Schools

Wrentham Elementary School Committee Hears Snowtober Response Recap

Superintendent talks about district response, shelter possibility.

Wrentham Elementary Superintendent Jeffrey Marsden recapped the district's response to the October snowstorm at Tuesday's school committee meeting.

The district missed two days of school as a result of the storm.

Marden said the presence of a National Grid liaison in town was helpful, but he felt more could have been done.

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"From my own perspective, there was not a lot of planning in terms of having crews in Massachusetts," he said. "They had crews from places like Missouri, who have to drive here."

Committee Chairman Edward Goddard said he believed such issues will happen again.

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"Utilities are really bare-bones now," he said. "They're not going to have crews waiting around... that's why we're going to have more of these."

Marsden said the district — as it did with Tropical Storm Irene — acted quickly to preserve the food in the school refrigerators. He said a generator was used in one school, while the other school's food was transported to a refrigerated facility.

"There was substantial damage to the trees in front of Delaney," he said. "Also, when we have power outages for many hours, there's some issue with the dry sprinklers at the Vogel School that sets them off."

Marsden said a company came in and fixed the issue.

He also said he had spoken to Town Administrator William Ketcham about using a school as a town shelter.

"Wrentham was transporting residents to Attleboro — we didn't have a shelter here," he said. "[The town] wanted to target this school [the Roderick School] or Delaney to be a shelter."

Marsden said a generator was necessary to set up a shelter, and that the matter will likely come up during the budget season in spring.

Goddard said he supported a shelter.

"I want to continue to make the elementary schools a community center," he said. "Only a small number of people can go to [the town's current facilities]."

Marsden said the district had offered its kitchen to the senior center, so meals could go out to town seniors. He said the center got power back shortly after the elementary schools in this most recent storm, but added that the offer stood for any future events.


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