From the Director of Facilities Management Edward Collins
First, I would like to tell you how lucky I feel to join a great team put together for one common goal…..educating the children of Middletown. Everyone from the bus monitor, bus driver, custodians, maintenance people, teachers and administrators have a part in this. Collectively we build a base or foundation that is used to create a high learning environment. We are all part of building capacity in the Middletown School District. I have been involved in a lot different school settings, be it public, charter, Catholic or private and I feel Middletown stands right at the top. I was very impressed with the way the buildings have been kept up. I am spending the first two weeks going to every school to meet with the administrators and hopefully the staff. I feel that I have a lot to add to a great system.
On Monday, September 19th, the Town Council approved the request from the FAC
committee to move ahead in the process of hiring a consultant to do needs
assessment of all schools. Basically it is a study it find out what the Middletown school department, school committee and the community wants their schools to offer. This is the first step in either building a new school or just adding to existing ones. This was a result of a lot hard work done by the former Facilities Director and the members of the Facilities Advisory Committee. Thanks to them, the School Committee and the Town Council for having the vision to make this happen.
Due to the rising cost of utilities I will be monitoring the energy market to explore other ways to purchase power. Such avenues as buying Power by the Hour and finding other sources for gas will be on the agenda. There are basically two objectives when purchasing power: reducing cost and stabilizing the budget. We will be trying to accomplish both.
Projects like painting of classrooms, replacement of chalkboards and the building of shelves to get supplies off of heaters are still ongoing. New front door security systems will be completed the week of September 19th, 2005 at all schools. The card system at the High school should be up and running in a few weeks.
SCHOOL FACT:
Over the next ten months 70% of the children’s time interacting with adults will come in our schools from employees of the Middletown School District. Make sure you are making a positive impact!
