Boston and the surrounding areas have experienced one of the harshest winters in years. These weather patterns have caused Tabor Academy’s administration and Plant Operations to act quickly to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and campus visitors.
Tabor’s Plant Operations has been quick to act after each blizzard that left substantial amounts of snow on campus. It is estimated that 500,117 square feet (11.48 acres), which is 16% of Tabor’s campus acreage, have been cleared of snow during February.
Nate Meleo, a math teacher, and his classes calculated how much snow was cleared. According to Meleo, about 4,167,641 cubic feet of snow was cleared from Tabor this winter. In another calculation, students found that this equates to about 31,257 tons of snow, which he adds is 4,000 tons more than the weight of the Statue of Liberty. This does not even account for the roofs and stairs that were cleared for safety.
Much work is done behind the scenes before students begin to walk around campus after a snowstorm. The paths are all cleared for walking, including a few sidewalks on campus. The parking lots and surrounding roads are also all plowed. Plant Operations continues to clear snow throughout the day to ensure that students have clear pathways and can walk safely.
According to Director of Plant Operations Don Wing, “There are 155 entrances, emergency exits, entry steps, and terraces that have to be hand-shoveled and sanded every storm.” Additionally, areas that have flat roofs must be shoveled to avoid being weighed down by the large amounts of snow.
Ed Jackson supervises the maintenance crew, a small staff that has had to work non-stop over three weeks to clear this vast amount of snow over an area that equates to the size of 7.5 full-size soccer fields. They do this with limited equipment: one dump truck plow/sander, one pickup truck plow/sander, one skid-steer loader, one backhoe loader, and four snow blowers. Much of this equipment is old and/or small, making all of this clearing work more impressive. Thankfully, Steve Fielding, an outside contractor, has helped by providing heavy equipment to keep walkways and streets clear.
Along with the snow, the freezing temperatures have been a concern this winter. Headmaster John Quirk and the administration made the decision to have casual dress in order to ensure warmth on a number of school days this winter. On these days, pants, sweaters, boots, layers, hats, and gloves were strongly encouraged, given the exceptionally low temperatures. On a number of days, school was optional for day students and was delayed to a late start twice to ensure that students could arrive to campus safely.
Given the ongoing trend of such cold temperatures, Quirk created a blazer-free trial. This action was intended to encourage students to wear sweaters and girls to wear pants, which they usually are not allowed otherwise, given the blazer requirement for dress code.
Tabor’s administration and staff has acted quickly and adapted during this harsh winter in order to ensure safety throughout campus.
By Julia O’Rourke
