Broken heaters trigger classroom shuffle

Housatonic teachers and students returned from winter break this year to classrooms with no heat, prompting teachers to shuffle rooms to accommodate their classes.

Science teacher Elizabeth Dinneen and history teacher Peter Vermilyea were forced to relocate in other rooms as the cold became unbearable and unworkable.

The heat was still non-functioning after January’s blizzard, which prompted Housatonic to have a snow day on Monday, Jan. 26, and a delay on Tuesday, Jan. 27. Vermilyea, who primarily teaches U.S. history to juniors, came back to broken heat for the rest of the week.

He said he was told a part had broken in the school’s heater and had yet to be delivered. In the meantime, his classes would be assigned to whatever room is available at the necessary time, so classes ended up meeting in six different rooms.

“I was in Dr. Lizzi’s room, Ms. Messina’s, Ms. Melino’s, Ms. Jones’s, Mrs. O’Reilly’s, and room 133,” said Vermilyea. Jeff Lloyd, Housatonic Facilities Manager played a key role in returning Vermilyea and his students back to their classroom. Vermilyea said Lloyd came in over the weekend to repair the heater. “The part was supposed to come in on Thursday but it didn’t, it came in either after school on Friday or on Saturday,” Vermilyea said. “But Mr. Lloyd came in here on Sunday to work on it and fix it so I could be back in my room on Monday.”

Dinneen’s issues with the heat were less prolonged. “It initially broke about two weeks before winter break,” she said. “It was fixed the next day, but a few days later the heat kept increasing before dropping again.” The unreliable heat became a bigger problem for Dinneen.

During Dinneen’s wait for parts, temperatures in her room reached a low of about 39F during the school day.

Assistant principal Steven Schibi and Principal Ian Strever relocated Dinneen’s classes to the science discussion room primarily, with some classes moving to science teacher Sarah Braun’s room when lab tables were needed. Dinneen said the principals, science chair Letitia Garcia-Tripp and the other teachers in the department were very helpful in the period with no heat.

The move required flexibility. The small tables in the discussion room proved inappropriate for working in groups as Dinneen’s students were used to the larger lab tables in her room.

Dinneen returned to her classroom on Jan. 7 after winter break. She thanked housy’s custodians, Jeff Lloyd and Benjamin Brown for their work to repair the heat. “Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Brown were instrumental in getting this fixed,” Dinneen said.