With Check List Items Left—

School Officials Preparing For Move Into NHS Expansion

By Eliza Hallabeck

With the once anticipated September 1 move into the Newtown High School expansion now months in the past, NHS Principal Charles Dumais and Board of Education Chair William Hart are setting their sights at early to mid-January.

Mr Dumais is now focusing on January 8 as the date to move larger items, and is hopeful teachers will have the opportunity to start moving smaller items into the expansion as early as this week.

“We’re excited to finally move,” said Mr Dumais. “And it is important that we move before the half-year mark.”

As both Mr Dumais and Mr Hart explained, students will be taking finals at the end of January, and both hope to not move during that week. Mr Dumais said he expects students will have the use of the space by January 10.

After a walk through the expansion on Thursday, December 16, Mr Hart said work still remains.

“There is still a list of things that need to be done that prohibit using the space,” said Mr Hart.

Items left to be finished, Mr Hart explained, include exhaust hoods in the new culinary space that vent air the wrong way, and technology issues that need to be corrected before the school can open. Technology issues include desks in the teachers’ offices that are not yet connected to electricity or data use, according to Mr Dumais.

The expansion’s servery and the school’s new cafeteria, which will run in conjunction with the existing cafeteria, needs to be running before students can use the expansion due to regulations, according to Mr Hart. Students attending classes in the expansion are too far away from the school’s existing cafeteria, he said, and Chartwells, Newtown’s food service provider, needs the space for about one week before students can use the servery.

As the expansion nears the move in date, Mr Hart said it appears to always be the “other guy’s problem.,” but, regardless, he continued, the items need to be fixed.

“Everybody is working to get this done,” said Mr Hart.

Once students and staff are fully in the expansion, the renovation work on the existing building will begin.

As announced by Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson at the start of the expansion and renovation project, the public and anyone who has been associated with the project since its inception is expected to be invited to attend a walkthrough of the building once it is complete. Mr Hart said whether the walkthrough will take place before or after the renovation work is complete has yet to be determined.

At this point, Mr Hart said, he just wants the work on the expansion finished.