Standing Room Only As NMS Auditorium Loses Its Seats

By Laurie Borst

During public participation at the Board of Education meeting on February 6, high school freshman Bianca Crudo summed up the feelings of everyone present.

“As you all know, every high school student plays a sport. I’m no different. I act. Just like a soccer player, I practice every day and work up to a big game, but for me, it’s called a show. I recently heard about the seating situation at the middle school auditorium. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to have graced that stage in both seventh and eighth grade. I am saddened to hear about the closing of that auditorium. If soccer can have a field, we should have a stage. This is a crisis and it needs to be addressed now.”

A half-dozen residents spoke in support of addressing the auditorium seat situation sooner rather than later.

The situation in the middle school auditorium was brought to light in the February 2 edition of The Bee, when Newtown Middle School Principal Diane Sherlock provided information on a fundraiser the school had started to raise money to replace the seats in the auditorium.

Ms Sherlock said the school and the administration chose to pursue a fundraiser rather than put the request into an all ready tight budget. A rough estimate of the cost to replace the seats is $80,000.

At the Board of Education meeting on Thursday, February 1, Ms Sherlock answered questions for the board.

“We have raised over $11,000 so far,” Mrs Sherlock reported. “We have $69,000 left. When I get discouraged, I look at those kids and go back out and talk to somebody else. It’s harder than I thought.”

Board of Education member Paul Mangiafico asked Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff about the timing and replacement of the auditorium seats.

Dr Pitkoff responded, “The auditorium seats that we are fundraising for, the plan is to purchase them this spring and have them done when the kids come back in the fall. Remember, this is all fundraising.”

“I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that in a budget of $64 million that we have an auditorium at the middle school that looks as it does. It’s absolutely unsightly, it’s not functional, it’s dangerous. And for us to say that we cannot spend the money, $80,000, to replace the seats in the middle school, I think is an absolute disgrace to the district,” Mr Mangiafico declared. “For us to go out with our hat in our hand, and solicit funds, is one thing. Suppose we don’t get the funds. Then we’ll have another school year go by where we have a disgraceful situation where we can’t even go in the auditorium and sit down. Maybe we should just bite the bullet, allocate the funds, and get it over with. We have an obligation to maintain the facilities.”

This discussion led to a request for Ms Sherlock to come back at Tuesday night’s meeting with more information on the cost, timeline, etc. Before the board could reconvene, Dr Pitkoff made the decision to close the auditorium due to concerns for safety and liability.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Ms Sherlock reported she had been speaking with two seating companies about the school’s needs.

When asked about a timeline for the project, Ms Sherlock explained, specs need to be written first, then the bidding process could begin. These two steps would take four to six weeks. It would take 12 to 15 weeks from contract for the seats to be manufactured and another four to five weeks to install.

The fundraising efforts have raised another $1,200, bringing the total raised to $12,200 at this time.

Business Director Ron Bienkowski fielded questions raised by board members. He explained, “From a cost standpoint, incremental installation would cost more. We need to remove the seats. Then work must be done to smooth the floor and leveling of the floor is necessary for ADA compliance for wheelchairs. Then installation can begin.

“Before any of this, the layout must meet ADA requirements and egress requirements of the life safety code. Building officials and the fire marshal must sign off on it. All this must be done before beginning.”

Board of Education member Andrew Buzzi asked if the seats needed were special order or stock.

“We need to provide specs and then we’ll learn who has seats available [for purchase],” Ms Sherlock responded. “We need to get from planning to specs and then we can answer more questions. Companies we are talking with don’t know anything beyond the basic number.

“I’ve consulted with Tom Mahoney [at the town hall]. He helped with the process as they’ve gone through it.”

Mr Bienkowski added, “Once you go to bid, put out a RFP [request for proposal], then these companies will realize we’re serious and we can get more exact numbers. I had a conversation with Fletcher Thompson about this. We do have a working relationship with them. They estimate drawings and specs could be ready in four weeks, bidding and award about two weeks after that. I think we can speed this up by sending bid requests directly to companies we know of. The fast track, five weeks maybe. Preaward costs would be $6,000.”

“Do we have funds in budget to purchase these seats this year?” asked board member David Nanavaty.

“We do have a favorable balance in fuel oil. Figures for the month of January indicate we have saved potential balance of $100K in the fuel oil account,” Mr Bienkowski stated.

“What happened between last Thursday and today to cause the closure?” Mr Nanavaty continued.

“Concerns about liability issues,” Dr Pitkoff replied. “As a precaution, knowing we’d be discussing it this evening, the safest thing was to close the auditorium.”

“What would happen to money that’s been collected thus far?” asked board member Lisa Schwartz.

“As far as I’m concerned, the fundraising would continue. That body of money would go to this project. Plaques would still be placed on those seats,” Ms Sherlock responded.

After discussion, the board unanimously approved a motion to spend the $6,000 to have the bid documents prepared.

On Wednesday morning, February 7, Ms Sherlock contacted The Bee to explain, “This situation is constantly evolving. [Building and Grounds Supervisor] Dominick Posca had the idea to have his crew remove the seats now and replace them with folding chairs.”

The school has a number of chairs on hand, but would need to rent more. Ms Sherlock felt perhaps the school would rent chairs for the week of the school play coming up in March and continue to use the cafeteria as a replacement space until the auditorium was fully functional.

“The more I thought about this,” Mr Posca explained when contacted, “I said we can’t have the kids suffer because of this. We will get competitive quotes [for chairs]. We’re looking at ‘wedding’ chairs.”

Dr Pitkoff said this is one option to address use of the space safely. While Mr Posca is ready to bring a crew in this weekend to begin removing the chairs, Dr Pitkoff is taking a slower approach.

“We need to look at this further and make sure it is suitable,” he said. “February break might be an ideal time to do this.”

While this issue awaits resolution, Ms Sherlock says fundraising efforts will continue. If people donate, they will still receive letters of recognition, or a plaque as the amount of the donation dictates. Any donations reduce the amount of funds the school board needs to find.