00:00:00,300	S1:
All right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming tonight to our community forum to talk about the progress we've made in investigating the possibility of a new elementary school for Hamilton Bynum. My name is Eric Tracy. I'm the superintendent of schools, and I'll be working with a large crew tonight to talk to you about some of the finer points. We'll introduce the team in a second and let them all introduce themselves. And we have members from the architectural team and also members from our own project manager team, who's a team that works directly with us to help us through the things that we may or may not understand. So, um, you'll hear some different perspectives. You'll you'll get quite a bit of information. There'll be an opportunity for you to kind of give us a little bit of what you're thinking and ask questions. And remember, there is nothing in stone right now. We're we're really just kind of digging into this and starting to work our way through the. The second phase. Really? Maybe third phase, if you will. If you look at it, depending on how you look at it of the process to getting to, uh, April 2025, which is where a vote would occur to decide, do we build a school or do we not build a school. So we're still we still have a long way to go. And tonight we'll give you a little bit of an idea of how things are going. So we'll introduce the team. First. We'll talk to you about the MSBA process. The MSBA is the state agency that we work with. Um, that is the granting authority. And you'll you'll learn a little bit about them in a little bit through the process. But they are they are currently giving us the opportunity to almost split the project there right now. Uh, willing to reimburse approximately 47.6% of the cost of the project from the state. So that is an opportunity you don't see very often many towns that are in the 30% Percent range. So 47%. And we'll talk a little bit more about how we can add to that percentage to the process. Later. We'll show you the timeline and the milestones along the way. We'll talk to you about some of the community outreach that we've done. We've done quite a bit since our first, I think, our farmers markets back in October. Um, visioning and educational planning, and those are the processes that we use to really determine which direction we go in, but also how things get developed and design. Our educational plan gets handed off to these guys, and they take it from there and work their magic. Um, they'll do some design team updates. They'll give us some kind of a behind the scenes look at what's happening so far. We'll talk about next steps and we'll take some questions. Um, it's it's a pretty informal process, but we're going to hope to hold the questions till the end so we can get a microphone out there so people can hear you and we'll do our best. We are on w cam tonight. They are recording. So, um, we want to be able to make sure everybody can hear that's on online as well. Um, I'm going to do some intros next. Let's start with Peter.

00:03:02,169	S2:
Yeah, sure. So I'm Peter Morgan. I'm a lead designer for Jason G. Architecture. So leading the project design. Uh, from the architecture side.

00:03:11,900	S3:
My name is Nick Massi. I am one of the project managers for PM consultants. The owners product manager. My name is Kevin Nigro. I'm a managing director with PMA consultants. As Nick said, we are the owner's project manager. We are one of the first teams that the district brings on in. Our goal is to assist the district in navigating the MSBA process, meeting all the milestones, checking all the boxes and making sure that your educational plan and needs of both Hamilton and Wenham are met. One of our first tasks that we worked with Derek and the School Building Committee team on is hiring Jake, our architects. We'll let them continue to introduce themselves.

00:03:54,030	S4:
Thank you.

Kevin. 00:03:54,969	S5:
My name is Alicia Catano. I'm the project manager for JC architecture.

00:04:01,030	S6:
Good evening. My name is Jim Lopata and I'm a principal with JC architecture.

00:04:11,969	S3:
This next slide is really a Hamilton Wenham specific timeline for you folks to understand where your local school.

00:04:20,870	S2:
Building committee.

00:04:22,269	S3:
When they're voting on on big items, what they're approving. Oh, it doesn't help when I stand in front of it. Um, the the big one here on the on on the timeline is the town vote. There will be a town meeting set for April 5th in 2025. Uh, and a ballot vote for you residents on the 10th of April.

00:04:47,529	S3:
Uh, the MSBA process. This slide will show you what we've been up to. What they call module three, which is the preliminary design program and the preferred schematic report. Right now we are in the preferred schematic report, which is narrowing down the options to get to one preferred solution or preferred option, which we would study. Then in the schematic design which is module four. This slide just shows you a few bullet points on what each module or what each phase consists of. Um, the big the big thing with the preferred schematic is getting rough order of estimates and narrowing down those options with when the school building committee will see all the options. They've understood all the studies that have been done, and they'll be able to, um, educationally make the right decision.

00:05:40,769	S3:
Give it over to Eric.

00:05:43,100	S1:
He's one of the first hurdles we're working with right now is that the school department doesn't own any of the elementary schools. We lease all three elementary schools. Winthrop and Cutler are all leased from the towns. Winthrop from the. The. Winthrop and Cutler actually are both leased from Hamilton. For us to continue with this project and to gain MSBA funding, we have to get a lease extension for at least 50 years. That is a requirement of the state to have, quote, control of the property. We've been leasing for many, many, many years from the community. So last week, the Select Board in Hamilton had voted and granted us at least to the Cutler property for that 50 years. That is the first step. The select boards in town are only able, by law, to agree to a 30 year lease. The next extension of that would have to go to town meetings. So that would go to town meeting as well, to be decided by the voters. But really, it's just an opportunity for us to continue to lease that Cutler site from the town of Hamilton. Uh, as you may or may not know, the town of Hamilton is also working and exploring the MBTA overlay. Uh, that is a state law that was passed recently that, um, really requires housing a certain set number of housing to be built around MBTA stations within, I think it's a half mile of the MBTA stations. And part of that is finding a place to build these these places. Um, the one one thing we've learned through the process, I just just watching the news town of Milford, I believe it was said, you know, we're not going to do that. That's crazy that you're going to hold us to that. And the state immediately pulled the funding from the town. So it's a it's a it's an important piece of the puzzle as we look into this project. Uh, the winter project property is 14 acres and gives the town opportunity to begin to meet some of the requirements of the MBTA Overlay. You know which is. Which is, as I said, it's a big deal. And I think communities are scrambling now to figure out how to how to meet the requirements, but also to do it well. And I think Hamilton's started the first planning board discussion I heard was, well, back in either September or October. So it's been kind of in discussions, but there's still a long way to go.

00:08:12,829	S3:
This slide is I get the fun one. This is about the MSBA grant program. When we started back in, I think it was August of 2023, the MSBA hadn't increased the statewide reimbursement for school projects for quite some time. They were feeling the effects of Covid, the supply chain issues, just like everybody else, and everyone else that does the grocery shopping knows I don't have to tell you, but when we started this program, the reimbursement rate per square foot for eligible costs. And we'll get into that was about $433 a square foot as we were in our first design phase here. Preliminary design investigation an MSBA board meeting held in October raised the reimbursement rate for the cities and towns to $605 a square foot for eligible costs, so that vote alone will realize millions of dollars in extra savings for the towns of Hamilton and Wenham. Our reimbursement rate, as Eric said, is approximately 47.6%. It's a base that we start with as we work through the modules with the MSBA, and we pick out preferred schematic. And before we go out to the voters, the MSBA will give us our final reimbursement rate. We have the ability to get incentive points. This school is going to be built to be sustainable. We had some sustainability members come to some of our earlier meetings. We heard you loud and clear. It's part of our program. If we meet Leed and sustainable guidelines, we can receive 2 to 3 additional reimbursement reimbursement points. Your district does a good job doing the best they can, keeping up with the schools. There's maintenance points available. We expect that the time will get at least another 1%, maybe even more towards a higher reimbursement. So while we're at 47% now, we have the ability to gain more and we will pursue that throughout the phases.

00:10:19,029	S3:
And I'm going to tell you about some of the outreach we've done today. Thank you. Kevin, um, it is great to see a lot of familiar faces here, many who we've met at a lot of these community outreach events. This is a cool little slide I put together. We're running out of room. Um, running out of colors too. But we've ever since September 29th. Eric mentioned it before. September 29th and October 6th, we were at your farmers markets and we've been at it ever since. Um, we've had um, we've met with the Hamilton Council on Aging, we've met with the Women's Enrichment Group, we've met with the Winthrop School Council. Rosie, good to see. It was always, um, we've had educational program verification meetings. We've had educational visioning workshops. And even as recent as, um, a couple of weeks ago, that's Saturday, we went to the Memorial Elementary School in Manchester by the sea, uh, for some Hamilton Wenham staff to understand what a new school could look like.

00:11:17,870	S3:
We'll have this over to you.

00:11:21,500	S1:
This is not the school we're trying to build. This is actually the Manchester Memorial Elementary School. The town of Manchester and Essex have, you know, are similar to US regional schools. They are in the they were in the process of building back in 2000. 17, 18, 19 I think they finished this in 2020. You guys actually did this design.

00:11:45,730	S4:
Open the building in 21 in 2020?

00:11:47,899	S1:
Yeah, open the building in 21 and the whole site in 2022. So this is fairly a recent model that has been built close by. So we took the opportunity to take some of the members of the building committee and some of the members of our teaching staff, our elementary teaching staff, to see what can be. And there there are huge changes. You know, I just just in my lifetime, the changes in education and the way education is designed and the needs of kids has been fairly dramatic. This school is designed to fit into a neighborhood. If you walk around this building towards the back side, there are houses right along the back side of this house. There's a there's a sports field on another side, playground on the other side, and a parking lot. It's also dipped right in the middle of a fairly substantial area of wetlands And building this project actually actually helped to to better the the way the wetlands were being diverted and changed. This is when the front right when you walk in the front door, if you look straight through the middle of this, those doors are the front doors. And when you come in, it's a big welcoming space. There's a double stairway on your right hand side just for our community meetings, class meetings, small group meetings. So you can bring a whole group of kids to that space, have a meeting with them, and then they go back off to their classrooms. Up on the top right you can see some of the colors. Go back to the slide, see some of the colors that were blended in. JK and their team really tried to get the Manchester by the sea feel. So you see some fish, you'll see some greens and blues and that's supposed to be representative of sea glass. Um, but more often than most often. Excuse me. More importantly in this facility. Safety is is a primary mode. So when you first come in those front doors, you can't get in to the building without checking in at a window in between a foyer. We don't have that option at any of our schools right now. You can just walk into our schools without being greeted in a couple of a couple of places. There's a lot of natural daylight in this school that comes in from all angles. Some of the rooms were developed like their preschool rooms were developed with almost full glass walls on two sides to really pull in the natural light. You know, we had teachers walk into these rooms and go, wow, it just hits you, right? Right when you walk in the bright open spaces. Themes were important, and then the reality of coming into this space and feeling like, wow, this is a great place to be. And I think anybody that goes in there gets that feeling right away. Next slide. The this is the second floor hallway. That second floor hallway is quite wide. It's I'm going to guess it's probably 18ft wide. Maybe ish gives a good guess right. Jim's keep me on track here. Um, when you walk down this hall, it's very different than when you walk down one of our elementary school halls, because you can see kids on the right in little breakout areas. They're right outside their classrooms. You don't see any lockers or cubbies. You know, the wooden cubbies that we've all been using for 50 years. Um, none of those are showing here. You can see all different ways kids can, uh, get together and learn. Opportunities for interventions. Opportunity for whiteboards is a whiteboard right behind that front group of three kids. Uh, tack boards there to hang up student work, but also, more importantly, flexible furniture, which is a big deal nowadays in education. So the flexible furniture comes in handy. It can be moved around. It's all able to be pushed around and moved around by kids without having to worry about adults having to move everything and wait for everything. So it's really functional for the from the kids side. The kids really enjoy it. We if you come into our classrooms, we have a mismatch of furniture. Thank you. To the Ed Fund. Uh, the Ed Fund has really pumped a lot of money into different types of furniture in our elementary schools because kids are moving, kids are sitting, kids are up. So that's been helpful for, um, really keeping kids engaged in the school opportunity. You have a large window at the end. Again, more natural light. It continues all the way around the school and then the lockers and corridor. Thing is, is important because when you go into the classroom, all of the cubbies are in there and they're on wheels, and each teacher has them configured differently. Some use them as part of the classroom learning experience to block off spaces and create smaller learning opportunities within the classroom. Others use them to as barriers for, you know, groups of kids to be able to some over here, some over here, and then they can spill out into the hallway and actually use the hallways as well.

