Some
parents have expressed concern about changes to the Halloween Family
Night. As many of you know the Halloween night has traditionally
included a haunted house set up on the stage and various games set up
around the school. Two years ago, during the event, the fire alarm was
set off by the fog machine. The fire department responded and expressed
concern about the lack of fire retardant materials being used in the
haunted house.
Last
year, the administration called MFD to have the fire alarms disabled
during the event and the response from MFD was swift. They sent their
fire prevention chief to the school to assess the situation. At that
time, only a short time before the event was to begin, MFD wanted to
shut down the entire event due to the lack of fire retardant materials.
Luckily a compromise was reached and MFD allowed the event to continue
as long as a manned fire truck was outside of the school. Fortunately, we
were not billed, but that would not be the case this year.
After speaking with the fire prevention bureau this year, to confirm what materials would be acceptable, we learned that ALL
items used to make the haunted house, props for games and decorations
would have to be fire retardant. The same regulations apply whether the
event is set up inside the school or outside/adjacent to the school.
Given
the cost of purchasing all new supplies (the tarps alone would have
cost over $600), spraying our other props with special fire retardant
spray and keeping our safety data available for inspection by MFD, we
determined that to have the event as it was would be difficult both from
a cost and compliance perspective. However, given how popular this
event has been in the past, we didn’t want to cancel it altogether.
After
talking about it at the last PTA meeting and speaking with the
administration, we decided to go in a different direction. Sticking
with the Halloween theme, we contracted with Mad Science to come and
present their fun, interactive Halloween themed show. Although we talked about Mad Science facilitating activity stations, unfortunately their staffing levels would not allow for that. Instead of candy and the Bake Sale,
we are offering ice cream, provided by The Puritan Backroom. Students are encouraged to wear their
costumes.
We have reconsidered our ability to run games and providing we have enough volunteers who are willing to coordinate and run every aspect of the games, then we'd be happy to include them. Any decorations we have used in the past do not meet MFD compliance and cannot be used. We would need to have 10 parent volunteers to facilitate games. Please contact Stacey Weigler if you would like to coordinate this effort.
