Here comes a big week for the new Foster Elementary School on Simpson Street between Dewey and Ashland avenues. A press preview is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 6 and a public welcome for Friday, Aug. 7, but the school has been on the minds of many for months, years and even decades. The original Foster School opened in 1905 and closed in 1979. The new school’s location next to the old one carries symbolic weight. It is a mosaic, a memory and a message.
A mosaic
The new school is a mosaic of past, present and future, of regret, realism and reflection. There’s the regret of a community that chose — or received or accepted — a tough method of desegregation. There’s the realistic view that this is not the Foster School of the past. And there’s a lot of reflection about what it could be…