00:16:12,600	S7:
One more slide.

00:16:13,600	S1:
And this is their gym, uh, interesting gym with an auditorium in the other side where we're standing on this side, there is a wall that opens up into the cafeteria. Uh, so this is what can be this is a fairly large gym for, you know, bigger, much bigger than your any of the gyms we have in our elementary schools. But the nice part is they have a stage for big events. They have a number of different basketball configurations. I think three full courts within that system. And they also have the ability to open sliding doors between the gym and the cafeteria and connect the spaces for big community events. That's one thing you'll see as we continue through the the slide presentation. Community for us is important because we do believe that the school district is really the hub of the community, and we have opportunities to bring people in and have people use our spaces, and we want to design around that to, to, to give us the best design possible and then the security separating interior. So you have a situation now where we spend far too much time talking about bad things that can happen in schools. And it's an unfortunate thing, whether it's whether it's because of a firearm or because of an intruder, or because of just something accidental. That's really a change in school. And if you go to this school, they have security. Like right when you get in, you can't get you can't get directly access to the building. They also have doors that close. And can you go back one slide in these corridors at the beginning of these cards, there are large doors that close to seal off the corridor and keep people inside safe. Um, Danvers also built a new elementary school. Same types of things in there. Uh, different types of glass tinting and the way they use their, their, um, design of the building to allow security measures to happen, including the opportunity. And I don't know how many places, I think maybe 3 or 4 different places for a teacher to walk up with a card, touch it, and everything locks down. So if you see something and you want to, you know, you need to move, you just hit it with your card. If you're a staff member, the entire building will lock down. So there's opportunity for us to to more firmly secure our kids and our staff during the school day.

00:18:24,299	S1:
The educational program is really the heart of what we plan to do. Take the time to take a look at it, I wrote it, I want you to read it. You know myself, the director of Teaching and Learning, Director of Student Services. Several of our principals chimed in to try to figure out the best way to best meet the needs of the kids in our community. You're starting to look at kids with greater needs, greater levels of disability that we include in our schools, and that's important to be able to make sure we have the things in place to make that happen. So the educational design is driven by the learner, driven by our mission and our vision in the district and our core values. We're looking at all different enrollment options, which we'll show you in a little while. So we had to configure all of those. Like how many how many different rooms would you need for each of these enrollment options? Whether you build a small 280 student elementary school or larger 700 student elementary school. You're looking at core content spaces, embedded embedded educational services. We currently service kids in closets, on the stage and in the places you would never, ever believe it would happen. If you go into the winter of school, there's a nice stage in there. When you walk in, it's beautiful. You open the curtains, there's a classroom in there. It's a classroom for special education students because we just don't have any space. We are overflowing at the Winthrop and the Bücker school. Things like music, music occurs was occurring for the first half of the year at Dubuque School in the cafeteria, because that's the only space we could put it without interrupting things in all the other classrooms. Multi-Use breakout spaces. We showed you a picture a minute ago, those kind of spill out spaces at the Manchester School. Those are opportunities for us to take advantage of for kids that are receiving interventions. We have a fairly substantial intervention program that we have actually staff in all three buildings that are working on interventions all day long, as well as other things like occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and language therapies. That can't happen in the middle of a classroom. So we need places to put those things. So you'll see that in some of the the conversations we have tonight and then community access spaces. We want the community to use our gyms. We want our community to take advantage of the cafeteria, come in and have a meeting, use our outdoor spaces because it's your school too. And the reality is we you know, we we did the Booker gym last year. We put a fairly substantial amount of money into the gym and we rely on the floor, but we also realigned it. It's going to sound weird, but we realigned it for not only basketball and a few other things, but pickleball, because that's the thing, you know? So we now have a fairly heavy number of people that come in and play pickleball in the evenings when kids are not there. So those are the opportunities we're trying to build into our our schools to really make it part of the community and not just something you drive by every day and wonder what happens inside. The goals and priorities really. We want it to be intentional with our outdoor spaces to be able to say, okay, how can we take advantage of the outside bringing the outside in small learning communities? We'll show you a little example. The other in a few more slides. Small learning communities are the key to education. And this is my opinion to education right now, because you have the ability to reconfigure over and over and over whether you put all of your first grade kids in the same exact place and leave them there during the year, or whether you put a first grade, a second grade, a third grade, a fourth grade, and a fifth grade in there, then you have a mentor opportunity. You have the ability for kids to take advantage of other teachers within within that small learning community. So that's really a center of what we wanted to do. We want people to have strong relationships and that is what we pride ourselves in. If you read our report from the high school, you know, that's one of the things that jumps right out. The teacher student relationship is really strong here at the high school. Um, it's the same for all of our schools. Kids know, our teachers know our kids. They know our parents. And we want to continue to make those connections. Um, feeling a sense of belonging. We want people to feel like they come to school and they belong here. This is their school. We also want parents and community members to do that as well. Flexibility. I talked about all the seating. That's the first part of flexibility, but also having opportunities and spaces for kids to go to do things. You know, if you have that group of kids that is always done, they're done for us. There's always like four kids done first. What do you do with them? Will you have an opportunity in some of the designs we're looking at to move them right, right next door to your building, or I mean, your classroom or right outside your classroom, and move further and push them more into an extended opportunity so that you can now focus as a teacher on trying to get everybody else in the same spot. Um, we're looking at spaces and programs and structures to meet the needs. Like I talked about, we have more kids with, um, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and language therapies that occurred during the school day. Um, so we need, you know, spaces to do that right now. There's physical therapy happens in one school in a closet, because that's the space we have. It's a little bigger, but it's not. It's not the most conducive. Um, preserving. Oops. Sorry. Preserving, bridging the community. So we said academic and social emotional foundation. Kids are still feeling the effects of Covid. They are absolutely feeling the effects of Covid. Kids are still dysregulated all the way down to the kindergarten preschool level. So much so that we need the ability to be able to move them around, give them spaces to, you know, call, calm down like we need a place for them to calm down. And for someone like one of our counselors to work with them. So we're thinking about all of those connections and then sustainability. But as a learning tool, imagine going into your school and having this big dashboard in the front lobby that shows how much electricity is being generated by the solar panels on the roof, how much geothermal energy you're getting from your geothermal pump, or how much activity is happening within your. Your plumbing systems. Those are opportunities we have for teaching and learning to build right into the school so that kids can see it in action and use it to grow and learn with excellent and then equity. We really want to have our kids have the same experience. We want kids to have the same opportunities. When I first took over as superintendent, one of my first goals, if you go back and read my my entry plan was to make sure that kids at the elementary level all got the same opportunity, no matter which third grade classroom they were in, and that's part of the equity piece for us. It's important to make sure our kids all get the same experience, and that our parents can depend on that experience, no matter where their kids are going to school. Um, the community piece again, making peer connections, integration of play, which is important at the elementary level. Uh, sometimes when I need a break, I go to kindergarten and just chill out and play. It's like the best medicine ever. Um, really giving kids some choice and agency sounds weird at the elementary level, but it's amazing to watch kids like the fifth grade Leadership Day at Cutler when the fifth grade takes over the school, and they create all of these opportunities within the school for the other kids to learn. So they take something they know and they'll teach other kids, and they'll have all these different groups going throughout the day. Kids are teaching kids every day on YouTube, whether we know it or not. Kids are teaching kids every day outside of school, whether we know it or not. So there's some cool things happening. We want to be able to leverage that and then exploring kids interests. We don't really have a very strong Stem program, but you'll hear as we move along. The opportunity to build in a Stem project, a Stem classroom for some of our learning neighborhoods so that we can get kids into Stem earlier in our school district. And this is another really strong outcome of this. And then where and when students work, you don't need to sit in a desk in a chair to learn. You know, my I am a very visual kinesthetic learner. If you said to me, this is how you do a great job, I can't do it. If you showed me how to do it, I can repeat it, no problem. That happens in our schools as well. We want to be able to give kids the flexibility to do the work where they feel like they can do it the best. There's one more so small learning neighborhoods with embedded media. So your library experience and your school experience. So when you were in elementary and middle school, you went to the library. Uh, that's not so true. Right now, we're looking at a model that integrates the library into these learning neighborhoods and gives kids the opportunity to have what they need right there, right where their where their classrooms are. Being adaptable and flexible. Again, desks and chairs and not necessarily the answer for all kids. So what are the flexible ways we can bring in different furniture so that teachers and students can move around the building and take advantage of it all? We want kids to be curious. We talked about using the building as a tool. I want the kids to be able to go outside and continue to learn right outside of their classroom, and take advantage of what's out there. Indoor and outdoor connectedness. We want to bring the outdoor into our school, outdoors, into our school. So think about, you know, some type of a zen garden, if you will, in the front lobby so that kids can start to study basic biological features of plants and growing. You see those experiments in our school go to Cutler. There's a whole bunch of gallon pail gallon milk cartons outside at the front door where kids in the kindergarten are doing a seed growing experiment, experiment to see if they grow in the winter. Those are things we can do both in and out of the building, and be able to pull the outside in and then honoring student work. We want to be able to show what our kids know and what they can do, and we want our kids to look up and be proud of that work. You go into the high school library several times during the years. Things change almost. You know, every probably every quarter, you'll see different art displays. You'll see different projects that kids are working on. And that's an important piece of the learning to be able to show what you know, but also to be able to have a really good conversation about what you know. Tell me what you learned and what this represents. And part of that is using our student work through the building, throughout the building. And right now it's tough in some of our buildings. So this is an example of one of our design principles learning neighborhoods. This would be six classrooms with also a a special education place for kids that maybe need a substantially separate program. We have some in our schools. Um, we still would have to carry that into our new school if we if we build a new school, uh, planning room for staff right there in the same neighborhood. Teachers and kids are co-located. Kids can come out of the classroom and use spaces. Also, take advantage of an outdoor classroom. This is not a plan that we're looking at. This is one opportunity to take advantage of something like a learning neighborhood. The learning neighborhoods also allow you to bring technology into the neighborhood, to bring library media into the neighborhood so that kids get what they need right there. So if you're a parent of a five year old or a six year old or a seven year old and you're wondering, oh my God, my kid's going to go into this giant school and get lost, this is how they get to make the connections, and this is where they gain their sense of belonging in the building. They're here and they're with their peers every day in their in their localized neighborhood, getting all the services and the things that they need throughout their school day.

00:29:46,630	S1:
You can do this one.

00:29:47,630	S7:
Okay.

00:29:48,200	S1:
I'm going to take a break.

00:29:50,670	S7:
Are you excited?

