On the morning of January 6, students received last-minute notice that school was canceled just before they arrived for the start of the school day. This last-minute decision was due to a fire in one of the coolers in the cafeteria.
Bob Burr, Leominster Schools Food Service Director for Chartwells said, “Well, when the fire happened, it happened in the cafeteria and we evacuated everybody and safety was the most important thing at first. And from that point on we started to come up with a crisis plan. How we were going to serve students the next day.”
Because of the experience with changing plans that happened during Covid 19, he had a plan.
“We were just ready, you know,” said Burr. “What happened with COVID-19 a few years ago helped us a lot, but we’re always prepared to come up with a solution in a crisis.”
The cafeteria workers explained how the fire was discovered.
They explained they were wrapping up the bagels for breakfast, and one of the workers started smelling something. All of a sudden, they said, the fire alarm just started going off and as they were walking out of the building, they looked to the doors of the
lower cafeterias and there was just smoke everywhere.
We asked Dr. Joshua Romano, LHS Principal, what were his initial thoughts on what to do after the fire?
“So the big thing for me was what do we need to do to get school reopened to make sure it is safe for everybody? So I kind of had to know what was the exact damage, and the damage really wasn’t bad. You know, like it scorched a brick wall.
But, any place that–any room that had smoke in it, in a public school, they have to clean every surface. So, it’s like if you had a
fire at your house, you wouldn’t worry about it– like you had a little kitchen fire or something. You wouldn’t have to have a company come in and scrub down the walls of every bedroom. Here, we can’t just go from smells fine, looks fine, you have to
actually— any room that has smoke in it, has to be cleaned. So, it’s for the safety of the students, ” said Dr. Romano.
“I was here most of Monday, working with the cleaning company,” he continued. “It’s a hygienist who comes in and says what has to be done, and then the cleaning company, (says) how long it was going to take to do things, what I wanted them to do first. So, that was what a lot of that day came to, making a plan, finding out the priority areas to do, and what the order we’re going to have things cleaned up in,” he explained.
According to Dr. Romano, the fire started in a water cooler. “The motor of the water cooler overheated, and then it caught
fire. It only was on fire for a couple of seconds because it was right under a sprinkler. But a fire for a couple of seconds still makes a heck of a lot of smoke. It went out pretty quickly so I mean I guess it proves how good our fire suppression system works. It works really well, but you know, there’s not much you can do about smoke. My priority was to make sure that classrooms were open.”
He continued “There were six classrooms that had to be cleaned, and they did those and the hallways first so we could get around the school, I wanted the gym done as soon as possible because that’s a lot of kids we’d have to relocate their classes.
The kitchen in the cafeteria itself was also a priority. “So that we could serve better than ham and turkey sandwiches,” he said.
The school was opened the very next day with students getting bagged lunches and eating in their classrooms. This happened for 1 week.
Another area that is of concern is the auditorium. It also had some smoke damage.
“We’re still waiting to hear the final word on the auditorium,” Dr. Romano said. “It’s gonna take a couple of
days. They do air quality tests and then it has to go through a lab, so we’ll know by Friday, how long the auditorium’s gonna take.”
The cafeteria was opened for regular service just one week after the fire. It took a week because “One of the big things, you can’t clean ceiling tiles, they actually have to be replaced,” Dr. Romano said. “So you can clean the floors, walls, tables, and chairs, but the tiles have to come out.”
“The auditorium,” he continued, “it could be a month (for repair), it depends on if they have to clean up the ceiling of the auditorium. Then they’d have to pull out all of the seats, because the lifts that they use to clean up there, you can’t have the seats under them. So, that could take a month if they have to do that. If they don’t, they just have to steam clean the carpet upholstery and do the floors,
maybe a week or so.”
With classes in the auditorium affected, relocation plans needed to be implemented.
“Some of Mr. Smith’s classes, the ones that deal with the tech aspects of like stagecraft, they’re going to have to meet in his room for a couple of days,” said Dr. Romano.
“The bigger concern is the auditorium plays and it’s two months away, which sounds like, oh no big deal, but they start building sets really soon,” said Dr. Romano. “So we’re trying to make it so Mr. Smith and his folks will have some space that they can do that if it’s gonna be a little bit longer. And then the chorus has some performances and so we’ve kind of rerouted them, like they’re going to be in the media center on Saturday and then the cafeteria when that reopens. It’s not ideal but at least they have a place where they can rehearse. It does affect a few things like that.
We asked Andréa Mastroianni, Director of the LHS Theatre Company, about her stance on the situation. Mastroianni expressed her understanding of the situation although she and her students hadn’t been thrilled, especially since there hadn’t been much of a choice.
As for now, they would practice and build their setups within her classroom for the time being.
Mastraionni also expressed her thankfulness to the custodians for their proactivity in cleaning. As the past year, they had to have the lights fixed, they felt a bit more prepared for the situation even though it was unexpected.
As for the students, Mastraionni tells us how her students were initially very worried but now they are just relieved by how nonsevere the situation has been. They don’t love it, but have taken the situation well.
Dr. Romano added, “We’re lucky that the auditorium plays is you know, it’s not like the week before the musical. It’s two months before the tournament of plays, but it’s still getting kind of close.”
The actual fire was not in the cafeteria’s kitchen. It was in the serving line in the upper cafeteria.
“It was far away from the kitchen, the only problem was that smoke from the fire got into the kitchen, and again, you have to clean every
surface, and if you go back there, there’s a lot of surface. The cleaning company was in there for like eight hours just cleaning, it was a lot. The only other mechanical issue was that we had to change the filters and the system, i think they’ve already been changed at this point.
Dr. Romano was happy with the students who have avoided the affected areas as requested.
“Kids have been awesome, like I haven’t seen anybody go up anywhere where they’re not supposed to,” said Dr. Romano. “I think people were pretty cool about the change yesterday with lunch and having to eat lunch in classrooms and stuff. I know lunch was a little disappointing, they kind of had to put some sandwiches together. The cafeteria was planning to do like like nachos or pasta or something, and then the kitchen had to be cleaned, so they couldn’t use it.
Once the Theatre Company gets the auditorium back, they will be hosting a competition of plays beginning on March 1st in the LHS auditorium. LHS will be competing against seven different schools.
The Leominster High School Theatre Company will also be hosting public performances on March 4 and 6 at 7 o’clock. Tickets will be $10 online and $15 at the door, so it is highly suggested to purchase tickets online.
