Graduated classes donate new electronic school sign

The new school sign on Bartlett Street was a gift from the classes of 2013, 2014, and 2015. An operator has the ability to write messages on the board remotely from within the school. The previous school sign was a gift from the class of 1996 and, though fully functional, had to be updated manually. The new signs electric abilities will make for easier conferring of messages to the community.

Photo Rafaela Coelho

The new school sign on Bartlett Street was a gift from the classes of 2013, 2014, and 2015. An operator has the ability to write messages on the board remotely from within the school. The previous school sign was a gift from the class of 1996 and, though fully functional, had to be updated manually. The new sign’s electric abilities will make for easier conferring of messages to the community.

Max Donahue, Staff Writer
February 3, 2016

A new electronic sign illuminates the Bartlett Street school entrance since being activated on December 31, replacing the former 19-year-old sign.

The $22,000 sign is a gift from the classes of 2013, 2014 and 2015. It operates remotely from three computers within the school.

“All three classes had substantial funds left over from all of their business, all of the things they were doing,” Principal Tom Mead said. “[The sign] will be a great enhancement on notices for our school community.”

Previously, the custodial staff had to update the sign outside the school manually, rain or shine. Aside from helping the community learn about school events, having an electronic sign allows the custodians to do their job more safely.

“It’s a lot easier, it’s a lot safer, it’s more cost effective,” Facilities Manager Michael Gorman said. “You don’t have the risk of someone slipping and falling and getting hurt; there’s a lot of good stuff, and we owe it all to the classes that donated.”

Gorman was in charge of designing the sign and figuring out how it would be placed outside the school.

“I did some research… once we got an idea of three preliminary signs, I went through the whole school and polled [which design people prefered],” Gorman said.

With the previous sign, complaints were received stating that it was not visible enough for people coming up Bartlett Street from Southborough.

“We tried to optimize the position based on the utilities in the ground,” Gorman said. “We were hindered by the utilities in the ground, but that was the best position we could get out of it.”

From the computers with the software that controls the sign, operators can decide what shows up on the board and when it will show up. Principal’s Secretary Michelle Capalbo will be the primary operator of the sign from the main office.

“[We now update the sign] on a daily basis; sometimes we’ll do it twice a day,” Capalbo said. “I also can put messages up advance and schedule them.”

Capalbo believes the new sign will draw more attention to school events and overall benefit the community’s knowledge of school happenings.

The sign is set to be used frequently in order to better utilize it.

“It’s going to enable us, in time, to be much more informative to the driving public as they come into the building,” Mead said. “That will be terrific.”