00:29:51,470	S6:
That's okay. I was really enjoying that. That was great. So one of one of the roles that we have as architects is to take the educational plan, which is the foundation, and help the community figure out what that looks like three dimensionally and what other things can happen. And the key component of that is how can the building support health and wellness? So you heard a lot about that, I think from the superintendent in terms of the importance of social and emotional well-being, we've talked about sustainability and sustainability really is a lot more than just thinking about energy use or the impact of the buildings on fossil fuels and the larger environment. It's also about the impact on the human beings that are in that school, whether they're young children who are far more impacted by toxins in materials, they're far, they breathe more air per pound of body. So they're just more impacted by anything in the environment or the teachers who are there every day. It's a workplace, too. It's not just I always think about as school, as a workplace. My dad was a ninth grade teacher for 30 years, So we thought a lot about schools as workplaces. And when he taught back in the 60s and 70s, he came home every day reeking of cigarette smoke because you would walk by the teacher and you all. I see a lot of nodding. Right. You'd walk by the teacher room, the door would open, the blue cloud would come out, and then they would go back in. And that wasn't a healthy environment and it wasn't. And we've come so much further. So this is an example of what a healthy classroom could look like. This happens to be one of the early childhood rooms at the Manchester Memorial School. So it's a relatively new building. I think the first thing you may notice about a healthy school is it's bright, there's daylight, there's lots and lots of data out there about the impact of daylight and sunlight on on health and wellness and even test scores and even making students do better and feel better. So the first thing is big windows, lots of daylight. Take advantage of the outside. Superintendent talked about bringing the outdoors in. Well, you can do that by bringing plants in, but you can also do that by making the outside a part of your everyday experience with windows that that you can see the trees, you can see the plants, you can observe the weather. Not every day is a beautiful sunny day like this was. But there's a lot to be said for that because it becomes a teaching and learning experience as well. The other thing you can't see, but you will notice when you walk into any room, is the acoustical qualities of the room. We want to make sure that the room supports good hearing. We want to make sure the teacher doesn't have to shout all day. So some of that is is acoustics that keep outside noises from coming in, keep the inside noise to an appropriate level for conversation and learning, but also technology can help. Um, you can look at adding voice enhancement technology so that all students can get. The teacher can wear a microphone, and as they're teaching, they can use their normal voice. They don't have to enunciate, and every student in the room can hear equally. So if you're talking about equity, part of equity is can I hear what's going on wherever I am in the room? Can the teacher get my attention? I may not have a hearing disability. I may just have an earache or I may be not paying attention. So many different reasons to think about the acoustics in the room. Thermal comfort. Nobody can learn if they're too hot or too cold. This is the climate is changing. We need to be adaptable. This school building will need to last 50 years, and over the next 50 years, there will be likely dramatic changes in the temperature and in the climate in this, in this part of the country. It's just a fact. And you just want to be able to make sure you're comfortable, right? Cool. When you need to be cool, warm and you need to be warm. Too many of our older buildings have poor air circulation, poor thermal control, and your schools are no different. You're in the same boat as a lot of places. Older systems really didn't support that. And then lastly, just to quickly touch on it, I mentioned it before, but healthy materials and that's everything from the furniture that gets selected. What's what the furniture is made from, the flooring materials, the paints on the walls, the ceilings, making sure there's no materials that that are on what we would call a red list, which would be bad and would have unhealthy off gassing. We also want to make sure that while there maintainable materials, you don't need to use toxic chemicals to clean them. So a lot of conversation will be happening with the district maintenance staff to make sure that the maintenance protocols also are thought about. So the materials that go in the building will not only last, but can be maintained in a healthy way, because the worst thing would be to put a bunch of healthy materials in and then come in and cover it with a bunch of toxins later, because that's not going to help anybody. So there's a lot to this, and this is a cornerstone of what a healthy and sustainable school can be. And while we use the classroom as an example, this happens throughout the entire building and the site.

00:34:41,269	S7:
And doing sustainability.

00:34:43,329	S5:
So speaking of sustainability. Sustainability is something that we bake right into the process from the outset in the way that we both design the site and the building. So in March, we had a great collaborative workshop with 26 people from the district, district, the SPC, the town, the community, some parents, and we all got together and talk about sustainability goals for the project. Some of the important things that we talked about were additional reimbursement that we've touched upon earlier. And right now we are in the current iteration of this program. We're eligible for additional 3% or an additional plus one. So that would be 4% depending on the design that's pursued and will be pursuing a lead silver minimum certification. And part of the other important things that we'll be considering is some of the additional incentives that are available through the Inflation Reduction Act for federal tax credits, as well as utility incentives from the mass save program. So there's this important additional opportunities. And of course, we looked at some of the sustainability goals that the district has in terms of the climate Action Plan and how that can affect the project. The one of the things that we did was gave a good introduction, general high level introduction to lead. People at the meeting had different, um, obviously familiarity with the program. And so we had Jake and their sustainability experts, Snowden sustainability led the workshop and we had all our disciplines there, the civil engineers, the landscape architects, the important mechanical engineers that that, Jim, talk about that will be really dealing with that, the air quality, the plumbing engineers for water usage. So it was a great collaborative discussion. And so we reviewed that scorecard. And as I said, we're at a lead silver minimum right now. And at the end of this we talked about opportunities for the project, which like everything we do, the most exciting opportunities are those that are grounded in the educational plan. And as Eric talked about so eloquently, we're looking to make this building a teaching tool. And even starting in the design process now, we want this to be a collaboration with interaction of students and teachers to talk about how we can make that happen. So in addition to sustainability, security is also of paramount importance, as you've heard Eric speak about. So in on March 20th, we had a meeting with the first responders from Hamilton and Wenham, police and fire departments, the design team, the owners, project manager, the district. And we talked about some important criteria that the first responders would have for any design that was selected. And we made them understand that right now we're reviewing multiple options. And so we talked about criteria for the site, important things, including, you know, fire lane with and the fact that in general, we want this to feel like a very safe and secure, but also a welcoming place to come to school. So in addition to the site requirements, we got into some detail about the building and the fire protection communication systems. And we said that this is obviously the first of many discussions, and we'll be coming back to speak to them again in schematic design once we have a preferred option that we've selected.

00:38:10,730	S6:
One of the one of the significant parts of this, this or these early phases of this part of the project is to ultimately select a site. And then, as we've been talking about, get down to a singular design option. And as you'll see in a few minutes, there are many design options that have been looked at and many that are still on the table. But really, the first thing that we have to do is, is work with the school building committee in the community to come up with a series of criteria because you have to evaluate everything fairly, and this is something the MSBA requires. It's also the right thing to do, and it's something that they're going to be looking for to see how how the district went about it. So these are some of the evaluation criteria as you look at a site and at the options. And they're all rated there. There's a more detailed list. And everything gets it gets a ranking by every member of the school building committee as they move towards.

00:39:01,929	S7:
Um.

00:39:02,530	S6:
Towards selection. So there's educational goals first and foremost, I know we keep saying it, but it's super important to understand that the educational plan drives everything. The MSBA will be evaluating whether they ultimately reimburse the project in large measure. On how well does this plan that the community is selected to match up with the educational plan and program. And if they don't support each other, there will be a lot of questions and a lot of work. It needs to it needs to happen. So, you know, are the adjacencies or the rooms Together in a way that matches the vision. Space is going to be adaptable is their future growth. They want us to see a 50 year building, but they also want to see can you grow in that building? Can the building adapt over time to different grade configurations, different enrollments? They want to understand how that's going to work. And they also want to know if you're building on an existing site, if that's an option you choose, how will this impact the existing building and the existing school. So how do you keep a school operating safely and uninterrupted while you build next to it or or renovated? So those are those are evaluations. Some of the evaluations for education cost and schedule swing space, which means do you have any place to put kids while you're working in their building? That's an option a lot of districts don't. Um, some districts do. It's unusual to have that kind of space, um, minimizing costs, cost effective risk, schedule risk, looking at these things. Building certain places are more risky than others. Certain types of construction more risky than others. So those are those are things that are considered under the cost in the community. We've talked about it a lot. And as as plans develop, you'll see this again and again. But do does the site and do building options provide good, safe, after hours community access? You saw the slides of Manchester Memorial earlier in that gymnasium. One of the things that that can that can be opened separate from the entire rest of the school, not just in the evenings as many schools can, but even during the day, there are doors that lock and separate that. So on polling days, residents can come into the gym and vote and leave and park in a separate area without having to enter the actual school building. So that's a that's a big accommodation to the community in terms of community use beyond, say, men's league coming in and using the gym in the evening. Um, we'll be looking we'll be looking at other things like safety measures. We've talked about sustainability efficiencies. And if you look at the site outdoor activities are there learning opportunities. How does it impact the neighbors? What's the topography like? Is there ledge? Yeah, pretty much anywhere in town that we look at we're going to find that. Are there wetlands? Yeah, pretty much everywhere in town. We're going to find that as well. Um safe routes. Um, we're going to be looking at, at, um, parking, you know, both for during the day and special events. So there's a whole list of criteria. And when you look at every site, every option, they all are better or worse in all these categories. So it becomes a question of looking rating, evaluating and then beginning to be able to stack options up one versus the other.

00:42:19,599	S7:
You're doing this one.

00:42:23,030	S6:
Which leads us to this chart.

00:42:25,429	S1:
Which I know everybody cannot see because I'm standing here and I have a hard time with it. But we wanted you to see each of the building committee members, which is each row going across. Each member was asked to rank the items that were just spoken of just before this. So each of those items was put in order on the left side. Each member of the committee was asked to rank them what these represent. Each column represents all of the different configurations on the two sites the Winthrop and the Cutler sites. So it starts on the left with that kind of brownish yellowish. That's really a code upgrade. What if we just took the elementary school that we have and upgraded it to to the code, the current Ada standards and it works across with the pink are a couple of renovations. Those are four different options for renovation. The next blue group are Cutler new construction. Those are the next options. The pink three after that, or the Winthrop options for renovation, and then on the blue. The three blue on the end are the Winthrop New construction options. So when you look at that, we have 14 options that we came to on those two sites. And that's where we began. And you can see there are a number of lines through those options and through the ranking process, through some of the things like the lease agreement, um, through the through the select board. We really knocked out a number of these options because they may not have met the feasibility. Um, I mean, excuse me, the educational plan, they may not have been able to be cost effective because of the way you'd have to do an addition renovation. So, for example, the Winthrop School would be really expensive to do a new school in any way, shape or form because you have to do it in segments. And many years ago I did a six segment build and it was long, it was arduous and it was dirty and dusty, and you don't really want to do that with elementary kids, but that's those tend to be the most expensive options. But they take the longest because they take down a section, they build a section, they move kids into that section, they take down the next section. It just kind of goes round and round. So I'll show you a little tighter. Look at this in a second. But there are currently, um, the two options on the far left that are the code upgrade and the addition renovation of the current buildings. Those will stay in the pipeline for a little while. We we know that neither one of those meets our educational plan. And then there are three options where you see those blue arrows on the top left at the Cutler site. The Winthrop site was totally washed out when the the agreement for the lease from the Select Board was met not last Monday, the Monday previous to this. So that kind of took all those sites off of the table.

00:45:13,000	S2:
All right. So I'm going to walk through the, uh, the options that are still on the table. And we're going to take a quick look at the see point. See 1.0, which is the, uh, Cutler code upgrade based repair. Um, this does not meet the educational plan, but it's still on the table as a requirement from the MSBA to meet their requirements. So I'm just going to walk through some of the salient points about this. Um, this is the 285 student enrollment. So it satisfies the Cutler school population only. Um, it is a renovation of the existing 45,000 square foot building. Um, the colors the pink is represents a renovation. And in the future options, you'll see a blue color that's actually addition or new construction. So in this option, pink is renovation. So we're renovating the existing school. Uh, we know that there are some, some pros to doing this. This does not impact a lot of the site infrastructure. Nothing really has to change in terms of septic, uh, utilities. The bus operations remain the same. It also keeps the whole building. So retaining a building that exists already is is an advantage to some degree. Um, on the con side of that though, as I said, it does not meet the educational program. If we look at the Ed program that the district wrote. This school will not satisfy that as we move forward. Um, as well, when we had the, uh, the meeting with the first responders and fire marshal last week, he wants to see a full fire access road around the building. We can't accomplish that on this site. So that's also falling into the sort of disadvantages category. Um, additionally, if if the district grows, we can't really absorb many more students into this facility without doing an addition. And clearly, this is a hilly site. Um, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the site. Uh, a lot of topography, a lot of great change. Uh, accessibility is an issue both inside the building and outside the building. So working with that building is going to be a challenge as we move forward in the future. And as Eric was talking about construction phasing, this would be a long phased project to renovate this building. So expensive in the end.

