A Recipe For Disaster

To the Editor:

I am the technology education teacher at Newtown Middle School. As students were presenting “Architectural Models” with the essential question, “What makes a shelter safe?,” torrents of rain began to pour into the classroom. Other teachers throughout the school have been displaced during various rainstorms for the past five years. Soaked areas included the computer lab, science lab, and music areas. Cellos and electronics don’t mix so well with rain water! Fifty-gallon containers caught rainwater with funnels, 6-inch hoses, and duct tape forming Rube Goldberg mazes to redirect roof water from dripping onto pizza in the cafeteria. In one reading class, a student was rained upon by a soaked ceiling tile that necessitated a trip home to change clothes.

Finance board member Marty Gersten, raising concerns about the middle school roof said, “Yes, you may have the authority to spend $4.2 million, but you don’t know what you are building yet…to me it’s just a recipe for disaster.” First Selectman Pat Llodra in agreement said, “The reason that is a concern is because there has been quite a bit of conversation, unresolved conversation, about whether or not the middle school will be a middle school [in the future].” Board of Education member Bill Hart, in favor of the new roof said, “The time to act is now.”

How many of the citizens realize how long the middle school roof has resembled Swiss cheese? Are you relieved that no student has yet been pummeled by a weighted saturated ceiling tile falling from 8 feet above? Talk about a “recipe for disaster.” What about mold, slipping on the floor, damage to electrical work, and poor sanitation. Is it not foolish to even engage a debate regarding the merits of a roof? It’s too late to worry about the money. The time for that should have been before we wasted countless hundreds of thousands of dollars with makeshift “Jerry rigging” repairs and glorified roof tarps!

The moral imperative is simply this: Students and staff are entitled to a safe and comfortable work environment. Reelections of the first selectman, finance board members, Legislative Council members, and Board of Education members should be directly linked to the accomplishment of a new middle school roof this summer as outlined and announced.

So freely expressed by me as a citizen, taxpayer, and teacher without a regard to a chilling effect that prevents other stakeholders from doing the same when they know this to be truth!

Donald H. Ramsey

NMS Teacher and Newtown Citizen

3 Prospect Drive, Newtown                                              June 21, 2011