Middletown building committee updates: signage, lighting, middle-school demolition and flexible classroom pilots

Members of the building committee gave an update on ongoing construction and design work for Middletown schools, including entrance signage, interior graphics, lighting upgrades, demolition planning and classroom furniture pilots.

A joint school/building committee review included several architect refinements for entrance signage and a recommendation to form a cultural-historical memorial subcommittee to advise on large interior graphics. Committee members said the subcommittee will include several committee members and appointees from the superintendent.

The committee approved awards and alternates for demolition and abatement work, signage and final cleaning on a vote by the building committee; those items were presented to the joint meeting and approved by both bodies.

Facilities updates noted the high-school lighting replacement project is nearly complete and an HVAC control upgrade is planned through a Rhode Island Energy on-bill savings program. Committee members said only essential work is being prioritized at the middle school because the building will be demolished as part of the larger project.

The district is piloting flexible classroom furniture and wall-wrap projection services at Aquinnic (an elementary site) to gather teacher feedback before finalizing classroom designs for the elementary renovation.

A building-committee speaker said, "There was an ask and a put together of a cultural historical memorial subcommittee ... we're going to take a look at some of the graphics, the larger graphics that are gonna go within the school that we had seen in some of the other schools that we had toured."