A roof over their heads

“We want rain!’’ pleaded Tova Francois, a paraprofessional who helps push the wheelchairs, among other tasks, at this Boston public school serving the most severely disabled teenagers.

The reason: the school’s new red-blue-and-yellow-roofed entranceway, which is innovative in design and cost-free to taxpayers. For years, Carter students with little or no mobility got soaked in inclement weather during the lengthy process of being dropped off and picked up by their buses. Principal Marianne Kopaczynski’s vision of a transportation shelter for her small school of 24 students was not a priority in a financially strapped urban school system struggling with high drop-out rates and low MCAS scores.

But then came a fateful day, April 23, 2008, when Kopaczynski responded to an e-mail that had floated into her in-box. One serendipitous event led to the next, and people she never met before began offering their minds, muscles, and money.

The result has been a wish fulfilled. The new contemporary structure not only protects students from the elements, but is like a massive work of interactive art - one that reminds the school that the plight of its students is not overlooked.

“People heard us,’’ said Kopaczynski, sitting just outside her cluttered office, her eyes welling with tears.

It was spring of last year when Sam Batchelor, 29, a Boston architect who grew up in Brookline, was hired by the Massachusetts College of Art to run one of its first intensive, graduate courses in architecture. The class, set to begin a year later, had an ambitious task: within 10 weeks, design and build with their own hands a modest-size community structure.

Searching for ideas, Batchelor typed some e-mails, including one to his in-laws.

His father-in-law e-mailed back: “I would suggest contacting my friend, Phil Speiser who is director of arts therapy at the Whittier Street Health Center . . . philip.speiser@wshc.org . . . Red Sox are up 5-0 at the moment on the Yankees. That is acceptable.’’

Days later, Batchelor e-mailed Speiser, who then forwarded the query to Kopaczynski, who had been running the Carter School near the South End-Roxbury border for more than 30 years. Speiser urged her to think about ideas, adding, “If you are interested, just contact them . . .’’

Kopaczynski wasted no time.

“Phil Speiser forwarded your e-mail to me. We are a Boston Public School for severely/profoundly multihandicapped youngsters . . .’’ Kopaczynski typed. “Our students are unloaded in front of the school but are exposed to inclement weather as they are slowly lifted down from their wheelchair buses. We would like a covering at the sidewalk so that if it is pouring, the students would not get wet . . . Please write back if you are interested . . .’’

In early June, Batchelor’s graduate class of five men and five women headed to the Carter School where they met Kopaczynski on the cracked sidewalk outside her cinder-block building. The students went into the classrooms where some of the teenagers have the ability to wave, though none can speak sentences. The class watched the difficult process of loading the students onto yellow buses.

After returning from the tour, Batchelor’s class began brainstorming: How can we make this more than just a covered shelter? What other features might help make this stimulating for students?

“They wanted it to be more than just a protection from the rain,’’ said Batchelor.

Within a few weeks, the architecture students came up with the idea of what they termed an “interactive rain garden,’’ one that channels water from the gutters into vertical rows of pint-sized silver buckets - and eventually, into the outstretched hands of Carter students who crave sensory experiences. They also created a xylophone-like rooftop, which would turn the rainfall into rhythms.

The structure would also feature rock-filled basins that provided another sensory experience for the Carter School students. They designed colorful seats - set at wheelchair level - for aides to use while waiting with students. In an environmental touch, they routed all the rainwater, eventually, into basins that nourish nearby plantings.

The roof also includes colorful translucent panels, which project, in sunny weather, hues into the sidewalk.

Two weeks later, as Batchelor pressed city authorities for expedited permit approvals, his students showed the principal a mockup of their proposal.

“I was blown away,’’ Kopaczynski recalled.

Through sweltering heat and heavy downpours, the graduate students, in hard hats, hauled heavy lumber, welded steel columns, and shoveled 4-foot-deep holes. Few had ever worked in construction.

Jonathan Schluenz, 37, said morale sunk during the digging phase, which took two full weeks.

“Almost half the work you did, you’ll never see,’’ said Schluenz, who lives in Jamaica Plain.

They worried they would never finish by their Aug. 14 deadline. They also agonized about supplies and money for the project, estimated to cost about $40,000. A big boost came when Carter School parent coordinator Kathy Ryan talked to her brother, Michael Ryan, vice president of the Boston office of Structure Tone, a worldwide construction business. His company ultimately donated concrete, safety fencing, and hand tools, among other things.

Graduate student Rhea Bundrant, 32, looked on the Internet for a company that could donate metal roofing. She called Creative Building Supply in New Jersey, and it agreed almost instantly. Days later she was typing a letter from her Roxbury apartment to the company president, which ended: “Your generous contribution brings this project one vital step closer to completion.’’

Massachusetts College of Art donated $15,000. Eventually, the project attracted contributions from more than two dozen donors, including Hyde Park Concrete, Boston Sand and Gravel, and the Iron Workers Local Union No. 7.

The class finished on Aug. 21, a week behind schedule - but in plenty of time for the first day of classes.

At the end, students described the project like an episode out of a TV reality show. The highlight, they said, was Kopaczynski’s talk to them on the final day as they applied the last paint touches. Bundrant said Kopaczynski had a look on her face of pure gratitude and began by saying, “I wish I could thank each of you individually.’’

As of last week, it had yet to rain during the school’s drop-off and pick-up times, but the principal knows it eventually will. In the meantime, she said, it doesn’t matter.

“This reenergizes me,’’ she said.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.