Newfound board names new principal for Danbury Elementary

BRISTOL — The Newfound Area School Board selected a Danbury Elementary School teacher as the new principal at the June 10 meeting. The board also agreed to transfer $131,000 from the building maintenance expendable trust fund to cover repairs at New Hampton Community School, and Newfound middle and high schools.

Brittany Galvin, a second grade teacher in Danbury, has 11 years of teaching experience, the last four years at DES. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of New Hampshire, and is certified in elementary and special education.

In nominating her for the position, Superintendent Paul Hoiriis said, “Brittany serves in a number of leadership capacities and is committed to the students, staff, and families in our community.”

School district leaders interviewed five candidates for the position, vacated by Jessica Pine, before selecting Galvin to lead at Danbury.

Hoiriis said the school district’s building maintenance expendable trust fund currently amounts to $1.16 million, so applying $131,000 to school improvements still would leave more than $1 million in the account.

Facilities Director Armand Girouard asked for $10,000 to cover the cost of boiler repairs in New Hampton after discovering a severe leak on April 16. He said one section of the boiler had cracked, and he shut the boiler down before calling the vendor, who ordered the necessary parts and made the repairs at a total cost of $9,920.

Girouard also asked for $32,000 to replace the stage drapes and curtains at Newfound Memorial Middle School. While district staff had placed money in the budget to replace the drapes, when the vendors inspected the rigging, tracks, ropes, and other key components, they determined they were unsafe.

“Most of these key components are likely original to the building,” which dates back to the late 1950s, Girouard said, noting that was before his time. The school opened as a high school in 1960, and became a middle school when the new high school opened in 1988.

A third request was for $89,000, to bring the high school’s fire alarm system to current technology standards. Girouard said the updates for an “addressable system” to replace the original alarm system were approved in 2022, but had not been completed.

“After meeting with the Bristol Fire Department, they are strongly recommending completion of this project,” Girouard said, noting it would allow firefighters to remotely identify which rooms were affected, “drastically reducing the response time once arriving at the school during an alarm incident.”

Girouard made the presentation as part of a public hearing required by the terms of the trust fund, but no one offered any public comments, and the school board approved the request.

Hoiriis warned he would be coming back at the board’s next meeting to make an additional request for a fund transfer in response to a lightning strike that fried the circuitry for the lights in the high school parking lot.

“They say lightning never strikes twice, but they’re wrong,” Hoiriis said, noting it was second time lightning hit the light poles.

“I was here for a fire alarm,” Girouard said, “so I came down here to take care of that. It was a device, actually, that goes back to the fire alarm. Two devices failed over the last week here; they’re just old. But while I was here ... none of the parking [lot] lights were working.”

He discovered the breaker tripped, and the electrician who responded discovered one of the lines under the parking lot had completely melted from a lightning strike and shorted out.

Primex insurance will cover most of the cost of repairing the damage, but inspection of the light poles, now nearing 40 years old, showed they are decaying and pose a safety hazard.

In other business, second year student Leah McFarland gave her first report as the new student representative to the school board. She had attended the last two meetings alongside graduating 12th grader Tess Sumner.