Beating a dead sprinkler

School district, happy with Hofstra after graduation mishap, puts issue to bed

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The sprinkler system at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Arena that malfunctioned during South Side High School’s graduation ceremony on June 23 was inspected the morning of the commencement, according to the Nassau County fire marshal’s office.

According to district Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, Hofstra agreed to return the district’s $7,477 down payment, and void the remaining charge of $1,100, making the event at Mack Arena free for the district.

In a statement the school district posted on its website shortly after the incident — which left handfuls of attendees wet and more than a dozen students without the opportunity to receive their diplomas on stage — Hofstra stated that the most recent test of the system was “in early 2017.”

Karla Schuster, Hofstra’s assistant vice president for university relations, said that at the time the statement was released, the most recent test results — from that morning — had not yet been submitted to the university.

The contradiction came to light after Rockville Centre resident Jeff Greenfield, who obtained a fire marshal activity log for Hofstra’s Mack Arena, accused the university of attempting to cover up its culpability for the sprinkler malfunction at the Board of Education’s reorganization meeting on July 11.

Greenfield speculated that while performing the tests that morning, technicians may have damaged the sprinkler head. At the very least, he said, workers should have noticed there was a problem with it.

But Assistant Chief Fire Marshal Michael Uttaro said that quarterly tests like the one conducted the morning of South Side’s graduation did not involve the sprinkler heads and mainly focused on confirming that the flow of water through the pipes was unobstructed.

The most likely cause of the malfunction, according to Uttaro, was a problem with the sprinkler head itself. Its make and model will be reported to the National Fire Sprinkler Association, he added, a trade group that, among other things, tracks mishaps involving fire sprinkler equipment.

The activity log also suggests that the fire marshal’s office learned about the incident from reports in Newsday, four days afterward, leading Greenfield to claim that Hofstra failed to report the incident properly.

The Uniondale Fire Department, however, responded to the activated sprinkler and notified the fire marshal’s office, Uttaro said, but because the situation was under control, it wasn’t a high priority. When Division Supervisor Vincent McManus read the Newsday report, he launched a more complete investigation, Uttaro added.

The remaining diplomas, as well as keepsake umbrellas, were given to graduates during a ceremony on June 29, dubbed Graduation 2.0. Note cards with the umbrellas read, “May this be the last time anyone rains on your parade.”

Though Greenfield argued that the district should ask Hofstra for more money, Johnson said that he was happy with how responsive the university had been to the district, and thought that doing so would not honor the goodwill Hofstra has shown since the incident.

“If you take a look at the little things that were done,” Johnson said of the second ceremony, “… it doesn’t come anywhere close to what it would have cost if we had to pay Hofstra for the entire event.”