Parent organization at Bristol County elementary school brightening the lives of students

A Bristol County school just completed two projects to enrich the lives of its students in addition to receiving an accolade from the state.

According to President Jennifer Rodrigues, the parent organization at Merrill Elementary school in Raynham finally completed two big projects in September that they worked on for the entire school year last year.

The first project took the library in the school and turned it into a functioning library where the children can now check out books and take them home. Rodrigues stated that until now, Merrill was the last school in the whole Bridgewater-Raynham School District where students were not able to check out books.

The second project was a permanent sunshade structure with picnic tables for students to be able to have snack and classroom time outside. It was a $25,000 project that the parents’ organization funded, said Rodrigues.

Merrill also received a golden basketball signed by the Boston Celtics championship team over the summer presented by DESE for being an All-Star attendance school. Merrill ranked in the top 10 schools in Massachusetts for improving chronic absenteeism after it became a growing issue since the 2020 pandemic. We reported in August that a Fall River school also received the honor.

Administration from the Bridgewater Raynham school district will be visiting the school in the next couple of weeks to cut a ribbon for both projects.