The Norwood Middle School Building Committee voted April 14 to approve a package of vendor invoices, multiple purchase orders, an extension of building-automation monitoring services and several construction change orders, and it authorized the Town of Norwood to prepare engineering plans and bid documents for a new parking lot adjacent to the school.

The approvals came during a regularly scheduled meeting that included a site walk. Committee members voted by roll call on each motion; the votes recorded in the meeting were unanimous where tallied.

Why it matters: the approvals allocate money and assign next steps that move the new Cochran Middle School project toward completion and start the design process for adjacent town parking. The actions cover operations items (technology, furniture, invoicing) and construction changes that affect the final scope and schedule.

Key outcomes (motions and roll-call outcomes as recorded):

- Motion to approve vendor invoice package as presented (vendor invoice package covering Owner's PM, testing, FF&E/technology invoices and WT Rich pay applications). Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to authorize the Town of Norwood to prepare engineering plans and bid documents for conversion of two town‑owned lots adjacent to the school into parking (motion text: "to allow the Town of Norwood to prepare engineering plans for use for bids for construction of the parking lot"). Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to approve technology purchase orders (including Dell desktops and other technology vendors) totaling $110,608. Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to approve additional FF&E and technology purchase orders totaling $68,766.36 (10 31 Inc., School Health, B & G restaurant equipment, Sheehan's Office, Hertz Funa furniture). Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to approve additional services from Interval Data Systems (IDS) for warranty support and monitoring of building automation, total $82,500. Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to approve WT Rich change order number 19 (listed in meeting materials) in the amount of $52,966. Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to pursue AI3 proposal to design an outdoor play/learning space and classroom (design fee $30,644). Outcome: approved, unanimous roll call vote.

- Motion to table the AI3 proposal to design roof screens (proposal amount shown in materials $138,368) pending consultant hour breakdown and additional documentation. Outcome: motion to table approved, unanimous roll call vote.

Quotes from the meeting included members framing the approvals as routine project steps. For example, a committee member stated during the IDS discussion that post-occupancy monitoring is valuable because "the shaking out of this building is gonna be huge during the first year of operation," supporting the $82,500 scope for monitoring and warranty-phase tuning.

Next steps: design proposals approved will be presented with pricing and final scopes at future meetings as the design team produces bid-ready documents; the parking-lot engineering work will be prepared by Town engineering staff and brought to the committee with bid documents when ready. The committee set its next meetings for May 12 and June 9 at the Savage Center (4:30 p.m.).

Details on each formal action (motions, movers/second if named, vote record) appear in the meeting minutes and the committee's official procurement logs.