Our School Facilities

Everyone should know that the schools in Raymond are some of the town's biggest assets:  millions of dollars have gone into construction, refurbishing and maintaining our schools.  This is a very important endeavor since our buildings are used continually for everything from town meetings to boy scouts to private fund raising events to summer recreation.  Rarely are our school buildings sitting unused!  Of course, this adds to the daunting task of taking care of these facilities to ensure they are safe for our students and community; they are clean and in good repair; and they continue to serve our community.  Who is in charge of all of this?  Todd Ledoux, Facilities Director, is the main reason our buildings continue to be the best they can be.  Recently the state agreed with us as Todd was presented with the NH State School Emergency Preparedness Award.  Todd accepted this award before a crowd of 950 people around the state who had come to

Todd is always on the job when it comes to safety and emergency preparedness:  it doesn’t matter if he receives a call at 2:00 AM concerning a leaking roof or on a Saturday afternoon if a door alarm goes off.  Earlier this past fall, a sprinkler system failed at one of the schools and there was a flood in a 3^rd grade class.  Todd spent the entire weekend- not just delegating the work, but actually cleaning and salvaging books and furniture. 

This winter, Todd truly showed his dedication and his “above and beyond” work ethic.   

He was out during every snow storm, helping the town plow and clean up school parking lots and walkways- sometimes until 3:00 in the morning- and then was there when school started the next day at 7:00 AM.  Every walkway was shoveled and sanded, every parking lot was clear.   

Todd also opened up our Emergency Shelter (and has done so in every instance it was needed by the town) at the Iber Holmes Gove Middle School.  He collected supplies, recruited volunteers, and set up cots, again, all on his own time.  He works very closely with the town and is on the Raymond Town Safety Committee, as well as, being the advisor of the Raymond School District Safety Committee.

Todd was proactive in keeping our school roofs clean this past winter:  he had over twenty people shoveling off the middle school roof prior to the many issues that occurred elsewhere this winter.  Todd was up on the roof himself, shoveling and organizing the workers!  On one day, he spent over 4 hours shoveling and the next day turned his attention to the other two schools. In total, Todd had over 25 hours of shoveling that occurred over a week’s time with another three hours of tractor work to move the piles away from the buildings.  I believe his decision to do this work, saved our town from tremendous property loss.

In addition to this, Todd has been in the forefront of successfully providing our schools with emergency equipment.  Some of these include:  cameras that can be seen from various computers including the Raymond Police Department; Panic buttons, in strategic areas around the schools; a card reader system; an open door warning system that alerts him and office staff; and redesigning entry to our buildings.  Todd also contributed in our grant request for the CopSync system and takes part and helps plan annual Mock Disaster Drills with the town and school officials.  

One issue that has been of concern for a long time in our district was the “approachability” of our portable buildings.  Todd came up with an ingenious plan that not only keeps our students safer as they travel from the portables to the building, but also made it easier for them to access restrooms and unified arts classes.

In his role on the Safety Committee, Todd led the team in updating all of our emergency plans and sets up training to both administrators and staff. This year he also had an evaluation done by Homeland Security to further check our systems and has followed up on this with building administrators.