00:47:29,800	S2:
So the first renovation additions additions option is C 2.1. This is keeping the existing classrooms. There's 12 classrooms in the in the existing school that we're holding on to. Also we're holding on to the cafeteria and stage because those actually do meet their current enrollment for 285 students. So we're preserving about 22,000ft² of the existing building and adding on roughly. I can't see these numbers from down here 61,000ft². Um, so advantages to this is we're preserving really the best part of the original building, the classrooms. Um, also the cafeteria stage, some savings in that. It also presents a new image of the school from the street. So when you drive by an Asbury road, you'll see a new school essentially. And it also creates that sort of protected interior courtyard. So we can do some outdoor learning in that courtyard space in between the existing building and the proposed new building. But this only serves the Cutler population. It doesn't do anything for the Booker or Winthrop School population. So that's a negative. And we also can't accomplish the full fire access road around the building. Again, phasing is is extended on this particular kind of project. So it would be a long construction schedule and potentially a lot more expensive.

00:48:48,130	S2:
So option C 3.1 is the first new option. This does meet the add plan for the smallest enrollment of 285 students. Um, this is uh, 84,000ft². As I said, it's for 285 students. Um, it is we can get the fire access road around this site. And what we're looking at. Also, when we look at these projects, we try to figure out the site constraints, where we're going to fit playing fields, how we're going to do bust drop off, how we're going to do parent drop offs to make sure that students are safe during those busy pick up and drop off times. So we're using we have a landscape architect that we're working with. He did some of these hand sketches to sort of flush out initial site concepts. So in this option what's happening is we're building a new facility on the flat part of the site where the current softball fields are. And once that's done, we take down the original building. You can see the red dashed line is the is the demoed Cutler school. And then the site amenities get constructed. So the playing fields, the playgrounds, the outdoor classrooms and things like that happen after the first phase of new construction. Um, go on to the next one. So 3.3 is a 645 student enrollment. So a quite a bit larger. Um, and, uh, it's three stories. It's, it's essentially a two story building that steps up the hillside because we have a lot of topography. That southernmost portion of that Blue Edition is actually up one level as a two story volume. So we're taking advantage of the topography and the slope by stepping the building up with while we're doing some of the excavation and blasting that would be required to build this large, uh, larger footprint. Um, other options on this. So with, with the playing fields, another thing we're trying to do is accommodate the softball diamond and the SOP and the soccer practice field without having to overlap them. This does that. Um, yeah. But but it only serves the Cutler and Winthrop population so it doesn't take the students into into consideration.

00:50:59,869	S2:
Then the final C 3.4 is a really similar kind of footprint. It's a slightly larger building. It's at 132,000ft². It's the same configuration of two storeys stepping up the hillside, um, and has really the same sort of site configuration for a bus drop off, parent drop off and other site amenities. So that is the long and short of the current options that we're studying.

00:51:28,630	S7:
The next gen.

00:51:33,070	S8:
We can go back if they don't want to use for sure.

00:51:39,269	S2:
And I think we want to have questions afterwards.

00:51:42,130	S7:
Yeah. We only have one more slide.

00:51:43,429	S2:
Yeah.

00:51:43,570	S7:
Yeah we can.

00:51:44,530	S2:
And we need you to have the microphone so we can hear you.

Yeah. 00:51:50,900	S7:
Yeah. So pop up this last slide and we'll wrap it up and open the questions and answer.

00:51:58,070	S7:
So Nick just wanted to just remind everybody this is what's upcoming. Uh, as you said, we completed the PDP, the first phase of feasibility. Our package went into the MSBA. They've given us comments back. We've answered them. That allows us to move into the current trades or at the BSR preferred schematic, where we're taking those 14 options at the MSBA had us investigate. We're narrowing them down with criteria meeting the MSBA guidelines. And that's going to lead us to a preferred solution. So everything that we talked about, we got a little long with all the things we talked about. That's what we've been doing. So what Eric said to make what could be possible. So everything we talked about, we had a slide on it all fits into this slide that we had with the three boxes on it. These are the items that your team is working on along with Eric and school admin. So coming up we have some more key milestones. No, I can't read.

00:52:54,969	S3:
That. Yeah. The biggest milestone I could have gave you the mic too. The biggest milestone here is the 22nd. The school Building committee will select the preferred option, one of those five remaining options on your piece of paper. We will get into. You'll see a facilities assessment subcommittee. That's the MSBA Facilities Assessment Subcommittee. They really challenge our team in the district as to the ins and outs of the project and how it works, and making sure it makes sense.

00:53:27,030	S3:
Now this.

00:53:30,400	S7:
Is it. Okay, back.

00:53:31,630	S9:
To the questions.

00:53:43,500	S2:
Eric I'll bring this back.

00:53:53,500	S7:
Thank you sir.

00:53:57,230	S9:
All right. Here we go.

Sorry. 00:53:58,630	S10:
All right, so I just want to make sure I understand, uh, the paper. So thank you for the great presentation. Um, so option, uh, let me put my glasses on one point, then, uh, this one, see 3.3. So does that mean Winthrop would close and all the kids from Winthrop would be there? So that's one question.

00:54:25,829	S7:
And the microphone.

00:54:27,130	S11:
We can't hear the question.

00:54:28,130	S10:
Okay. And the C 3.4. That's my second question. Um, it would be the grades one through five and the kids from Booker.

00:54:39,670	S9:
So I'll take it. Okay.

Yeah. 00:54:42,269	S1:
So the two options we're talking about, I'm going to steal your piece of paper right here. If you're looking at your paper, the two on the right color C 3.3 and C 3.4. Um the C 3.3, option 645 students would allow us to just move the key to five kids in Cutler and Winthrop into one place, leaving bunker just as it is today. Five. Just exactly how it is right now. So all the kids from Winthrop would basically head over to Cutler. The next option, see, 3.4 is a combination of all kids grades one through five in the entire district. So all kids in grades one through five in the entire district. That includes the Booker kids, which gives us the opportunity to turn the Booker School into an early childhood center housing our preschool classrooms, which the state does not allow us to build into this new program, but also our kindergarten kids. So we have a true early learning center for our younger kids, um, really, really safe and cozy in the Booker. If you've been in there and then all the other kids in grades one through five will go to the new building on the Cutler site. So that's what does that help? Okay.

00:55:54,969	S1:
So the Winthrop would be determined by the town. So if we vacated the Winthrop School and moved every kid, all the kids over to the new school, the town owns the land and the building, so they would have to determine what to do with it next.

00:56:09,800	S9:
Yeah. Yeah.

Well. 00:56:12,630	S10:
It's just a quick one.

00:56:13,829	S2:
Um.

00:56:15,070	S5:
I wanted to know how many kids are in.

00:56:17,469	S12:
The Manchester Memorial School and how many kids are currently in the middle school and high school in Hamilton.

00:56:25,829	S9:
All right.

00:56:26,869	S1:
Uh, Manchester was built for 365 365 students in the Manchester School. Um, as you might know, Manchester and Essex have their own elementary schools. Uh, Essex also has an elementary school that they are now trying to rebuild. They just got accepted into the process. Five years later, they need to now go to the town and say, do we want to build another multi-million dollar building and stack that on the debt we have? Um, middle school and high school. Right now you have 451 kids in the high school and 375.

00:56:55,599	S9:
Or.

00:56:56,400	S1:
4 or five, I think. I think it was for 374 kids in the middle school right now. One of the things we're seeing at the across the school district, elementary school population is rising. We currently have 847 elementary schools from pre-K to five. That is the second highest number of kids we've had in the district in 11 years. The highest was just before Covid at age 67. We are gaining on that every single year coming out of Covid. Um, I think that does that answer your question? All right. There was one here right now. Come over.

00:57:33,630	S1:
Thank you. Thank you. Uh, a comment and a question. Um, I noticed on your info sheet, you've got the cost of the project for each of the options. I think it's important to include the cost to the town. So that's clear, right. And it's going to depend upon how much money we get from the state. I get that it should also include any of the remediation costs that would be associated with Winthrop coming down, right, which is not going to be.

00:57:59,030	S9:
Cheap.

00:58:01,170	S1:
And are being redone. The other question that I have, and this is for you, Mr..

00:58:05,199	S9:
Tracy.

00:58:05,829	S1:
Is your objective to improve the existing site or is it to put more students where Cutler is currently? What's the prime.

00:58:14,329	S9:
Objective?

00:58:16,269	S1:
So the prime objective is to give all of our students the best educational opportunity available to them within our district, will improve the site as we go, even if we build a small school will improve the site because things will change. And the comment about the money. The one thing to keep in mind these are very rough estimates that are on there. Those are not final numbers. Those are initial estimates based on these block diagrams. Um, the estimates as we go into the next phase schematic design become very tight. There is actually what I call a competition, both the architects and the OPM bring in individual people who do the estimations, and they'll estimate the project based on the schematic designs as they get drawn, like the plans of the the building materials and things like that. And we'll get a tighter look at what that what that is. Um, and then we look at reimbursement. Probably by the fall, the state will check in with us and say, here's where we'll reimburse this project. They'll give us a more exact number, and then we'll come to the towns with that and say, okay, here's the project, here's the estimate at this time, here's the possible state reimbursement. And also, I think it's wise to also include the, you know, if we have to demolish a building somewhere or upkeep a building somewhere, those costs have to be included as well. So good questions.

00:59:43,230	S13:
Uh, it's great to see the narrowing of options. I was the first one when there were 15 or 20 or more, it seemed. Two quick questions in follow up one with C 3.4. It's only comprehending one through five. So as discussed something would have to be done. So as part of this work. Is there going to be any kind of estimate on what that would cost. Because if, for example, that were the the option that came to the town, inherently something would have to be done with pre k and k that would cost something to renovate wherever those would go. So is that work happening here so that that would be ready in time for the vote for the town? I know it's a separate endeavor from what the state would reimburse and this effort that you're going through with the timeline. But some of these options would suggest, yeah, you could leave that alone and some other time you can fix it. But with this option you'd have to do something. So is that part of the work that this group is doing?

01:00:41,570	S9:
Good question.

01:00:42,130	S1:
So what we've been doing along the way? Yes it is. Um, but we've been doing along the way is actually updating the book. We went in and updated the gym first. Uh, last year we put approximately $145,000 into the gym. Uh, we're currently we did the entire security system around the entire building. We've done, uh, we're starting work, actually, on the communications PA system so that we have a safe, uh, PA system in the building right now. We have the original 1950s switch plate, uh, PA calling system. So upgrading communications and calling. We've upgraded technology. We've taken approximately $275,000 each year for three years and updated technology across the entire district. Things like smart boards, computers, uh, Wi-Fi. We just did a full wi fi quote renovation, updating all of the Wi-Fi Wi-Fi access points across the district, 245 access points, um, bringing them up to the current standard we did that last summer. So we continue to do that. We're looking at actually this summer at adding bathrooms between some of our classrooms that don't have bathrooms in that in the school, but the classrooms themselves would would fit the need for pre-K K just based on their sizes. But the, the the kind of the projects kind of ongoing each year.

01:02:01,630	S9:
Yes. That one.

01:02:02,469	S4:
I do.

01:02:03,130	S13:
Um, my second question is, um, how how much pulsing do you feel like you have a good pulse on the town? And which of these options are more viable or more objectionable? Um, because obviously you're doing some good work here from a pragmatic perspective to, to go through this work, but you're going to get to one, and that's going to be the one the town votes on. Are you doing? Do you have a doing straw polls or do you feel like you have a pulse on, for example, there's lots of narrative about whether people want a big school or keep their small schools, so that when we get to the one option, there's a likelihood that people would be on board. Has there been a two way dialogue or is it mostly? Let me update you because I tried to come and it's I wonder how much broad sentiment you're gathering as you're going quickly down this path to one option.

