FARMINGTON – The school board approved keeping ‘W.G. Mallett School’ as the name of the elementary school at Tuesday evening’s meeting, with guidance from a sub-committee that said no other suggestions had been forthcoming from the community.
Naming Committee member, and former board member, Joyce Morton said that the committee received no requests to change the name. The new, 60,000 square foot school is being built on the campus of the existing elementary school, and is slated for completion in 2011.
Setting the name as ‘W.G. Mallett School,’ actually does represent a technical change, as the current elementary school is officially called ‘Wilbert G. Mallett School.’ According to Principal Tracy Williams, the full name only appears above one entrance, and the school conducts business under the name W.G. Mallett School, as does the state. According to local historian and committee member Paul Mills, the Wilbert G. Mallett School received its name on March 2, 1942. Prior to the change, the facility was known as the Training School.
Mallett had been the principal of the Normal School, which lives on today as the University of Maine at Farmington (Mallett’s job description today would have more closely matched a president than principal). The Training School was originally conceived as a way to get educational students at the Normal School some teaching experience prior to graduation, in addition to providing space for greater numbers of elementary students.
