At the Tuesday, April 11, New Fairfield Permanent Building Committee (PBC) meeting, Colliers International’s Mr. Mark Schweitzer explained, “there have been numerous injuries [to] the kids in their excitement to get down the slide.” He said the belief is that they have not realized there is an overha ng and hit their heads “so we’re looking at what we can do to safeguard the students there.” In addition, a first grader fell through or off the rope bridge and “sustained an injury.” He went on to say, “we’re getting the documentation together for the manufacturer.” The playground will need further repairs to its hardscaping, after breaks were discovered. A possible cause was that it was hit during snow removal.

The PBC approved most tech bids for the new high school, including base equipment for the broadcast media classrooms and studio. As previously reported, what was intended to be a sophisticated system in the educational specifications, was mistakenly left out of the original bid documentation. The infrastructure is in place to support the system, but the project cannot currently afford the intended equipment. A late addition to the tech purchases, as of this meeting, was the purchase of docking stations for every high school classroom for faculty members to use. These were left off the original requests for equipment. When asked whether these could b e part of the BOE’s budget in the future, rather than the project’s budget, given how tight it will be in the end, IT Dire ctor Mr. Paul Gouveia said, “I would have trouble opening the school in September with the ones that are in the current high school and they’re not in this year’s budget.” The tech purchases in general are running $25,000 under budget.

Colliers International’s Mr. Scott Pellman gave a donation summary of Consolidated’s furniture, saying 1,332 pieces of equipment were donated and shipped to charities in Zanzibar, Tanzania. While pricey to donate the equipment, “a significant amount of material was donated to a good cause and was kept out of the landfill,” he said.

O&G’s Mr. Zach Rowley explained that the elementary school will be busy during the student’s spring break with the completion of the remaining punch list and warranty items. There is a plan to drain the third leaky fire tank into a tanker—there will be a tanker on site from the fire department—and they will closely inspect the tank. They hope to identify where the leak is coming from.

There was a lengthy presentation on the spaces that are being completed at the high school, including the auditorium and parts of the cafeteria. There was agreement that a window design should be updated for the Wellness Center. The new design is more elaborate, rather than simply block letters, as was originally proposed.

The next Permanent Building Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 25, 7:30 p.m.

By Sarah Opdahl