Students Take Reins For Town Government Day-June 9, 1981

School Committee Pledges Paint And Textbook Inventory To Student Delegates

. High school students who were elected by their sophomore and junior peers to temporarily assume roles on the Norwood School Committee concluded their civic term on Thursday night by securing a direct compromise from the adult board members. After the student delegates raised complaints regarding the institutional environment, the active school committee agreed to provide funding for paint supplies if the high school student body volunteers to execute the physical painting.

The collaborative meeting followed a formal civic dinner hosted for the students at the Golden Steer Steak House located on Route 1 in nearby Walpole. During the meeting, junior student Lynne LeBlanc reported that the student body strongly favored adding colorful murals to break up the dining hall. School Committee Chairman William F. Pudsey suggested launching an official design contest to select student mural concepts for the walls. Committee member Rudith Berkowitz supported the venture, laughing that the committee collectively felt the cafeteria desperately needed a visual update to escape its dull gray and institution green appearance.

The student representatives found a highly receptive audience from the administration on several pressing operational issues:

• Educational Materials: The high school administration agreed to launch an immediate inventory to address an acute shortage of educational volumes, especially regarding English textbooks.
• Facility Privacy: Officials pledged to inspect a student complaint regarding the absence of privacy doors on individual toilet stalls within a specific girls’ lavatory.
• Handicapped Accessibility: Sophomore student James Sheridan, who was appointed to serve as the student superintendent, requested the installation of specialized structural ramps to improve building accessibility for disabled peers. He noted that students utilizing wheelchairs are currently forced to travel outside the main facility envelope to enter the cafeteria.

Active Superintendent Louis J. Taris acknowledged the limitation, explaining that the high school currently features minimal ramping that only provides wheelchair access to the first-floor level, but he formally pledged to launch a study to resolve the building accessibility problems. The temporary student school committee featured a seven-member delegation consisting of juniors Noreen Concannon, Margaret Hansen, John Laquidara, Lynne LeBlanc, Cheryl Murphy, and Joanne Wong, alongside sophomore Trisha Brown.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger