Location: Charlestown, Massachusetts
Date: December 2017 - Present
Contact: Christophe Teulet-Cote - cteuletcote@bostonpublicschools.org

Problem:
Built in 1845, Charlestown High School has a total of 99 classrooms, serving 920 students throughout Boston Public Schools. While the school has different additions built throughout different decades, one thing remains true throughout the school. Every classroom has layers and layers of Melamine Showerboard covering up old chalkboards. When Charlestown HS first approach us in 2017, they told us they had been buying Showerboard at Home Depot every 6 months to keep the whiteboards clean.

Action:
In 2017, Christophe, the Assistant Headmaster, asked us to resurface a 4’x8’ board in the classroom with the heaviest whiteboard use. After being impressed by the results 6 months later, Christophe decided to allocate a fixed amount per year to Think Board retrofitting. We now resurface 18-20 classrooms per year.

Response:
“The teachers work so hard for these students - every single day. They deserve to have functioning whiteboards. You wouldn‘t believe it, but upgrading their whiteboards to Think Board brought some of them to tears. It shows them we’re listening. It shows them we care.” - Christophe Teulet-Cote

We quickly learned that it was better to remove the 3-5 layers of Melamine Showerboard and install the Think Boards over the original chalkboard surface. This is particularly helpful with Charlestown’s sliding chalkboard systems, as they can only be raised up 1/4 inch before it interferes with the sliding system. Think Board brightens up the classroom and brings the school into the 21st century. Showerboard works in a pinch, but any sort of Melamine-based whiteboard product will not stand the test of time.

The only other alternative for Charlestown High School would have been to awkwardly mount heavy duty porcelain whiteboards overtop of the existing layers, but even then, it would not have looked as nice. Also, with the budget Charlestown allocated annually for their whiteboards, they would have only been able to convert 6-8 classrooms per year due to the extra costs and labor.