Courant.com

Like the baby trout, West Hartford fourth-grader Elijah Starks had never been to a river until Tuesday.

But here he was at the edge of Burlington Brook, being called upon to perform an honor.

"Who's Elijah?" asked Carl Swanson, president of the Farmington Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited. "You, stay right here. You're going to release the fish."

It all started in November, when the volunteer group Trout Unlimited brought 100 trout eggs to the Smith School science lab as part of a conservation project with the state Department of Environmental Protection. For the next five months, life at the West Hartford magnet school revolved around a 55-gallon, cold-water tank and the task of raising trout.

Teachers who normally wouldn't stop by the science lab would pop their heads in during breaks. Kids, including some who didn't show interest in earlier projects, watched in wonder as the brown trout grew to an inch long. They fed them, drew them, talked to them, wrote journal entries about them, counted them, and learned about death.

On Tuesday, the tank was slowly drained and the 24 surviving fish were rounded up in small nets and put in a bucket for the 14-mile bus trip to the Farmington River.

"It feels like my child is going off to college, you know," said Principal Delores M. Bolton, who was known to click on the Smith School website at night just to watch a video clip of the trout. "They've grown up, and now we're releasing them, to be on their own."

It was also a journey for the 31 students who were picked to go to the river, said science teacher Tracy Bennett and first-grade teacher Lesley Callahan. Because the demand to go was so high, an essay contest was held, and 66 entries from all grade levels were submitted. Bennett and Callahan, who organized the project with money from the Foundation for West Hartford Public Schools and Trout Unlimited, chose essays where the students gave their personal bests.

Elijah, 9, imagined a conversation with a trout. What are your enemies? he asked. Where can we find you? Where is your habitat?

For years, Elijah had been hard to reach and hard to push, Callahan said. "This project has brought him around [180] degrees as far as his motivation."

Tuesday morning, as some of his schoolmates stomped around the river rocks in galoshes, Elijah took a moment to describe what he loved most about the trout.

"They can transform," Elijah said quietly. "Into different stages and into an adult."

At 11:31 a.m., Bennett announced that "the moment of truth" had come.

The fifth-graders mobilized first, then second graders and first graders, releasing fish until only several trout were left when the last group — the fourth graders — stepped to the water.

Kids huddled around Elijah as he dipped the container into the river.

"Bye! Bye, Leo Junior!" a girl called after a fish that soon disappeared downstream.

"Bye, Charlie Brown!" a boy yelled to another trout.

Elijah, having done his job, walked to dry ground and raised his arms in triumph. "I did it!" he shouted.

A few moments later, Callahan got tears in her eyes as she thought of the boy's progress.

"Can you see? Can you see the goosebumps on my arm?" Callahan said, raising her jacket sleeve. "We had never been able to reach him ... until this project."

Contact Vanessa de la Torre at vdelatorre@courant.com.