Committee receives favorable reports on condition of school buildings
Date: 9/26/2012
By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.comCHICOPEE — There was plenty of good news at the School Committee meeting conducted on Sept. 19.
Promising he would go into detail at a later meeting, School Superintendent Richard Rege said the scores from the 2012 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Survey (MCAS) showed that one Chicopee school, Anna E. Berry School, moved to the level 1 rating the highest by state standards — and two other schools went from level 4 to level 2 schools.
The rest of the city's schools are at level 3 and there are none at level 4, Rege said.
Although pleased with results, Rege noted, "We still have work to do."
Rege also commented on the Damage to Building reports for the time from Jan. 1 to March 31 and from April 1 to June 30. He said that vandalism to the city's schools was "very minimal" and he credited the decrease to additional security cameras and lighting.
He said in the past there would be repairs necessary in the "multiple of thousands of dollars." He added that most of the damage is caused "by people outside of the buildings."
Members of the committee, many of whom recently toured a number of schools, praised the condition of the school buildings. School Committee Vice Chair Marjorie Wojcik called the condition of the schools she toured as "amazing."
School Committee member Donald Lamothe said the schools he visited were "as clean and as useable as they can be." He added seeing teachers working as late as 6:30 p.m. perfecting their skills with the new SMART boards the district recently acquired impressed him.
School Committee member Michael Pise also had praise, but noted that with buildings constructed in the 1950s and '60s, the district can't order ceiling and floor tiles that match. He added that every condition he saw was safe.
The School Committee also officially accepted a donation of $1,200 from the family of Amanda Plasse, raised in the young woman's memory. Rege noted that Plasse "was very creative and loved art."
He said the school district would use the funds to purchase art appreciation books for the school that would have an interior plate with information about Plasse.
