SALEM — The city’s schools recently announced several projects focused on improving energy efficiency, expanding access to pre-K education and ensuring students are arriving safely to and from school.
A $250,000 Green Communities grant from the state Department of Energy Resources will help fund energy efficiency projects at Saltonstall and Carlton schools. The work at Saltonstall includes the implementation of LED lighting controls and walk-in refrigeration controls. The Carlton projects include a new integrated Building Management System, which will allow for more accurate control and monitoring of the school’s mechanical systems.
The combined projects should realize a $33,000 energy cost savings each year and reduce the city’s CO2 emissions by 73 tons annually, according to Mayor Dominick Pangallo.
Salem Public Schools was also recently awarded the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI) grant, for $1 million, which will be used to improve and broaden the district’s preschool and pre-K education, according to Superintendent Dr. Stephen Zrike.
The district will now be able to add two Salem-based preschool programs: Angela’s Preschool and Daycare and the Pathways for Children Head Start Program, to its partner cohort. Such programs will serve as additional child care options for families alongside Salem’s own Early Childcare Center, the YMCA, Salem Community Child Care, and Ashley’s Preschool and Daycare.
Also, the grant will cover boosting salaries in partner programs and hiring behavioral and support staff, professional development, materials, and tuition relief for families.
“We are so grateful,” said Kate Carbone, deputy superintendent at Salem Public Schools. “(The grant) will provide extraordinary resources to accelerate our vision of universal free, quality pre-K education for Salem children.
“We’ve been trying to work across the city of Salem to improve access to quality pre-K education. Part of that is expanding seats and improving the quality of seats.”
Earlier this month, the state also announced that Salem Public Schools will receive $30,000 through federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education grants designed to expand the school support and resources for students experiencing homelessness, with more staff training, family engagement, English language services, tutoring, school supplies, and other needs.
The district’s transportation department has launched three separate safety initiatives for the start of the school year to both protect students and enhance a district-wide effort to improve absenteeism rates.
One initiative is the Stopfinder mobile app that enables parents and caregivers to track their child’s bus in real-time. The app includes features such as the ability to set ETA alerts and geo-alerts for when the bus passes a certain location. Families are also able to communicate directly with school transportation staff through the app.
Another app called Wayfinder enables transportation staff to record the time and location from which students board and exit their buses by scanning a tracking card powered by in-vehicle radio frequency identification technology. Additionally, Wayfinder records the exact number of riders on each bus.
The district also recently implemented Bus Patrol cameras that are attached to the side of school buses to record drivers illegally passing during the pickup and drop off of students.
Salem equipped its entire fleet of buses with the technology, and is one the first two cities in Massachusetts, with Peabody, to launch Bus Patrol in a pilot program. Data logged from illegal passing will help the district’s transportation department and the Salem police identify which parts of the city are seeing the most violations.
“Students are at risk every day,” Transportation Coordinator Vanessa Fagundes said. “Our bus drivers do the best they can, honking, waving, but some motorists continue to ignore the stop arm.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202