Derry Elementary School

Derry Elementary School stands on Jackson Street in Derry, Maine, a big brick building that houses grades one through five. It is the central educational institution for the town's children and the place where the Losers' Club first encounter each other and their chief tormentor, Henry Bowers. The school's physical and social spaces—its classrooms, hallways, gymnasium, and schoolyard—become a stage for the power struggles, humiliations, and tentative friendships that define the children's lives before the summer of 1958.

Identity and Physical Setting

The school is a large brick building located on Jackson Street. Its interior includes standard classrooms, a gymnasium, a storage room for books, and halls lined with lockers. The building is surrounded by a schoolyard with a playground for younger children, featuring swings and teetertotters, and a larger yard for older students. The school is also the site of the annual Canal Days Festival, a week-long celebration that marks the centenary of the Canal's opening, though this event is held in the broader town, not on school grounds. The school's physical presence is a constant in the children's lives, a place of both routine and dread.

Social Hierarchy and Cruelty

Derry Elementary is a microcosm of the town's casual cruelty and rigid social order. The school is dominated by bullies like Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, and Belch Huggins, who terrorize weaker students. Ben Hanscom, a fat boy, is a frequent target; on the last day of school, Victor Criss bumps him on the steps, and Belch Huggins and Victor mock him from across the street. Richie Tozier, a scrawny, bespectacled boy with a wise mouth, is also a regular victim; Henry Bowers and his gang chase him through the school and into the toy department of Freese's Department Store. The school's teachers, like Mrs. Douglas, are generally strict but largely ineffective in curbing the bullying, which operates below the sight-lines of adults. The schoolyard is where children are sorted into the popular and the outcast, the tormentors and the tormented.

The Losers' Club and Their First Alliances

Derry Elementary is where the members of the Losers' Club first become aware of each other. Bill Denbrough, who stutters badly after his brother George's murder, is in the other fifth-grade classroom. Ben Hanscom is in Mrs. Douglas's fifth-grade class, where he sits near Henry Bowers during final exams and refuses to let him copy, an act that leads to a violent confrontation. Beverly Marsh, a pretty girl from a poor family on Lower Main Street, is also in Mrs. Douglas's class, and Ben develops a crush on her. Eddie Kaspbrak, a thin, asthmatic boy, is a friend of Bill's. Stan Uris, a Jewish boy who is often bullied, is in the fourth grade. Mike Hanlon, the only black child in Derry, attends the Neibolt Street Church School rather than Derry Elementary. The school is where the initial, fragile connections between these outcasts are formed, setting the stage for their summer alliance.

The End of the School Year and the Beginning of Summer

The last day of school in June 1958 is a pivotal moment at Derry Elementary. The bell rings, and children cheer as they receive their report cards. Ben Hanscom, after his confrontation with Henry Bowers, escapes the building and walks to the Public Library, where he writes a haiku for Beverly Marsh. This day marks the end of the school's structured routine and the beginning of the summer in the Barrens, where the Losers' Club will truly form. The school, with its rigid rules and social hierarchies, is left behind, but the fears and alliances forged within its walls carry over into the wild, unsupervised spaces of Derry. The school building itself, however, remains a landmark, a place the children pass and remember as they navigate the summer's terrors. The school's annual Canal Days Festival, a town-wide event, also serves as a backdrop for the murder of Adrian Mellon in 1984, a crime that echoes the town's long history of violence and draws the adult Losers back to Derry.