WARNING: I got a little (a lot) carried away with the backstory for this one. Read it if you want, don’t read it if you want.
Smallsville Community School in Smallsville, Ohio is a medium-sized regional K-12 school serving just over 2,000 students. The school originally opened in 1921 as the 58,000 square-foot Smallsville High School, and served about 400 students in grades 7-12. Over the next several decades, the population of Smallsville began to increase steadily, and by 1960 there were nearly 1,000 students enrolled at the school. By 1965, the then-current Smallsville elementary school was crazy overcrowded and in need of substantial maintenance work. In 1967, the Smallsville School District successfully passed a nearly $6 million dollar facilities referendum that would build two new identical elementary schools (named “Northside” and “Southside”, respectively) on opposite ends of the city, demolish the current elementary school, and nearly double the size of the high school, adding state-of-the-art science labs along with a new auditorium and gymnasium.
By 1970, all work was done on the three buildings. Both elementary schools, 45,000 square-feet in size, had identical Simplex systems with Simplex 4263-1 coded pull stations and Simplex 4040 horns. Neither building was sprinklered, and neither building had any smoke or heat sensors. As for the high school, the existing 1921 high school building remained without a fire alarm system while the large 1970 addition also had a Simplex system with 4263-1 coded pull stations and 4040 horns. Where the 1921 building met the 1970 addition, the 4040 horns had projectors so they could be heard in the old building. The 1970 addition, unlike the elementary schools, was sprinklered and had a few Simplex 4255-1 heat detectors.
Fast forward to the 1980s, and the population of Smallsville begins to decline. As a result of this decline, in 1984 the Smallsville School district voted unanimously to shutter Northside elementary and condense all K-6 operations into Southside elementary. Northside elementary was to become Smallsville Middle School, as the high school was still somewhat overcrowded and would now only serve grades 9-12 as opposed to 7-12. As a result of these changes, a small 10,000 square-foot addition consisting of a new gymnasium and new admin space was added to the former Northside elementary building to allow it to function as a middle school. The new gymnasium had Simplex 2901-9806 horns flush-mounted into the walls paired with Simplex 4251-20 pull stations. Around this time, both the new middle school and Southside elementary school received Simplex 2098-9642 smoke detectors as part of a separate project. There were no other major fire alarm system changes at any school during this time, aside from a few spot replacements.
By the early 1990s, all three Smallsville schools were struggling yet again with enrollment. Additionally, poor construction led to a rapid deterioration of both Smallville Middle School and the recently-renamed Smallsville Elementary School (formerly Southside elementary). It was clear to the district that while the high school was still in good shape, the two barely 20 year-old schools were not doing well at all. In 1993, Smallsville Middle School was reabsorbed into Smallsville High School to make better use of space, and the building was sold to pay for facilities upkeep at the other two schools. The sale of the middle school gave the district enough money to finally install a proper HVAC system throughout the entire high school in 1995; the source of many complaints throughout the years. Long story short ceilings were dropped, walls were expanded, and as a result of that the entire fire alarm system was upgraded to a Simplex 4020 system with Simplex 4903-9219 horn/strobes throughout the building and 4904-93xx remote strobes in classrooms and restrooms, paired with Simplex 2099 pull stations and TrueAlarm smoke detectors. Meanwhile, Smallsville elementary school was falling into deeper and deeper disrepair, and among other things was still not air conditioned, unsprinklered, and had no automatic fire detection.
By the late 1990s, enrollment had again begun to stabilize, and Smallsville was growing yet again. The district felt confident enough to ask voters for a $14 million dollar new elementary school that was to be constructed on the high school campus; a more central location than the current building on the south end of town. Voters initially rejected the proposal, but after two failed attempts voters finally gave the new elementary school a chance in 1999.
The new school, identical in size to the old one was completed in fall of 2001 and had a Simplex 4010 system with Simplex TrueAlert-series horn/strobes throughout the hallways and classrooms (fun fact: these were among the first TrueAlert-series devices to be installed anywhere). Because the TrueAlerts were so new, the local Simplex branch wanted to use up some old stock of the rectangular 4903-series devices, so the gymnasium as well as a few classrooms here and there actually had those horn/strobes instead of TrueAlerts, and all of the remote strobes were the rectangular 4904-93xx devices. Just like the high school, the pull stations were Simplex 2099s and the smoke detectors were Simplex TrueAlarms, albeit the newer version. The old elementary school, along with its awesome vintage Simplex goodness, was demolished in early 2003.
In 2009, Smallsville Elementary and Smallsville High School consolidated under one name to become “Smallsville Community Schools”.
In 2016, with yet again more maintenance issues at the high school paired with what many considered outdated classroom configurations and technology that was in some cases decades old the Smallsville School District decided to launch a new initiative; Smallsville High School would undergo a massive, three-year renovation that would preserve the architectural elements of the original 1921 building while demolishing most of the 1970s building in favor of a new annex built to 21st century standards. Voters were much more enthusiastic this time around, and supported the $48 million referendum on election day 2016. Work began the following spring, with the 1970 wing cleared out and demolished by the time students were back the following fall. Because of the unique aspects of the project, all students were crammed into roughly half of the space that they had been the previous year with half the school being demolished. Because of this, classrooms in the 1921 building were split with temporary walls down the middle for the entire 2017-18 school year. Because of ADA requirements, temporary SpectrAlert Advance p2r horn/strobes were installed in some classrooms, sometimes alongside the still-connected 4904 remote strobes that had been there before. By the summer of 2018, the new addition was largely complete, and the exact same procedure was done in the new wing while the 1921 building underwent renovation. The new wing had System Sensor p2r horn/strobes installed temporarily while construction was still ongoing until the 2018-19 school year. By the 2018-19 school year construction was complete in both sections of the building and the temporary walls were taken down. The p2r’s that had been installed for one year in the 1921 building and one year in the new addition were replaced in favor of more permanent System Sensor SPSWL and SPSCWL speaker/strobes. The system as it is today includes a Notifier Onyx-series control panel with the aforementioned SPSWL and SPSCWL speaker/strobes for notification appliances and Notifier NBG-12LX dual-action pull stations with Notifier FSP-951 smoke detectors. Exterior notification appliances are Wheelock ET70 speaker/strobes.