01:02:55,369	S1:
Great question. Um, what we wanted to do was kind of hone in on, as you said, we had like 15 options. It was overwhelming for people. So we've waited until we've honed in on a much smaller, focused number so that people can say, you know, I kind of like it's a smaller school idea. I kind of like the middle range school idea. Tonight's the the first survey that's going out. Uh, you'll see it tonight. That was the slide that I made Nick go back on. But it's a QR code that I'll give you all the opportunity to weigh in on what you saw tonight and what you heard. That will go public tomorrow morning, and we'll continue to put that out when we do these meetings throughout the community. So when we go back to various places to present, I'm presenting Friday morning at the library to Group. We'll use it there and we'll just continue to do that. One of the things is the the shift from what we're in now, feasibility into schematic design is a big deal because now it takes it from those boxes. Those are just boxes. There's no really rooms associated with them. So now we actually hone in on this is what it actually looks like on the inside. These are the things that we can build into it. And these are the things that make sense. That gives I think people a little more ability to say, okay, I understand that. Rather than saying, here's 14 options and 14 different configurations for you to choose from, choose one. So we've been just trying to round it down and get it to a point where people can better focus on understanding, and that's what these are for, to to help people understand, like the question in the back. The first question was really important about, okay, what really happens to all those first, second, third and fourth or fifth graders in that larger scale option? All the kids in the district go to that one building. What happens if we just build the 285 student school on the Cutler site? Well, the Winthrop School stays open and those kids stay right there. The school stays open, and those kids stay right there. So these are all good questions that we're trying to get that information out so people can make a good decision here.

01:04:46,630	S9:
That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

01:04:50,300	S4:
Hi.

01:04:51,000	S9:
Hold on a second. Yeah. We got three minus one. Oh, you got one for us. You're on.

01:04:55,300	S1:
Yeah, that makes it a little weird. Is it on? Gets on.

Yep. 01:04:58,170	S6:
Okay. Thank you.

01:04:59,099	S14:
Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time this evening and appreciate all the hard work you've done. Um, I was just wondering if we could go back to the slide. A list of five options, maybe. I don't see something here, but I'm looking at see 2.1 and see 3.1, and I'm seeing the addition of 64,000ft² and almost 84,000ft², respectively, but it still shows the same number of enrollments. Why is that?

01:05:39,500	S4:
Once the news.

01:05:42,969	S9:
Oh.

01:05:44,300	S2:
Sorry. Right. So with 1.0 and 2.1.

01:05:51,269	S1:
2.1 and 3.1.

01:05:53,969	S4:
That's a little bit for keeping right.

01:05:56,170	S2:
We're keeping existing.

01:05:59,869	S7:
But it's showing.

01:06:00,469	S14:
The.

01:06:00,599	S9:
Addition of the forecasts right.

01:06:04,400	S2:
Yeah. Yeah. So 3.1 is all new construction right. And 2.1 is renovation and new. So that's why the but the total number is the same.

01:06:16,000	S9:
But my question is.

01:06:18,070	S14:
If we add.

01:06:18,869	S9:
84,000ft².

01:06:21,530	S14:
It's an addition.

01:06:22,929	S9:
Why is the unknown is still the same?

01:06:26,869	S15:
I would expect the willingness to be able to increase.

01:06:29,570	S9:
That.

01:06:30,599	S2:
Now because this meets the Ed, the Ed program.

01:06:37,300	S2:
The Ed plan that the district wrote. We're meeting the Ed plan in this new edition.

01:06:43,030	S1:
So let me maybe I can.

01:06:45,170	S9:
Help the.

01:06:47,900	S1:
The C 2.1 option is in addition renovation. So some of the remain the current building would remain. So when you start to add up the total square footage, you're going to get less in that configuration because of like if you walk up the main hallway, you're still going to have the same classrooms, the same shell of what's there. Now in the in the, the classroom wing of the Kepler school. So in a newer school, the standards, if you're building a totally new school, the the standards allow you to get more space because the classroom space under the new regulations is allowed to be a little bit larger. So I think once you start comparing current space as it is versus new space, you'll start to see that that incremental difference. They're not identical. Not identically the same, but they they eventually will house the same number of students only because that's the option the state gives us, the state. The state says to us, here are your four options 285 students, 430 students, 645 students, and 740 students. You can't go outside of those windows, but you can come up with some options within that. So that's what we've been working on trying to figure out. That's what all those other all these other options were different configurations.

01:07:58,000	S2:
Right. And 2.1 and 3.1 are the same size and they're the same enrollment. So they are equal in terms of the total square footage serving that student population.

01:08:09,769	S9:
Yes I don't know.

01:08:11,130	S14:
But thank you for that explanation. But it's still bewildering to me how we can add 84,000ft² and still only have the same amount of students in there. But my other question was, can you remind me again why it is the only shows Cutler like, why are we only proposing? Cutler can you remind me of why that this is it because of the decisions made by the others?

01:08:36,170	S2:
Right. So we started out with 24 sites. Initially, all of them were not viable except for the Cutler and Winthrop properties. As Eric explained at the beginning, the school building committee voted the Winthrop.

01:08:51,470	S1:
Select Board.

01:08:52,270	S2:
The select board. Sorry, off of the out of the options. Um, they have a 50 year lease being renewed for the Cutler site and a five year lease being renewed for the Winthrop site. And the MSBA won't approve a school, a new school, construction on the site with only a five year lease.

01:09:12,470	S2:
That's one of the reasons.

01:09:13,329	S1:
Yeah, that's that's really the reason. I mean, we lease all the school sites from the two towns. Um, so the school, uh, I just did a select board, uh, last Monday voted to only renew the lease on the Cutler School for 50 years, which is what we need to go to the MSBA to say. We have, quote, control of the site that gives us control of the site. If not, then it could have it could have been, you know, the Winthrop School and not the both schools. It really you know, as I said, the town is also, uh, has opportunity to to to use the Winthrop site for to meet some of the other state requirements that have come about. I want to back up one second. When you see 2.1, 3.1, they're both the same total square footage. They both come out to 83,000 and 900ft². The the C point C 2.1. If you look on the 19,800ft², that's going to be the existing piece that doesn't get knocked down. And then they're going to add on 64,145ft²

01:10:15,399	S1:
to that, you know, to the classroom wing, which we call it the classroom wing, because that's where all of our classrooms are right now. so that the numbers end up identical. 80 84,000ft² for 285 students. And those numbers are really set by the state. They give us a number, and then they give us a plan for specific sizes of rooms that they will, quote, reimburse. So we're trying to stay within the window of reimbursement so we can get as much as possible. He's right behind you first. Yeah I'll give it. Yeah. Then we can give it a Rick out there.

01:10:47,199	S5:
Hi.

01:10:47,770	S10:
Sorry.

01:10:48,569	S5:
Um, I apologize if you clarified this already, but.

01:10:52,300	S13:
The funding reimbursement.

01:10:53,970	S5:
From the state. When is that locked in? Is there a chance that we.

01:10:57,000	S16:
Vote on the project, and that the reimbursement rates suddenly changed due to outside economic factors that might come into play? Or is that locked in by the time we vote? And then, um, second question is, um, I know you've already kind of commented on this, but it feels like the town is influencing which building you choose a lot based on the MBTA laws and how much pressure is impacting what you guys will submit in April, because the consolidated versions impact the student movement and traffic and cost to the taxpayers the most. So it would be beneficial if the town took that into consideration.

01:11:48,670	S3:
Is this Don Nick? Could you put the slide up with the the schedule of the bar?

01:11:54,930	S9:
And do the reimbursement?

01:11:56,000	S3:
Yes, I'll do the reimbursement piece first. So here's.

01:11:59,369	S7:
Our timeline.

01:11:59,869	S3:
The nick. We went over it and I apologize quickly. We had so many slides. But the important part of your question is no, we're not locked in now. We talked about that. We have a base rate where we're starting. We're incentivized to do things like sustainability and lead. That will lead us to more points. We will know what our rate is before you go to vote. That will happen in the next phase modulo four schematic design. Once we set what's called the project scope and budget, we'll go to the MSBA with just what it sounds like. This is our budget because they gave us the reimbursement rate. This is the scope that they approved. And then we will go out and seek the vote. Now, the one caveat I have to throw at that is they're going to give us a reimbursement rate. And it's a it's the rate that we strive to meet all along the way, the MSBA for the next four phases. They do audits on things like Eric said, space summary. Are we complying with the space summary. Did we over billed as something bigger than what they allow throughout the state? That would be an ineligible cost. So that is our target to meet and maximize reimbursement. And we do everything we can to get there. It's always subject to final MSBA audit, but that will have a rate before you go to vote.

01:13:20,899	S4:
I think there's some other ineligible costs that are just standard. Certain hazardous materials and things.

Yeah. 01:13:27,970	S3:
Yeah. So there are like at least you're saying there are. And we'll do this at a future presentation. We'll have a list of what some of the ineligible cost are. But that doesn't affect, you know, the, the 51%, the 47 to 51%. That'll be a set rate. We'll have a sheet. They'll give it to us. It's part of a the project scope of budget is a an amended contract with the MSBA. We cannot stray from that document. Once the MSBA board of directors votes for it, they'll make a start over. They'll send us back to another phase. So it's really the Bible moving forward, and it's belts and suspenders for the residents as well. When we tell the MSBA, it has to be this money square footage of this configuration, and we get through all of their checks and balances of the feasibility subcommittee meeting, The MSBA board meeting? You bet they're going to hold us to that standard.

01:14:19,869	S1:
Just just one thing to add. I've been through two building projects previous to this in other communities. Both different. One was a one was a renovation while kids were in there, and the other was a totally new build. Um, part of the reimbursement is also, you know, things that the community might want that the state might not agree to pay for. So in my previous district, we built a gym. The community really wanted a second story track in the gym so the kids could use the track year round. That's not a reimbursable expense. So that's kind of on that other side of the 47%. Um, same with something like the same building. They had 120 piece orchestra. They wanted an orchestra pit in the, in the, in the front of the auditorium. So it'll be right here. Uh, that expense is also not reimbursable, but the town was very willing to say we really want that. So we're willing to include that in the reimbursable. So those are the decisions that get made along the way. And that's why, you know, doing these forums, like, what are people thinking about and where are people thinking about like, you know, at some point we really have to do some. We'll have to do some value engineering and, and say, okay, we might not be able to use this particular time. We might have to use a different tile. So different things like that. What decisions will be made along the way to get as much reimbursement as possible? Great. You got.

01:15:31,670	S9:
So.

01:15:32,270	S2:
Yeah.

01:15:32,729	S3:
Two questions. One is if.

01:15:36,569	S17:
The new construction options C1 three and four are approved in April 2025, what's the schedule for completion and do they vary among options?

01:15:54,029	S1:
The 3.3 and 3.4 are both new builds. Um, when you look at the schedule.

01:16:04,130	S1:
Yeah, go back to that. Yeah.

Right. 01:16:09,699	S1:
Right there. So if you look at the bottom of this slide 2025, we're going to vote on an option. So pick an option. We're going to bring the 285 student option to the towns to vote. If we want to build this or not. We make the vote, we move forward. And the construction completion would be in August 2028, moving students in at the beginning of that school year. So we've been kind of shifted to September start. So starting in early September 2028, that's a that's kind of an ideal build. If you go into renovation it becomes a little bit longer.

01:16:41,600	S9:
Right I wonder how.

01:16:48,000	S4:
High.

01:16:49,899	S17:
So the second question is, um, have you considered the operational savings by consolidating both Buca and, and or Winthrop into the calculations? I haven't seen anything about that.

01:17:06,399	S1:
Yeah, we we've actually gotten to that point yet because we weren't when we had 14 options, we weren't sure which direction we were going. Um, there are some operational savings. There are some efficiencies. Busing is one. We now bus kids all over Helen creation, like kids go on a bus and move to all three schools. And it's kind of crazy, but it currently works, so I don't want to play around with it too much. But we use, uh, you know, busing to one place versus 2 or 3, um, is cheaper. There are also costs like, um, fuels, electricity. Those costs all come into play personnel. The reality is, if you decided you were going to go with a 640 student option, the teaching staff would not change. I mean, our current our current averages right now are about 21, 20 to 21 at the elementary level. Um, when you look across the district, we need all those teachers still in place because we don't want to artificially inflate our classroom sizes. We actually want to work to keep them at a reasonable Sigh. So there are some efficiencies outside of that. You have, you know, three buildings, three nurses, three principals, three counselors. So there's a lot of things that we look at as we kind of shifted depending on which direction we go in. So yes, there are some efficiencies but not huge efficiencies when you start looking at it. Maintenance we spend in the past just ten years alone, we spent millions of dollars on both buildings. When you start looking at some of the things that we've had to just do to to keep kids in the building. So. Okay.

