Newtown Public Schools Facilities Director Bob Gerbert, Jr, offered an overview of work completed in school buildings over the summer, at the Board of Education’s mostly virtual September 15 meeting.

At Hawley Elementary School, he said, three areas of flooring were replaced along with entry matting “that was showing its age.” An elevator sump pump was also replaced at Hawley as were several exhaust fans in the 1948 addition.

A request from Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dr Kathy Gombos to install a sidewalk and modify a fence near the rear of the school was completed to allow better traffic flow to the playground. A bottle-filling station was also added to the second floor of the school.

At Middle Gate Elementary School, an air conditioning installation project for its gymnasium was completed and duct work was cleaned. Concrete stairs leading from a lower parking lot to the main bus drop-off area were repaired.

Head O’ Meadow Elementary School projects included freshening up floor tile and grout, replacing window treatments in classrooms, installing new entry matting at two entrances, and installing some floor tile in staff bathrooms.

Custodians oversaw painting in several areas at Reed Intermediate School. Other projects there encompassed replacing a section of floor tile and carpet near the main entrance, some sidewalk work, some foundation work, installing privacy film on a number of windows in the school, replacing four of the variable frequency drives in the boiler plant, and finishing a variable air volume (VAV) control upgrade.

At Newtown Middle School, carpeting and floor tile work was completed, along with classroom window treatment work, the removal of some overgrown pine trees, the completion of brickwork near an exterior door and the main entrance, and the installation of a rooftop cooling unit, replacing one that failed in May.

Projects completed at Newtown High School included replacing the auxiliary gymnasium’s wall padding and the pool exterior doors, resurfacing the tennis courts, cleaning the ductwork in one section of the building, painting several hallway doors, and constructing a new security shed along with a security welcome desk.

The security welcome desk could have cost the district roughly $30,000, according to Gerbert. Instead it was built by a district maintenance employee and trained carpenter, Mark Pirozzoli, who “basically built this thing from scratch with his bare hands.” It cost roughly $3,000, and Gerbert called the security welcome desk the “crown jewel” of the summer projects.

“I can’t say enough about the custodial staff, our maintenance guys, our vendors, and contractors,” said Gerbert.

Other maintenance work not part of the report but also completed over the summer included prepping the schools for COVID-19 requirements and protocols.

Overall, Gerbert said, it was a “pretty busy summer.”