NORTH HAVEN - The party spirit filled the air at the Montowese Elementary School, as students, parents and staff got together to celebrate the school's 50th birthday, in a special birthday celebration, complete with a huge array of very special birthday hats.

The children and many of the staff wore the unique, handcrafted hats in honor of he occasion, including hats made to look like birthday cakes, top hats, hats with sparklers and many others, all made by the students.

Anthony Mancini, who has been the principal at Montowese School for the past 18 years, said that he also was a student of Montowese School as a child, when it was in a different location.

"This is the second generation Montowese School," said Mancini, "the first generation Montowese School is now the Village Medical Center, that was the original, and that physical plant became too small as North Haven began to grow, and we had the migration from the cities into the suburbs," he said.

"In 1957 and 1958, this school started to open, it opened in a couple of phases, and it included grades kindergarten through sixth grade, and the old Montowese School became the Village Street School, it housed the middle school students. It had a range of numbers of different experiences," he said. "North Haven was just growing and growing and so it offered as an overflow facility. We built the Junior High at Bailey Road, so now we had the High School on Maple Avenue, the Junior High, and at the time, I believe we had seven elementary schools. The Village Street was no longer needed and it was sold privately to the Village Medical Center."

Mancini said that there have been three major renovations to the current campus since 1996, enabling the School to accommodate the growing population of students grades K through 5.

There are currently 461 students at the school.

Mancini kicked off the celebration by thanking some of the people who he said make it such a special place, including the Superintendent of North Haven Schools Sara-Jane R. Querfeld.

"It is a wonderful School, and this is a very special day," said Querfeld, who also sported a birthday hat in honor of the occasion.

Like most birthday parties, there was also entertainment, courtesy of the schools band, and magician Jim Sisti, who took turns bringing several of the students on stage to help with his magic tricks.

"It was great to see the kids so involved in basically what is an historical event," said Sisti, "I think it gives the kids a sense of history, and perspective when they get involved like that."

Fifth-grade student, Nicholas Iwanec, who plays the tenor saxophone in the school's band, said that the party was fun, and that every day at Montowese is fun.

"My favorite thing is playing instruments," said the 11 year old, "and I like the teachers here, we do a lot of fun stuff here."