Over the next several weeks, truckloads of dirt will be delivered to the land owned by Dresden School District on Route 5 in Norwich. The trucks will be traveling over a newly installed access road built by Dartmouth’s site work contractor at no cost to the district. Ultimately, the district will receive 20,000 cubic yards of soil that can be used to increase the overall height of the fields on either the Norwich property or the fields on the Lebanon Street site once the renovations at the high school are complete. Dartmouth will be testing the soil to ensure that it is free of contaminants and their site work contractor will be maintaining the deposited soil.

Currently the Board is contemplating using this fill to develop a practice soccer/lacrosse field that could “replace” Fullington Field and a combination baseball diamond field hockey field that could “replace” Thompson Terrace. Thanks to a combination of volunteer help, donations of fill and services from Dartmouth, and anticipated assistance from Town workers the district believes this plan can be implemented using the Merriman Fund. In the months ahead the Board will consider various alternative development plans for the use of the fill and the use of the Norwich site.

I heard that the soil at the Richmond School site on Lyme Road was contaminated

The "soil problems" at the Richmond School site on Lyme Street reported in the new and in various public presentations were problems with the stability of the soil, NOT problems with contamination. The soil at the Lyme Road site was tested for stability and for contamination before the site was chosen for the new Middle School. The soil tests indicated that the soil needed to be improved in order to be stable enough to hold a multi-story steel frame structure. The Board budgeted an extra $250,000 to cover the costs to remediate the problem, an amount that proved to be insufficient. None of the "soil problems", however, had anything to do with contamination.

I heard that the reason Hanover High had to cut students from reserve soccer was because of the lack of fields.

The lack of fields was the least of our problems on this issue. Funding issues, a larger than anticipated number of students trying out for soccer, and a lack of competition were the major problems that led to the decision to cut students from the reserve soccer team.

As reported in the news media, our primary issue was a lack of funds for establishing an additional squad. Deborah Gillespie, the High School Principal, and I were reluctant to spend our “next dollar” on an additional reserve team and both she and Athletic Director Mike Jackson understood that funding an “additional squad” was analogous to funding a “new team” and we believed that the Dresden Board did not want to expand athletics beyond its current scope.

We have a large number of ninth grade students at Hanover High which, when combined the popularity of soccer meant some cuts had to be made. We have at least 22 participants on our varsity, JV, and reserve teams--- so we can't "add" to those teams without limiting playing time for all participants.

Despite the funding limitations, I asked Mike Jackson to call some nearby schools to see if they were interested in playing against a second reserve soccer team should one be formed and he found no takers.

The field space would have presented us with a challenge IF we had the funds and IF we had some competition. We could have had sufficient practice fields for a second reserve team and we believe we could have finessed some playing field space if we had to... but we didn't even get to that discussion because of the other issues.

At this juncture Mike Jackson is looking ahead to see what the future bodes for "extra reserve teams" so the Board can review this issue in a broader context and clarify their parameters for athletics.

I heard that the Middle School is behind schedule

At this posting--- December 17, 2004--- the Middle School is progressing along a time line that will result in an occupancy certificate being issued by August 1, 2005. This will be sufficiently early to allow for school to open on schedule. Beginning in October the Dresden Board will receive monthly updates on both the middle school and high school projects at their meetings.

I heard that the citrus smell drifting out of the 3rd floor section of the renovation is a smell generated by asbestos.

The citrus smell is NOT from the asbestos. It is from the 'Green Earth' Citrus cleaning product used to clean the floors after all the asbestos has been removed. “Green Earth” is a cleaning product made from citrus fruits, which has been determined to be a safe product for people to use when needing a strong cleaning agent.