 2008, p B1, accessed via www.newsbank.com subscription archive on May 31, 2008]

The school was first opened in September 1956. [Amoroso, Austin, "Elementary schools: New technology will greet students", "The Darien Times", August 24, 2006, accessed via NewsBank Web site (www.newsbank.com) on November 15, 2007]

Current status of building

As of the spring of 2007, Turner Construction is building a replacement for the school. Students are scheduled to move into the new 65,000-square-foot school [ [http://www.tskp.com/new-work/new-work-splash.html Web page titled "New Work" at the Tai Soo Kim Partners Architects Web site] , accessed April 26, 2007] in January 2008. Originally built in 1957, the structure is being replaced by a fully air-conditioned, technologically advanced school on the same site. [Prevost, Lisa, [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/realestate/15livi.html "Living In / Tokeneke, in Darien, Conn.; Like Stepping Into a (Very Expensive) Painting"] May 15, 2005, accessed April 10, 2008] The renovated school will have "SmartBoard" presentation systems in classrooms and wireless Internet access throughout the building. [Shultz, Susan, [http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/Schools_261/Tokeneketech.shtml "New Tokeneke gets ahead in technology"] article in "The Darien Times", March 29, 2007, accessed April 26, 2007]

Pictures

Notes

External links

* [http://www.darienps.org/tokeneke/ Tokeneke School website]
* [http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/ct/227 Tokeneke School main Web page at Great Schools Web site]