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School Committee honors nurse

Date: 1/11/2012

Jan. 11, 2012

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

CHICOPEE — Chicopee High School instructor and Chicopee Education Association President William Howe told the Chicopee School Committee that he would never think of a school nurse in the future as he had in the past.

Howe attended the Jan. 4 meeting of the school committee to thank Chicopee High School Nurse Joyce O’Neil, R.N. for her effort to help save his life when he suffered a serious heart attack on Oct. 27, 2011.

Howe noted, “I wouldn’t be sitting here” without O’Neil’s help.

He admitted he used to think that a school nurse “handed out Band-Aids for boo-boos,” but now he understands those who hold the position are “first and foremost a medical person.”

The School Committee presented O’Neil with a certificate of appreciation in recognition of her actions and she received as standing ovation from the committee members and those attending the meeting.

“She is, for me, a guardian angel in residence at Chicopee High School,” Howe said.

In other action at the meeting, Mayor Michael Bissonnette said the Building Committee has begun to review the applications for the architect to help transform the former Chicopee High School into a new middle school. The mayor noted the Massachusetts School Building Authority would have the final approval on the applications.

Bissonnette said the current budget estimate for the renovations is at $15 million, but cautioned as construction begins, “you don’t know what you’re going to find.”

Bissonnette also noted that current School Department offices must be moved due to structural problems and said the City Council has funded an architectural study of the former library next to City Hall as a possible new location. The evaluation will help determine if it would be cost effective to renovate the building or to demolish it.

School Committee member MaryBeth Pniak-Costello discussed the impact on the school system if the former Navy housing outside of Westover Air Reserve Base is renovated into housing for families.

Bissonnette said that he has heard “this concern over and over” from the existing condominium developments in that area. He said city officials have not yet finished the Request for Proposals that would be issued for the housing and provisions could be added to it to restrict any development to market rate housing for seniors.

The committee reelected Marjorie A. Wojcik as vice chair and Susan Lopes as the committee’s representative to city government.



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