ORANGE — The Orange Elementary Teachers Association plans to hold a parent-teacher forum at Orange Town Hall on Thursday evening after being denied a spot inside Fisher Hill Elementary School.

David Mastroianni, a special education teacher and the association’s president, said he had hoped to have the event in the Fisher Hill Media Center, but administration would not allow it because the teachers’ union is an “outside organization.” When asked about the administration’s decision on Wednesday, however, Elizabeth Teahan-Zielinski, superintendent of the Ralph C. Mahar Regional and Union 73 school districts, explained building space is not being rented at this time due to ongoing construction.

The parent-teacher forum is slated for 6 to 7:30 p.m. Mastroianni said it will serve as an opportunity to better the lines of communication between parents and staff. All parents of current Fisher Hill students are welcome to attend the event in Town Hall’s Ruth B. Smith Auditorium and share concerns, ideas and suggestions. Free snacks and beverages will be provided.

“This is something that hasn’t been done before,” said Mastroianni, who is in his 17th year with Orange Elementary Schools. “It’s hard to know what numbers we’re going to be getting.”

The newly expanded 97,000-square-foot Fisher Hill Elementary School now accommodates all Orange students in preschool through sixth grade after a new three-story, roughly 50,000-square-foot addition opened when the holiday break ended on Jan. 3. The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at the longstanding adjacent Dexter Park Innovation School finished out the facility’s final academic year in June and now sit in Fisher Hill classrooms. Dexter Park, opened in the early 1950s, has been demolished and will be replaced with a pollinator meadow.

Teahan-Zielinski said some finishing touches remain at Fisher Hill and that is why the parent-teacher forum cannot be held there, though some educational or school-related events have occurred there and will continue to do so.

But, she added, “these events are not rentals.”

Mastroianni mentioned a perceived double standard of allowing the after-school program, which is run by an outside agency, to operate inside the school. But Teahan-Zielinski said that program is funded by a state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education grant and the outside agency is not renting the facility.

Teahan-Zielinski also said the Orange Elementary Teachers Association continues to hold its meetings there without renting the space.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli @recorder.com or 413-930-4120.