About
Welcome to Rowayton Elementary School
Rowayton R.O.C.K.S.
Nestled in a coastline neighborhood, Rowayton Elementary School serves over 450 students in grades Kindergarten through fifth grade. A close-knit supportive community of families, students, and staff work collaboratively to ensure that all students recognize their potential and develop a sense of empowerment. Rowayton staff work to create a safe, nurturing, and mutually respectful environment which fosters responsibility and life-long learning.
Rowayton students engage in a weekly rotation of enrichment courses that align with curriculum to support both academic and social emotional growth. Exploration through STEAM activities, Project Based Learning, and activities employing the Multiple Intelligences promote critical thinking and collaboration while utilizing the latest media and technology. Students meet weekly as a class with Rowayton's social emotional learning teacher to support mental wellbeing through lessons that nurture a culture of kindness.
The annual school-wide Gratitude Campaign teaches students skills to practice positivity and create an environment of acceptance and inclusion throughout the year.
Student-produced and hosted, Rocking Rowayton the Show encourages students to share insights about various topics and events within the school and beyond. Rocking Rowayton promotes self-expression while students learn the value of listening to the various voices of their community. Students create each episode using media-based skills such as segment creation, interviewing, accountable talk, research and analysis, and recording. Hosts and guests include students, staff, families, and community members.
With an eye on the environment, Rowayton students are always looking for ways to protect the planet. The Rowayton Green Team provides students with the opportunity to find solutions to real-world issues such as waste reduction, recycling, and energy conservation.
In the following pages, watch a message from our principal, look up contact information for our teachers and staff and read the latest news at Rowayton Elementary School.
OUR MISSION: Rowayton Elementary School is a diverse, nurturing, and mutually respectful learning environment that serves as an equitable foundation for student growth. The partnership between school and community fosters the unique qualities and talents of our students so that they can become passionate, purposeful global citizens. We instill in students the values of Rowayton R.O.C.K.S. - Responsibility, Open-mindedness, Cooperation, Kindness, and Safety.
OUR VISION: Rowayton Elementary School strives to be a pathway where students develop who they are as learners by thinking critically, being creative and unique, communicating effectively, and embracing the power of collaboration. We support our students in combining these distinct skills to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, enabling them to discover their potential in the future that awaits them.
A Brief History of Rowayton
The First Rowayton School
Rowayton’s first schoolhouse on record was built by such a school “society” soon to be designated the “South Five Mile River School District”. School districts often crossed town boundaries. Ours was comprised of residents of both sides of the river, as did the Middle and Northern Five Mile River School districts (Brookside and West Norwalk).
The Southern District was organized in 1820 and promptly set about providing a schoolhouse, one room, measuring maybe 12 x 15 feet. It was located across the road from the property of Andrew Bell who probably donated the site, now 11 Hunt Street. The teacher is reported to have received sixteen dollars a month (a bit excessive for that day, if true) and boarded in the neighborhood.
The second Rowayton School was built in 1848 on the river bank at the intersection of Cudlipp Street and Rowayton Avenue. Although larger and more comfortable than the first school, a second room had to be added some twenty years later. A reporter for the Norwalk Gazette visiting the village in 1869 “noticed the foundations going up for a considerable addition to the schoolhouse in Grantville, more than doubling its present capacity. More room for scholars’ seemed to be the cry all over the town – thanks to the benevolent law.” The school was a long narrow building facing the street on what is now 1-3 Cudlipp Street. The school was divided into two rooms, one called the “big” room and the second, of course, the “little” room, although according to pupils of the time, the rooms were about the same size. The addition was a square section added to the read of the building, making it “L” shaped.
The teacher in the “big” room also served as principal. Both the “big” and “little” room teachers came to school by train from South Norwalk, and walked down “Main Street” from the station. One was very conscious of the daily temperature and invariably read the outdoor thermometer each morning, the students were well aware of this habit. On cold mornings the big boys would put the thermometer in a bucket of ice where it was left until the teachers approached to within sight. Then the thermometer was hastily re-hung on its nail by the door. When the principal looked at the doctored instrument, he decided it was too cold to hold classes. School was cancelled for the day!
When the building was replaced in 1895, it was sold to a former associate editor of the South Norwalk Sentinel, Emma Walker. Miss Walker had the older part of the school detached and moved across and up Cudlipp Street where it still stands as a residence overlooking the White Bridge. Part of the read section also survives, having been incorporated into the residence at 3 Cudlipp Street.
1890 - 1913
In the early 1890’s the local school district acquired property at the corner of Witch Lane and Rowayton Avenue from Capt. Edward Smith, a natural growth oysterman. A two-story, four-room school, complete with full attic, basement, bell-tower and separate outdoor privies opened in 1894. A soaring flagpole stood on the front lawn and a steep hill, ideal for sliding and romping, was close behind the building that was to serve as Rowayton School for nearly fifty years.
Rowayton children going beyond elementary levels commuted to and from classes in South Norwalk by train and later by trolley.
1913-1940In 1913 Norwalk, South Norwalk and East Norwalk consolidated into one governmental administrative unit-The City of Norwalk. With consolidation came a single city-wide school system. The Rowayton School was deeded to the city Board of Education. The South Five Mile River School District ceased to exist.
Attendance at the old wooden schoolhouse on the Rowayton Avenue-Witch Lane corner had long since surpassed the capacity of the four room to house kindergarten, plus grades one through six, by 1939. The City of Norwalk, through its Board of Education, also acquired a tract of the Raymond estate north of McKinley Street east of Roton Avenue. The tract measured approximately ten acres and contained a large pond. The sale price was $10,000. The following year the present Rowayton school building opened. The acreage was filled and landscaped, playgrounds for the young and old installed-jungle gyms, softball fields, tennis and basketball courts-all resulting in a fine outdoor facility.
1950 - Present DayTwo large additions to the school were added between 1950 and 1970 to meet what seemed to be an ever-increasing demand. In 2015, Rowayton added a state of the art gymnasium, five more classrooms and a very large music room.