The arts at Northwood are thriving. The school offers more art options than ever, including music recording and a new drama class that will start the second trimester. However, some students feel that Northwood has lost the progress the art department has made over the past year. [Read more…]

During school meeting on October 26, Adelia and Angelia Castillo took part in the year-long series of speeches organized by Mr. Kelvin Martinez, the Dean of Multicultural Affairs, and Ms. Mavis Agnew, the Director of Residence Life. [Read more…]

If you’re a returning student, you’ve probably noticed that something seems off about the student body this year. Northwood is now mostly boys, even more so than usual. Many girls report being one of one or two girls in a class, and some boys have classes with no girls. [Read more…]

Mountain day, in its forty-second year at Northwood, is one of the school’s oldest traditions. On this day, celebrated in the first weeks of the school year, students and faculty take a break from classes, are grouped together and assigned to climb one of the hundreds of mountains in the Adirondacks. [Read more…]

Students were greeted on opening day with an unwelcome surprise. As they were unpacking and settling into their new rooms, they discovered surprise bunkmates: bed bugs. Three dorm rooms were discovered to have the pests. Those rooms, along with the surrounding rooms and hallways, were promptly disinfected by professional exterminators. Even though eradicating bed bugs can sometimes take weeks or months, depending on the extent of the infestation, there is no evidence at this point that bed bugs are in any other spaces at school.

Mr. Tom Broderick in protective clothing during the bed bug outbreak in September 2018. (Photo: Mr. Joey Burnah)

The bed bug outbreak displaced a total of four students from their rooms in Bergamini for less than a day. Two of the displaced students had beds infested with bed bugs, while the other two were hall RAs who helped move the infested bedding. The RAs rooms were treated to ensure the outbreak didn’t spread.

Assistant Head of School Mr. Tom Broderick supervised the cleanup. “The insects were found in the wood frames of the affected beds, somewhere that the school had missed to check in the run-up to school,” explained Broderick. “As soon as we became aware of the situation, we sprayed a plant-based toxin, which only harms bed bugs and not humans, in common areas around the campus including hallways and the student center as a precautionary measure,” he said.

Northwood had a similar incident about ten years ago when a student found bed bugs in her bed after returning to school from vacation. Since then, the school has purchased bed bug-proof mattresses to prevent the infestation of beds in dorms, but they are not 100% effective. However, with as many as 1,500 people using the beds on campus every summer and students who travel extensively, it is difficult to conclude from where the bugs originated.

“Bed bugs are a reality in modern world. We have students from 24 countries and 21 states who have been traveling. It wasn’t really surprising that the outbreak happened. I think what’s more surprising is that this didn’t happen sooner,” commented Mr. Broderick.

“We’re fortunate that we have experts here in our town that deal with bed bugs on a regular basis, like local hotels. Though these bugs are resilient and hard to eradicate, we’re fairly confident that we’ve got the situation covered,” Mr. Broderick said. As a preventative measure, the school has been installing bed bug monitors that use heat and CO2 to attract, trap, and kill bed bugs under beds. The school is also looking into the possibility of treating all student rooms with intense heat during the next school break. The procedure raises ambient room temperature to 130℉, a lethal temperature for bed bugs.

Since most humans do not react to bed bug bites, it is not uncommon for people to have bed bugs and not know. Therefore, it is important to educate our students on how to spot bed bugs to allow timely intervention. See more about bed bugs here.

In early August, Northwood students received an email that made returning girls cheer. They were moving to the main building.  All girls would live on First and Second West and he Bergamin Dormitory would house younger males. The email from Dean of Students Mr. Gino Riffle said the change was made in order “to better serve our female population.” [Read more…]