Mill Pond School Changing School Start Time

This is the announcement issued shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26, by Principal Reene Hatherley to families of Mill Pond students.

A Message to Mill Pond School

Hello Mill Pond Families,

This is Reene Hatherley, Mill Pond Principal.

As you know, our school was closed on Friday, Feb. 18., due to the gas leak that was discovered early that morning. A huge chunk of ice fell from the roof between the gymnasium and the main school building, landing with great foce on the gas line cap near the boiler room doors. The cap broke off, leaving the gas line open and leaking the gas into the air. This made it necessary to shut off the heat and hot water inside the school and to close school so that the emergency repairs could be completed by NStar. This took several hours, too much time to even call for a delayed start to the day.

I spoke with our superintendent, Marianne O'Connor, to determine how the missed day should be made up. Since having Mill Pond stay open for an additional day at the end of the year would require the district to pay for buses to transport only our students, we rejected that option. Last year, the Fales School was closed for a day due to another utility breakdown. The decision was made to add a number of minutes to each school day in order to make up their missed day. We have decided to do the same at Mill Pond so that we will not be adding an entire day of school to this year's calendar. Here is the plan, beginning on Monday, March 7:

• Students will be picked up at their bus stops as usual at the same time.
• Buses will begin to let students get off beginning at 7:40 a.m. (a change from the current 7:45 a.m.)
• Students will come into school five minutes earlier than the 7:55 a.m. bell - at 7:50 a.m.
• Students who are being dropped off by parents and guardians should be at school before 8:03 a.m.
• The official start of the Mill Pond School day will be 8:03 a.m. - five  minutes earlier than the current 8:08 a.m. start.
• Our current schedule for periods will remain the same. The five minutes will be added into homeroom time (8:03 to 8:24 a.m.)

While I realize that this may not seem ideal to everyone, I hope that you wil know we carefully considered many options. this plan seems to be the least disruptive to our present schedule.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. This has been a challenging winter season, but spring will be here soon.

I hope you have a great weekend. I'll look forward to welcoming our students back to school on Monday morning.