Lights throughout a relatively new Massachusetts high school building have been lit at all hours of the day and night for nearly a year and a half because no one can turn them off.Related video: How to save money on your electric billMinnechaug Regional High School, located on Main Street in Wilbraham, was completed in 2012. About a decade later, in August 2021, the lighting system failed. By November 2021, the student population had taken notice. The school newspaper wrote an article in which it was estimated that 7,000 lights across the building were impacted. Memos obtained from the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District reveal that the system’s safety measures and its connection to other systems made it impossible for building managers to turn lights off without impacting other systems. One year after the problem began, staff was manually shutting off breakers to cut power to exterior lights and some bulbs were simply removed to keep them from burning power around the clock. “We fully understand the optics around the cost of keeping these lights on as it relates to taxpayer dollars and the money we are spending to do so. Unfortunately, there are limited options available to us due to the proprietary nature of the lighting system,” the superintendent and assistant superintendent wrote in a memo from August 2022.As they tried to find someone to repair the system, school officials discovered that the original installer of the system had been sold multiple times. The memo says school officials struggled to find someone at the new owner who was familiar with the system but were eventually given a “rough estimate” of $1.2 million to replace the entire system.Other attempts to mitigate the problem included hiring a software consultant who was unable to develop a solution and engaging electrical engineers who identified a piecemeal approach to replace certain pieces of the system. Orders for those parts went out in November 2021, but many of the products were delayed multiple times. “The reality is that this is typical of many orders we have placed in the past year due to supply chain disruptions and chip shortages worldwide,” officials wrote in 2022.Another memo written at the start of 2023 explained to the Regional School Committee that a final transition to a new system, which was scheduled for the holiday break, did not occur as scheduled. The vendor, Reflex Lighting, notified the district on Dec. 22 that it would not be able to do the three days of work which are necessary. The district now hopes to complete the work during the school’s winter break in February.
Lights throughout a relatively new Massachusetts high school building have been lit at all hours of the day and night for nearly a year and a half because no one can turn them off.
Related video: How to save money on your electric bill
Minnechaug Regional High School, located on Main Street in Wilbraham, was completed in 2012. About a decade later, in August 2021, the lighting system failed.
By November 2021, the student population had taken notice. The school newspaper wrote an article in which it was estimated that 7,000 lights across the building were impacted.
Memos obtained from the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District reveal that the system’s safety measures and its connection to other systems made it impossible for building managers to turn lights off without impacting other systems. One year after the problem began, staff was manually shutting off breakers to cut power to exterior lights and some bulbs were simply removed to keep them from burning power around the clock.
“We fully understand the optics around the cost of keeping these lights on as it relates to taxpayer dollars and the money we are spending to do so. Unfortunately, there are limited options available to us due to the proprietary nature of the lighting system,” the superintendent and assistant superintendent wrote in a memo from August 2022.
As they tried to find someone to repair the system, school officials discovered that the original installer of the system had been sold multiple times. The memo says school officials struggled to find someone at the new owner who was familiar with the system but were eventually given a “rough estimate” of $1.2 million to replace the entire system.
Other attempts to mitigate the problem included hiring a software consultant who was unable to develop a solution and engaging electrical engineers who identified a piecemeal approach to replace certain pieces of the system.
Orders for those parts went out in November 2021, but many of the products were delayed multiple times.
“The reality is that this is typical of many orders we have placed in the past year due to supply chain disruptions and chip shortages worldwide,” officials wrote in 2022.
Another memo written at the start of 2023 explained to the Regional School Committee that a final transition to a new system, which was scheduled for the holiday break, did not occur as scheduled. The vendor, Reflex Lighting, notified the district on Dec. 22 that it would not be able to do the three days of work which are necessary.
The district now hopes to complete the work during the school’s winter break in February.
