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Bridgeport staff outline Bassett decommissioning plan and daily operations challenges; vandalism, staffing and a school alert system top concerns
Summary
District staff described an active decommissioning plan for Bassett, inventory and asset moves, plus operational challenges including vandalism, staff shortages and a purchased Raptor alert system district officials proposed to deploy.
District operations and facilities staff told the committee they have started a multi‑department decommissioning process for Bassett in preparation to vacate the building and turn it over to the city, and they outlined parallel work on inventory, records digitization and asset disposition.
Facilities staff said about 25 truckloads of materials already have been moved from Bassett to other schools or to storage; staff plan to bring in three 40‑yard dumpsters during April break to purge recycle-designated items. A task list with categories—archives, building systems, technology, keys, environmental and finance—assigns departments, coordinators and deadlines and the documents are kept as living files on the district shared drive, staff said.
Staff identified several operational stress points: a large set of heavy items (weight room equipment) that may be recycled or auctioned, a substantial records backlog being moved to digitization and a range of historical items (plaques, artifacts) that the district intends to preserve or archive. Operations staff said they expect to turn over Bassett to the city “broom clean” and aim to complete decommissioning ahead of winter, with an internal target of September for the handoff.
Facilities staff also presented a monthly operational update showing a maintenance workload the district described as strained by vandalism and staff shortages. The district reported roughly 1,584.5 maintenance labor hours and about $33,000 in materials tied to repairs in a recent interval; custodial callouts averaged about 10% of staff on a typical day and spikes in March approached 25–30% on some days. Staff said vandalism of bathrooms (doors and stall hardware) drives recurring expense; the district estimated hinges and composite partition replacements can cost roughly $200 per hinge and that repeated incidents skew maintenance budgets.
Board members and staff discussed practical measures: stricter campus bathroom-monitoring practices, possible “smart pass” classroom leave systems, increased coordination with school principals, discipline and invoice recovery in cases where students are identified as causing damage. Staff said principals can use cameras to identify suspects and pursue disciplinary or financial remedies; some board members urged consistent classroom routines (scheduled class bathroom breaks) to reduce opportunities for vandalism.
Separately, the technology chief presented a short Raptor Alert demonstration. District staff said the district previously purchased a suite of Raptor modules using prior federal/ESSER‑related funds and that the purchase included a quantity of services that could be allocated to Raptor Alert (an emergency panic‑button mobile app and related modules). Several board members and members of the public asked for straightforward budget information: how much of the Raptor commitment remains, what modules are already licensed, and how long a city‑wide deployment of the panic‑button feature could be sustained from current funds. Staff said they will provide a detailed burn‑rate and contract summary to the board and offered to schedule a hands‑on vendor demonstration for board members.
Why it matters: the decommissioning work affects teachers’ and students’ materials, district archives and asset stewardship, while the operational update highlighted immediate costs to the district from vandalism and the practical limits of staffing. The Raptor Alert purchase and potential deployment touches staff safety and emergency response procedures and prompted multiple questions about procurement, funding source (ESSER), and how long the current funding allocation will support a panic‑button rollout.
Next steps: staff will provide the board with the decommissioning task lists, a proposed alumni/closing event plan, a records‑digitization timeline, a maintenance-cost breakdown and the Raptor contract and burn‑rate analysis requested by committee members.