Sorry. 01:18:34,670	S9:
Okay.

01:18:35,569	S13:
If the Winthrop site became.

01:18:37,100	S12:
Available.

01:18:38,069	S13:
How many potential or how much housing are we talking about? MBTA housing wanting us to put there?

01:18:45,229	S1:
I yeah.

01:18:46,529	S3:
A.

01:18:46,630	S9:
Lot.

01:18:47,029	S1:
I couldn't answer it. I don't actually know. Um, do you know. Oh, and who knows? Okay.

01:18:55,069	S9:
I don't know.

01:18:56,470	S13:
Um, one thing I want to make clear. I'm going to correct you.

01:18:59,270	S12:
Eric, publicly, and I recorded meeting just like old Cold times. Um. I know. I thought you'd appreciate it. It's really important for people to know the MBTA. Law does not mandate housing. It mandates zoning. You have to zone for building, but you would still have to have a willing developer and a willing owner to play ball. So it's it's not a mandate to build. It's a mandate to zone. Then once it's zone, I think the question you're looking for is the state requirement is 15 units per acre within a half mile of the train stop. So what that means is within that half mile radius, you'd have to zone so that if someone wanted to build at that level of density, they could do so without the typical sort of zoning hoopla. They'd still have to go through the process, and it was still had to be approved. It wouldn't just be a total wide open door, but you still have to have, you know, an owner with a parcel of land. And it's just that's all the law says. You have to zone for it.

01:20:02,600	S13:
So what's so what's.

01:20:03,470	S12:
That math then.

01:20:04,100	S18:
If you're talking about what did you say 15 units.

01:20:06,170	S12:
I think the total if you do 15 units per acre within half acre, it ends up being like 750 units. Yeah. Per municipality. Okay. And both Hamilton and Wenham, interestingly, because we're two municipalities on the same train stop.

01:20:20,569	S18:
So that's 700 numbers for Hamilton and Wenham together or.

01:20:24,470	S12:
Just for each site. So. But that doesn't mean that you'd have to build. That means it could be zoned, but.

01:20:30,869	S13:
That.

01:20:31,170	S18:
Means that site becomes available potentially for over 700 units.

01:20:34,770	S12:
You would actually that would be more density in that one site. I don't know, you could get that many, but I might defer to Rick Mitchell and the planning board on that.

01:20:45,029	S19:
Yeah. So, um, two, I have a couple questions. One is, um, will there be any kind of traffic studies done on Asbury Street? Because it's What? We're talking about it already. Sometimes you can only get one car through a pickup, so. So I'm just. You don't necessarily even have to answer. I'm just saying I want to make sure that there's some kind of traffic studies, because it's a big shift. And people in Hamilton tend to like to pick up their kids. So and then the other question I have, and maybe I came in late, so sorry if it's already been asked, but given the state of the state and the state of the budget, I think it's unrealistic for us to expect that they're going to reimburse more than required by state statute. So if it's for 47%, I know maybe the recent history, they're cut and stuff everywhere. So I just am concerned about that.

01:21:44,869	S6:
I can handle the the traffic study first and then for if you want to you got I'll let you answer the reimbursement question. There is a there is a I'm I'm just going to back into you. There is a traffic engineer as part of the team, and it's both a requirement and the right thing to do. So it's not been started yet because we need to narrow this down. But there will be as part of this next phase, a detailed traffic study done of the site. The the there will be a look at the, you know, the history in the area. There'll be traffic counts done live traffic counts. Morning afternoon. There'll be observations. There'll be a traffic study done, made public, and we'll share it at a, you know, a future, a future meeting. But that is part of the process. And they are already part of the team.

01:22:29,369	S7:
And, you.

01:22:30,029	S3:
Know, an interesting investigation, though we we probably could have had a slide on this just a few weeks ago. We went out to the coupler site with a geotechnical engineers and a boring machine in order to help inform the estimate that's going on right now. Our next is we have second estimate. We have the geo tech engineers poking holes, looking for rock, looking for soil characteristics that will better help us Inform the decision on what has to be done at that site to remove rock or soils, and the same thing will be done. Same type of investigation, although not destructive for traffic. The reimbursement part, as I said earlier, is the MSBA, by accepting the statement of interest and then allowing the district to go into this pipeline. They've already counted on financing this project, where part of that financial plan, when we get to project scope and budget, as I said, that's a contract and it's going to say in there what our reimbursement rate is and there'll be a certificate that backs that up. So there's two fold. So yes, we are part of that pipeline. It's not a guaranteed fund. In fact there'll be some language when you go to vote that says something to that effect. You know, if you know what if the MSBA was to go away tomorrow, that's a different code question. But project scope and budget were locked in. We got one right here.

01:23:50,670	S9:
That's one courtesy I'm time. You guys like one here, one there. Okay, good. So. So what is it? So what is the catalyst for. For this project.

01:24:02,500	S7:
Right. The school consolidation.

01:24:03,729	S9:
Project.

01:24:04,130	S7:
What's the catalyst right now?

01:24:05,470	S20:
What you see here in Seattle. What is pushing that along? What if you had it is today. If that was my thing.

01:24:12,600	S9:
I just think.

01:24:13,329	S20:
Of the small schools within our society, maintaining dozens of classes over time away from the details versus building schools on our lives.

01:24:22,800	S7:
And saying.

01:24:23,199	S20:
That.

01:24:23,899	S7:
Hey, you.

01:24:24,130	S20:
Didn't.

01:24:24,329	S7:
Take into account.

01:24:25,100	S9:
The.

01:24:25,970	S7:
Zoning.

01:24:27,369	S9:
Right? Yeah.

01:24:28,699	S8:
Doesn't get picked up.

01:24:30,069	S3:
Sure. My bad. I thought I had a deep enough voice. Everyone say you want me to go where I was going?

01:24:34,729	S9:
Good.

01:24:35,270	S3:
Yeah. So the MSBA program, grant funds, they're a quasi public agency on their own math school building authority. They have promulgated by law legislature. And they have a set of rules that they go by there on their own. They are. I'm going to say they're not influenced by the MSBA. I mean, the MBTA zoning, they had a set of criteria that they accepted this project with the statement of interest. How many statements of interest did we put in here? You tried for a couple.

01:25:06,430	S1:
Of, I believe five years. Five times. Well before the law.

01:25:09,529	S3:
So after the fifth time, the the mWBE school Building Authority said you've met the criteria of which the MBTA had nothing to do with it was overcrowding, uh, imminent emergencies. There was, I don't know what the other categories of the.

01:25:24,329	S1:
Envelopes of lines.

01:25:26,130	S3:
Ada compliance. Correct. Things like that. And they've accepted it. That was not zoning had nothing to do with it.

01:25:33,399	S7:
And it's not.

01:25:34,270	S3:
Part of any phase going forward. I can tell you that none of the modules have anything to do. We're going to have to say that we, as Eric said, that we have at least for 50 years in the property and that's it.

01:25:44,430	S19:
Thank you. Going way back to your.

01:25:46,770	S12:
Mention.

01:25:47,100	S19:
About the pre-K.

01:25:48,500	S12:
So what happens in version.

01:25:51,899	S19:
3.3 to preschool?

01:25:56,300	S1:
Good question. The preschool would would end up in the 3.3, and 3.4 would end up at the Buca School.

01:26:05,670	S19:
So so Buca can absorb. Yeah.

Okay. 01:26:08,630	S1:
Yeah. Because what happens with the preschool program. It changes almost every year. And some years we have one classroom. Some years we have three classrooms. This year we have three. Next year we only have two projected. So it's it's really kind of a moving target. We've gone to now seven sections, seven groups if you will, of each grade level. So seven KS. Um, there's plenty of rooms in Dubuque to be able to take on kindergarten and, and, um, the preschool. So the reality is what happens with the preschool. When did you say 3.3? The 640 option.

01:26:41,630	S19:
Right. The one where Becker would stay, where it is in totality. It can absorb the preschool as well.

01:26:47,000	S1:
So that that's one of the factors of determining factors of what to do. And it's going to be based on the number that we have at the time that we have available. So right now we have three. We'll have two next year. I don't know if we'll have the year after that. Um, it may or may not be be a possibility depending on. Uh, 640 is a combination of only Winthrop and Cutler minus the preschool. Now, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. If you if you remember the building I talked about the Manchester School. They have two preschool classrooms, two preschool classrooms. Those are not reimbursable by the state. So it's something we would just pay for to build into the the program. Um, it's one of those decisions you got to make. Do you want to pay? You know, you want to pay for that and you want to pay for this. So, um, there would have to be a conversation and some really deep thought about what to do next with that, because it's always a moving target for us.

01:27:38,329	S19:
Preschool can't disappear, though, correct?

01:27:40,470	S1:
We do not intend to make preschool disappear.

01:27:42,930	S9:
Okay.

01:27:45,329	S9:
Yeah.

01:27:46,930	S19:
So this has been a.

01:27:48,229	S10:
Lovely infomercial tonight. You've done a fantastic job. You've worked really hard, and I appreciate that, but this has been an infomercial.

01:27:56,630	S9:
Okay.

01:27:58,369	S10:
Do you see the people in this room? I live in Readville. They live here in Readville with me. We are going to be the ones that have to pay for this. So it's not a matter of picking this tile or that tile, or a music room, or a Kiva or this or that. We're going to be asked to fund this new school building on top of the turf fields that we've already been asked to fund, on top of reevaluation of our property. Everything has gone through the roof, and you've got a limited number of people in here with, I don't care who you are. We've got a limited pot to pull from. If I don't have the money in my bank account to buy food, I don't go out and buy a fur coat. and you're asking us to go out and buy a fur coat when a lot of people in these towns don't have money to pay their tax bills. The elderly don't have the money to pay their tax bills anymore. So what are we supposed to do? We disappear.

01:28:58,829	S10:
I think a lot of the impetus, as this other gentleman stated, for what's going on here today and how pretty all of this is, is because the town's been after that Winthrop site for a long, long time. I think 760 or 745. Thank you. Of that would be in the huge new Cutler school is unfathomable. We live in these two towns because they're small towns. They're quiet towns. We love the three schools that we have, and that crazy bus option has been wonderful for our children to be able to go from one house, one friend's house to another, help with afterschool plans and a whole bunch of other things. It's the way we live.

01:29:42,869	S10:
The town wants to grab Winthrop. They want to put affordable housing there for the MBTA plan, because the state wants all the things that the state wants. We live in a right to shelter state. I don't know if anyone has been seeing the headlines lately, but our those figures are through the roof. And again, the people in this room are going to be expected to pay for all of that. No one in here can tell me how how we're going to pay for this. I don't know how you expect this to happen. I really don't. Is there anything? Thank you.

01:30:24,100	S3:
Okay. Another side of the room. I didn't I'm not trying to rush you. I didn't hear a question.

01:30:29,899	S14:
Did I?

01:30:30,930	S9:
I'd like.

01:30:31,270	S3:
To go to the.

01:30:31,899	S9:
Second one.

01:30:32,729	S6:
Thank you for the presentation. Um, definitely. Some of the the plans.

