BELCHERTOWN — Every story eventually comes to an end, and Cold Spring School reached its last page on Monday.

After 72 years, the school will no longer mark the first chapter of Belchertown students’ classroom learning. The School Committee voted to close the early childhood learning center last September based on declining enrollment and rising education costs. The closure is estimated to save the department $568,500 a year in maintenance, operations and personnel.

Over the past school year, the Belchertown Public Schools community has worked through the logistics of fitting prekindergarten to eighth grade in three buildings instead of four. With all the details planned and classrooms packed, generations of Belchertown students and staff gathered on June 18 to say goodbye to 57 S Main St.

“The true legacy of Cold Spring School is not the building we say goodbye to tonight,” Superintendent Brian Cameron said. “It is the generations of children who were welcomed here, encouraged here, challenged here and loved here.”

The stories of these generations covered the walls of Cold Spring. Black and white photos of students blowing bubbles and climbing the playground are sandwiched between 30 years of class photos. Student work from years past flooded tables for visitors to peruse. Former staff placed painted handprints on the walls, a tradition each student completes when they “sign out” for the year.

When Interim Principal Jill Pelletier arrived at Cold Spring School, she could feel the history reverberating through the walls. This energy did not come from the building itself, she learned, but from teachers’ perseverance and dedication to students.

“More than 70 years later, we can confidently say that Cold Spring School added far more than attractiveness to the town,” she said. “Its greatest contribution was never in the structure itself, but the opportunities it created and the lives it touched.”

Cold Spring School was built in 1954, but it only became an early learning education center in 2003. Former Superintendent Richard Pazasis remembers new families with young children moving into town in the 1990s, causing enrollment to skyrocket. The town decided to build a new high school and tasked Pazasis to distribute students among five school buildings. That setup lasted 28 years.

“Despite the 28 years that my reorganization plan was able to successfully remain in place, the reality that change never stops came true,” he said.

As a result of Cold Spring’s closure, Belchertown Public Schools will once again redistribute grades. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students will move into Swift River Elementary School next year, which will become a pre-K through second grade school. The third grade currently at Swift River will move to Chestnut Hill Community School, which will house third through fifth grades. The sixth grade, currently at Chestnut Hill, will move to Jabish Brook Middle School, which will be home to grades 6-8.

However, the building itself will continue as a place of learning. Pathfinder Tech leased the building to open 150 new seats for prospective students. The vocational high school will renovate the building over the summer in time for the 2026-2027 school year.

“I want to wish Pathfinder the very best with the new programs that will be offered in our sweet little school house,” Cold Spring teacher and former student Jessica Desroches said. “I know you will come to love it as much as we do.”

The dedicated staff and small-town community ensured Desroches felt cared for and safe as a small child. When she joined the staff, Desroches preserved this culture for students like Belchertown High School sophomore Ava Swiatlowski.

“This place was my starting point,” Swiatlowski said. “Not only the starting point of my academic career, but the starting place of who I’ve become as a person, and my little five-year-old self didn’t even know it.”

The halls were not as cozy for Andrew Barrett. As the son of former Cold Spring School principal Larry Barrett, Andrew was known by every single teacher before he stepped foot in the building. He could not walk two feet without a watchful eye catching him goofing around.

“I probably got in more trouble than anyone else here,” he said.

Those teachers walked through the school once again, but they were not patrolling the halls this time. Pat Fuller, the first Cold Spring kindergarten teacher, returned to the room where she taught from 1970 to 2003. She pointed out the continuities more than the changes: the finicky closet doors and the corkboards she installed to display student artwork.

As she reminisces, Holly Ruderman, a preschool teacher who taught her last class in the same room, greets her predecessor. Boxes of toys, books and office supplies are the only decor left in the room. They will move to Ruderman’s new room in Swift River School over the summer. Even now, she wonders what it will look like in the new space, and how many times her muscle memory will drive her to Cold Spring.

“We pack up at the end of every year, [but] it’s werid seeing it packed up so sufficiently,” she said.

Cold Spring not only has its own story, but it has also has become a foundational setting in Belchertown family stories. Four generations of the Opalenik family have attended Cold Spring, from grandparents and aunts to cousins and nieces. Kari Opalenik went to school when her mother taught at Cold Spring, and has since watched her children, nieces and nephews walk in the same halls.

“It wasn’t just where we came to school,” Opalenik said. “It just feels like home.”