Class is now in session at Justice Alan Page Elementary in Maplewood, the second metro-area school named after the NFL Hall of Famer and retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice.
The building was constructed on the site of the former Maplewood Middle School. North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale district voters in 2019 approved a $275 million facilities plan that included the new elementary building.
Page visited the school for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, although that wasn't his first time in the building. It also won't be the last.
"He's made it very clear that he wants to be a continuous part of the school," Principal Heidi George said.
Students enrolled in the Freedom Schools summer program met with Page as he worked with an artist to visualize the mural in the building's atrium. Page also visited with kindergartners on their first day of school.
"He sat right there in the grass and all the kids sat around him," George said.
Approximately 800 students attend Justice Page Elementary, North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale district spokesman Josh Anderson said. Throughout the year, Page will visit each class and read books he co-authored with students, including "Bee Love," "Grandpa Alan's Sugar Shack" and "Alan and His Perfectly Pointy Impossible Perpendicular Pinky."
When voters approved the district's facilities plan, the district reduced the number of elementary schools in North St. Paul and Maplewood from nine to seven. They also condensed their three middle schools to two.
In both cases, district officials expanded building capacities to accommodate more students at each site. At Justice Alan Page Elementary, faculty and staff consulted students and their families over the summer on what they liked most about their former school and what traditions and practices they wanted to bring to their new building.
"We were taking the very best pieces of the schools that closed and where people moved from, then deciding how to create the culture here at Justice Alan Page [Elementary]," George said.
Page has long been a mentor and inspiration for the district's educators of color, officials said when the former Vikings standout was announced as the elementary school's namesake in 2019.
The Page Education Foundation provides middle schoolers with leadership opportunities as they prepare for high school and has also provided college scholarships for the district's students.
The last time a metro-area school was named after Page was in 2017, when the Minneapolis school board voted to rename Alexander Ramsey Middle School at the behest of its students. It is now called Justice Page Middle School.