01:30:36,199	S21:
For the physical. The architecture, I think, will be really strong improvements from, you know, from what we have for the facility. So that's a those look like a good thing to me in a general sense. However, I think as we've heard from multiple people here, there really two issues. There's the educational. Of course, your mission and education mission is important, crucial. And having up to date facilities is crucial thing. At the same time, it's colliding with a zoning issue which is affecting not just just this town, but towns all over the state. And as we see, some towns like Milton, are kind of even in revolt against some of the state's mandates. Um, I predict that we have five choices. If we go for a consolidation and give up the Winthrop site. It's not going to pass at any meeting in 2025. People are going to be aware that it's going to be used for more housing and a lot of units, and if it's that many units with children, you'll have to even expand the school system more. It's just if you want it to succeed, in my opinion, just watching zoning and stuff like this for in the Town for a number of years, there'll be huge resistance against going for a consolidated Cutler Cutler plan. If you're going to give up the Winthrop, because this MBTA zoning thing is, I consider something in flux that may or may not even be necessarily, um, you know, the town may have accepted the zoning or not, but I don't see that is going to be popularly acceptable. And it will fail if you if you try to get rid of the Cutler site for for the school there. And, you know, I'd like to see something succeed that does work. And some of the plans seem to work, but otherwise I think what you're all hearing and it's good to be on the record with this, with the town, to have a meeting like this, I appreciate that. I didn't know this meeting was going to exist until the town manager, he did. He had put a phone call to everybody. He wasn't even on the town website. It might be mistaken. It might. It was on the the school's website, not the town. That was very important for the town, not just for the education, but also for the zoning controversy that's that's It's currently roiling the state for good reason. Thank you.

01:32:36,100	S1:
Appreciate it. Great points. Um, you know, that's the reality of why we're doing these forums. We want to hear from people. You know, my my group, if you will. I can always access people who have school aged children. Send them. Send them an, you know, an email every Friday outlining all the things we're doing. So these types of forums are important for us to hear the things that you're saying for this group to hear it. But also there are people on the select boards and ping pong sitting in the room right now that will also hear, as we have those discussion, um, the realities of town decisions and school decisions are always going to clash. We are you know, it's just it's just kind of these small towns. That's that's really what happens. I mean, we start to look at everything in a, in a full sense and not just focus on one thing. So there's a balancing act there too. And you know what? We may not build a school at all. That option is still there. There's still a reality to say. Nope, we're not going to build it and we'll keep what we have. Um, that that's, you know, no one's ruled that out. I want to be very clear about that. Uh, it's just part of the process. If you go to, you know, town meeting and you say, okay, we'd like to build this X number of kids school, then the town's say, no, we're back to square one where we have three schools and kids K-5, pre-K in Winthrop, K to five in the other schools. So, you know, it's I appreciate the commentary. I think it's important for everybody to hear I think it's important for for us to have that out there publicly. And we'll continue to do these meetings and continue to bring updates forward and continue to listen like you'll have an opportunity to do a quick survey, uh, right after this. And you can do it at any time because it'll be located on the website. As far as the the town, I think the town manager's report that he puts out every couple of weeks has had it in there a few times. So if you don't get the town manager's record, uh, I think you can sign up for those and get your email on there. Uh, you can always sign up for school stuff on the school website. We as soon as we finish something, we update it on the site. So it's as up to date as you know tomorrow morning. This presentation will be on that site for you to review, and there's always an opportunity for you to ask questions. There's an FAQ box on our website and we get some great questions. We take them, we bring them to this group here. We answer them and we post them on the FAQ that's on the school website. So a lot of these questions that kind of were asked early on are now evolving through this process. So we really appreciate the feedback. And we'll continue to to look and listen and get an idea of where people are at. You know, the the reality of money is real. I live in a community. Same thing, you know, in the community I'm involved in is also a regional district and $150 million school was built and my taxes went up as well. So it's I get it, I feel it too. And, and I think, you know, for us to continue to be out working and listening and digging into different groups of people is important for this whole process. There was a question back there. Sorry. Go ahead.

Sorry. 01:35:24,670	S9:
All right. Thank you.

01:35:26,329	S6:
Superintendent, I appreciated your comments earlier about.

01:35:29,930	S2:
Speaking about the importance of education.

01:35:31,800	S6:
And equity.

01:35:32,829	S2:
As.

01:35:33,029	S6:
It relates to.

01:35:33,729	S17:
This.

01:35:33,930	S2:
Project. Um, and I guess I would.

01:35:36,329	S6:
Want to follow.

01:35:36,930	S2:
Up on that.

01:35:37,770	S6:
And just.

01:35:39,800	S17:
I guess, implore.

01:35:40,970	S2:
You, as.

01:35:41,329	S17:
A.

01:35:41,569	S2:
As.

01:35:41,729	S6:
A school district.

01:35:43,000	S17:
Not.

01:35:43,430	S6:
To lose sight of that in.

01:35:45,130	S2:
Regards.

01:35:45,529	S6:
To what's happening in the schools right now. This project is obviously years away, and I want to just highlight.

01:35:53,199	S2:
The.

01:35:53,270	S6:
Fact that there are needs in the school.

01:35:55,229	S17:
Today.

01:35:56,229	S6:
And especially looking at the.

01:35:57,770	S22:
Color school, right. If you look at the the DC accountability reports for our schools, there is a massive difference between Winthrop and Booker, which get an accountability percentile rating of 83 and 85%. The Cutler school is at 53%.

01:36:18,100	S22:
That's a huge difference, right? And I know this is a really important project, But at the same time, I just want to emphasize the fact that let's not forget about what's happening in the schools, inside of the schools between now and when this project actually gets implemented. Um, equity within our schools should be a goal, and it should be a goal for the present day, not just in regards to this project.

01:36:46,229	S1:
Thank you that I agree 150%. The reality is we are addressing that issue through our Mtss development. Go back again to my entry plan. One of the first things I noticed was the inequities across the curriculum, from school to school to school at the elementary level. So you go into a third grade classroom in Dubuque. It was very different in the Winthrop, and it was even more different in the Cutler. We brought in a new literacy program the first year, which was last year. I started using that literacy program and then added on top of that in an intervention program. So we are doing an assessment called nibbles three times a year, which allows us to track, kids improvements in literacy, using science of reading and helping us to understand where kids need the assistance. We have three people in each building that are specifically assigned to doing interventions based on the results of those assessments. So there are adults, both in the classroom, the classroom teacher and adults outside of the classroom whose sole job it is for intervention. So that's part of the process. The other part of the process is addressing the math need across the entire district. The math need across the entire district is real. We've spent you know, the director of teaching and learning has spent this entire year working from K all the way up through the high school trying to bring in new, consistent math programs so that, again, kids are getting all the same opportunities and equities along the way. And that includes, you know, walking through classrooms. If you've read my newsletters, we walk through classrooms constantly. The director of teaching and learning and I, the director of Student Services, myself, principal, so that we can see in each building where things may not. May or may not be going on. We brought in a consultant from CLA, which is our literacy program, three weeks ago to walk and sit in classrooms in every single building, give us feedback on what she saw for consistency and equity. So we are examining those things. Another piece is attendance. School attendance is, you know, a big piece of the puzzle on the accountability game, which is good and bad. You know, the school attendance is is impacting that as well. So the principal, Julianne Snyder, has been really working on attendance, calling parents, bringing parents in, trying to figure out ways to get make sure kids come to school every day. So there are a number of avenues being addressed right now. Um, we're and we'll continue to to grow that. As you know, people may know we're shifting. We have a new principal coming in in the fall. And accountability has kind of been in her backyard where where she was previously. So that would be helpful as well.

01:39:21,399	S23:
Could you speak to the current health hazards in these three schools? I'm talking specifically mole mildew, asbestos and how much that was considered in the process by your team.

01:39:35,770	S1:
I can speak to some of it. Um, asbestos is an issue in every school. Anything built in the 50s, you know, tiles, ceiling tiles, floor tiles are kind of the primary place you find asbestos. We do abatements each summer, um, in the buildings. Like, right now, we've been focused on the bucket school. We did, um, the fifth, fourth and fifth grade hallway classrooms last year. This year we're doing the third and second grade classrooms for abatement. So we've been trying to address that a little bit at a time. It's cost about $12,000 per classroom to abate the tiles on the floor and get new tiles back in there. So we do a few, few each year. Um, issues like boilers, heating and no air conditioning heat. Mostly we have individual ventilator units that are original to the building. We have rooftop units that are original of the building that are at end of life. We have consultants come in and tell us, you know, your these units are original to many parts of the building and will fail at some point. So right now we're just addressing these issues that they come up. So a lot of the equipment is original, a lot of the windows, things like that. There's cracks in the foundation. There's cracks in the facades of of the buildings. There was there was a number of issues with the envelope at the Winthrop School that had to be addressed. So it was quite a few. And there's a there's kind of a long list, if you will. The Ada compliance issues are real. You know, the ramps that are in the Cutler school aren't at the appropriate angle for a child in a wheelchair. Um, there's a really difficult time to get a child from one level to the next level because there's a lift that has to be put into place. It has to be set up by an adult, use by an adult to get that child to the cafeteria, for instance. So there's a lot of a lot of things like that. We had we were kind of in the position to have to replace the boiler and the Cutler last year because the the other boiler that was in there just totally died. Um, we're fixing leaks around the facility. Uh, constantly. We dug up, uh, a water inlet leak in the middle of the parking lot last year, and now I have a new one this year that we're going to address in the spring. So there's a number of things on that list. Um, there's sound, there's air. You know, the ventilation systems are, uh, rough at best. And the Cutler school is interesting. There's like one little vent in the top of each classroom. Some of the classrooms have individual ventilator units that are that are original, and we just keep them, try to keep them running, putting Merv 13 filters in them and keeping the the engines, the oils, uh, motors oiled and belts change and things like that. But at some point you kind of start losing the battle. Leaky roofs. I mean, there are leak roofs, leaks everywhere in all the buildings. And then the the heating controls are pneumatic in both the parts of the collar and all the Winthrop. Pneumatic controls are difficult at best to control. We don't have any ability to control them by a computer or anything. We have to actually go in physically and figure out that, you know, in that particular room, what's wrong with the thermostat, the pneumatic line that goes back to the original system. So there are quite a quite a few things that would be addressed. I got one more thing.

01:42:42,229	S23:
I just want to confirm my understanding. I heard earlier, I think you said that.

01:42:48,029	S2:
Essentially.

01:42:48,670	S23:
C1 and C2 point one are not legitimate options. Is that is that correct?

01:42:55,869	S1:
So if you're looking at it at the basis of the ad plan, they wouldn't meet the ad plan. Um, because of the way the ad plan is designed around the reality of education. And the MSBA, EPA is requiring us to look 50 years in the future, you know, kind of future proofing your building. That is a physical reality that I don't know that anybody could do. So it's it's really kind of that long term look of what we have versus what we need.

01:43:18,270	S23:
So the Ed plan is sort of the guy is the North Star for this effort. Correct. And these two options don't meet the needs of that objective.

01:43:30,199	S9:
Yeah.

01:43:30,600	S2:
Just one. Yeah. Just see 1.0 does not meet the end point.

01:43:35,270	S23:
Okay.

01:43:35,970	S2:
Yeah. See 2.1 does for the 285 student enrollment at Cutler.

01:43:40,170	S23:
Okay. It would. I think it would be helpful to like, for everybody that's not here tonight to make that clear to the community that like this is in here as an obligation to a state agency or something like that. Because I look at it as, you know, something to consider when in reality we shouldn't be considering that. Um, the second thought I had was, and it's getting back to the square footage question and and I, I'm still wrestling with how do you add 38,000ft² to a building and not increase the capacity for students? And maybe that's for the architects, but I'm still wrestling with that.

01:44:26,670	S1:
Are you looking.

01:44:27,199	S9:
At the the C two by one. So C.

01:44:30,970	S23:
2.1. So the original building takes 285 students. So that's 1.0, 45,800ft² 285 students C 3.1. We're adding 38,000ft².

01:44:51,300	S23:
But the but the capacity for students stays the same. That doesn't. And again I'm not an architect. I don't build stuff. But I don't understand how how that works. So maybe we can go back to that.

01:45:05,229	S2:
So at 45,800 we do not meet the Ed plan.

01:45:09,699	S23:
I'm talking for 285 students.

01:45:11,470	S2:
Yeah okay. But for C 2.1 we're at 83,945. Right. For 285 students. And the new construction C 3.1 is the same size for 285 students.

01:45:24,000	S1:
So the.

01:45:24,270	S9:
First one doesn't.

01:45:25,029	S1:
Meet the Ed plan because there's not enough.

01:45:27,100	S9:
Square foot. It's too.

01:45:28,000	S2:
Small. Yeah, it's too small to accomplish the models. Right. It's missing program, right?

01:45:34,069	S9:
Yeah.

01:45:36,229	S20:
Yeah, sure.

01:45:37,930	S23:
All right. Carry on.

Thanks. 01:45:39,130	S6:
One way to one way to think about this is the MSBA give. The MSBA gives a template that lists room sizes for all the classes, lists the kind of spaces you need to have, the size of your gymnasium, size of your cafeteria, art room, music room. There's a template. It's a spreadsheet. It's an Excel spreadsheet that we get. It's on their website. Anybody can go look at it and you can fill it. You can fill it out. If you were if you were to apply those standards to the current building, which is what's in the base option, the rental, the rental option, you would not fit 285 students in that building if you used their standards per room and all the spaces that are missing, that would no longer be a 285 student. It would be something less than that. So the base building, the classrooms are smaller. You don't have the right size spaces. You don't have all the spaces that are required for a current. For a current MSBA funded school at 285 students, is that beginning to get any closer to understanding? I see a few heads nodding. I know if the gentleman who asked a question.

01:46:48,729	S9:
It could go.

01:46:49,729	S6:
Oh well, Kevin's answering.

01:46:51,270	S9:
Okay. In the back I see a microphone back there. Yeah. Go on, ask him. Okay, um, two.

01:46:58,529	S24:
Questions first if. See. 3.1 happens to be approved. Would that be designed in such a fashion that if in the future you wanted to add some square footage to brand, say would students, it could be done with relative ease? I know you lose some efficiency if you don't do everything all at once, but could that design be made for a 3.1 so that there would be minimal impact in going to the next larger size? And the same question would hold if you went from C 3.3 to 3.4.

01:47:31,569	S1:
Great question. The state requires future expansion. So here's an example in front. There's the building in blue. There's a yellow square to the left side corner. Can you see that yellow dotted line. That's future expansion. So the state requires the architects and designers to lay the building on the plot, but also show areas where they could possibly expand the building in the future. So that's just that's just an example. Again, these are very rough. So yes, there is always opportunity for expansion. Even the school the Manchester Memorial Elementary School, we went to there a space on that lot for a future expansion. If they wish to keep in mind, these numbers are inflated by the state by 40 to 50 students in some cases. When you think about the number of students we actually have in our district, because what happens in some cases, you have a fairly substantial number of people in town with kids of not yet school age. So they they go through this whole calculation of birth rates and death rates and move ins and purchase house purchases and, and try to come up with those numbers. So, like I said earlier, the number of kids that we have in our total elementary pre-K to five is 847. So if you just take our pre-K and K out of that, you're looking at 580 students. So your capacity is is much greater Reader to add students as you as you move, go down the road. So they're looking for the possibility of giving room for expansion. And in in not running into a situation where you don't have enough room. So that's that's kind of how the the MSBA forces us into that mode.

01:49:16,329	S9:
Is there a requirement? Yes, it's a requirement. Yeah. Yeah. So it's basically a description.

01:49:27,529	S4:
Of.

01:49:32,130	S9:
Getting a layout. And just so we take one more question.

Yeah. 01:49:36,729	S1:
See take two more. Let's take two more. It's getting.

01:49:38,529	S9:
Late.

Okay. 01:49:39,470	S10:
Okay.

01:49:40,399	S1:
We'll give we'll give people the opportunity to do the survey. You can ask questions on there. We have plenty of time. We'll do questions from now until tell me.

01:49:48,000	S4:
Hi.

01:49:48,529	S25:
Okay, so I just wanted to, um, clarify something when we talk about the Ed plan, I've come to a lot of these meetings, and it has been said numerous times that the Ed plan is aspirational. Is that. Is that still correct or is that not correct anymore?

01:50:07,630	S1:
So the Ed plan is really looking at what we have now and what makes sense for the future.

01:50:13,369	S25:
What we could have. What were your exact words? Okay. So I think it's important to let people know that, for instance, if the town decided that they could only afford the Cutler C1, that even though it doesn't necessarily meet the Ed plan, it might be what people feel they can afford. And I think it's important that you point that out, that the Ed plan is aspirational. And if anybody here has read the Ed plan, it is very aspirational. And there's nothing wrong with an aspiration. But I think we also have to look at financial realities.

01:50:54,069	S9:
Yeah.

01:50:54,329	S1:
I mean, the head plane also makes us work within the bounds of what we have. So programs, for example, like special education programs like music, um, they don't they don't let you say, oh, we want to add an orchestra room, a chorus room, a music room. So it's not that aspirational, but it does say we'd like to put the pieces in place to give our kids the most successful possibilities while they're in our school district. And yes, there are efficiencies that get cut along the way. You start looking at your building and, you know, you start saying, wow, that's a lot of money. Okay, where can we trim back? You know, you might remove something along the way. And again, I'll go back to the project that I did. They didn't have to choose to put an orchestra pit in. They didn't have to choose to put, you know, the second floor track in and that saves money on the non reimbursable side. So yes you're right but it's a value engineering thing along the way.

01:51:44,970	S9:
Yes.

01:51:46,329	S1:
Right. It's a baseline for reimbursement. So the the the Ed plan gets reviewed by the MSBA and they use that for a baseline for reimbursing the projects. The four kind of options on the project.

01:52:01,800	S9:
That wouldn't be.

01:52:02,329	S4:
Reimbursed.

Right? 01:52:04,170	S1:
Right. The first 3.1 would not be reimbursable at that rate actually at all.

Yeah. 01:52:11,800	S4:
The there's a there's a major repair plan through the MSBA also. Right. Is that not correct?

01:52:19,800	S9:
Um, it's.

01:52:21,000	S4:
Eligible under.

01:52:22,029	S1:
That the major repair plan. So so different statement of interest, different process. So the good example of that is the high school roof, uh, high school roof leaks like a sieve throughout the whole facility. And we've put in that, uh, statement of interest to the state. It's a separate program. In fact, last year, they shut the program down for applicants because of the cuts that were made. They have recently just started to back up, but it's a different program. It doesn't. I don't think it takes into account a full size building. It really takes into account like do you need windows replace? Do you need a roof replace? So yes, in some in some ways you might, but it wouldn't come near to covering the cost of a full renovation.

01:53:00,069	S4:
So I think we wouldn't want our town to think we can only build a struggling school or nothing, because the school does need some renovation. And I think we would. I think reasonable people would agree to that. But I think we need to be determined at this stage. What we're telling citizens, residents of the town, taxpayers what is affordable. I think that's an important part of the equation.

01:53:24,630	S1:
Agree.

01:53:26,670	S4:
Amen.

01:53:27,500	S9:
One more question.

01:53:31,369	S20:
I have.

01:53:33,000	S19:
Just a couple.

01:53:34,670	S10:
Comments.

01:53:35,300	S19:
For you.

01:53:35,869	S26:
Make sure you do the traffic study. I live in the neighborhood. A lot of people pick up their kids and is there any way you could put the new construction C 3.1. Where you've got C 2.1. So we don't lose that open space down in the flatland? It's the only open space in the neighborhood. It's lovely to see when you drive up Asbury Street. It's really nice to have the school tucked up on the hill. You could even slide it down. I know this ledge there. I saw you guys out drilling. I went and looked at the little drill spots. It's just it would be tough to lose that part of the neighborhood. And I don't know, you have a lot of people parking on Woodland Meade.

01:54:35,300	S1:
I'll do one.

01:54:35,729	S9:
More.

01:54:37,600	S1:
One more right here. One more.

01:54:38,800	S9:
Last question.

01:54:39,899	S1:
I'll let you do the survey.

01:54:43,329	S10:
First of all, thanks for everything. Tonight, I understand that this is the third.

01:54:48,229	S12:
And final community forum.

01:54:50,829	S5:
About.

01:54:51,329	S10:
This project. Is that correct?

01:54:53,829	S1:
Not correct.

01:54:54,800	S10:
Okay. I saw.

01:54:55,430	S26:
It on the website, so.

01:54:56,430	S16:
I.

01:54:56,670	S26:
Appreciate.

01:54:57,199	S12:
That. It's not because I'm.

01:54:59,029	S10:
In a butter.

01:55:00,229	S12:
To the Cutler school.

01:55:01,569	S10:
I saw your drilling rig out there the other day.

01:55:04,270	S12:
Through my kitchen window. Nobody has reached out to us.

01:55:08,199	S10:
To.

01:55:08,569	S5:
Even.

01:55:08,869	S10:
Let us know.

01:55:09,329	S12:
About these meetings.

01:55:10,569	S10:
My neighbors didn't know about this. There's a lot of elderly people in town that aren't on Facebook, and they're voting, and you're not getting the information out there. How are you going to get a pulse for what the people.

01:55:24,329	S16:
In.

01:55:24,770	S10:
This town want? If you're not reaching out to them on every level. Today I got a robocall, and the other day.

01:55:32,829	S5:
I got a.

01:55:33,399	S10:
Mailer finally. But my kids walked through the kitchen door out to Cutler school. It's a terrible way to communicate. And you guys are educators. You're supposed to know how to talk to people. Talk to the citizens in the in the voters in this community. For all of the auctions that are going to be decided upon by you, because it seems that on April 22nd, there's going to be a select board meeting and you're going to have your preferred option.

01:56:02,770	S12:
That's one option.

01:56:04,130	S10:
That somebody is going to decide that's not.

01:56:07,069	S12:
Living.

01:56:07,529	S10:
In this town, maybe, or not sending children to school or not paying the taxes that every one of us are. I'm not a.

01:56:14,770	S16:
Very eloquent.

01:56:15,529	S10:
Person, but.

01:56:16,529	S12:
I'm.

01:56:16,930	S10:
Passionate. I love the Cutler school, I love where I.

01:56:19,829	S16:
Live, but I.

01:56:20,770	S10:
Feel like things are just kind of coming like a tidal wave. And we're not all getting the opportunity to know what it's about.

01:56:29,069	S1:
Sure. And we'll continue to do the public forums.

01:56:31,329	S4:
This is.

01:56:31,770	S10:
Reach out to people other than.

01:56:33,329	S1:
The the postcards came out as we rounded things down. We were looking at different ways to reach different people, including the elderly. We did the CEOs. We've been at the CEOs. We went to the library Friday, so we've been trying to be around in about town. We use Twitter, we use Instagram, we use Facebook. We use my weekly message. Joe Danilovich, the town manager, sends out about every couple of weeks something in his email. So keep keep you know, keep on those those types of things. We'll continue to reach out.

01:57:01,600	S9:
What's that town website to the town website.

01:57:04,270	S1:
I'd have to ask. I haven't looked, so I'd have to ask.

01:57:08,130	S3:
Now just just real quick on the, uh, the neighbors. Um, we.

01:57:12,729	S14:
We.

01:57:13,100	S3:
Do plan.

01:57:13,670	S27:
On having a neighborhood meeting. We wanted to wait until a site was chosen. It doesn't make sense to have neighborhood meetings with two different neighborhoods where one might not even get a site, right. Um, actually, as a matter of fact, we've already been, um, speaking with one of the neighbors at the Cutler site that asked, hey, if a project does happen here, can you make sure that we have the right bushes and the right trees, that I can still have my privacy. So we are keeping in touch with those as well.

01:57:40,770	S1:
And we'll continue to do that. These forms will not go away. They will continue to happen all through from now, through schematic design. We'll continue to to meet during the fall, during the winter as we grow this project. So it's it's one of the the hallmarks where we're trying to. Sorry, I have.

01:57:58,630	S24:
To.

01:57:58,770	S1:
Interrupt. I apologize.

01:58:00,100	S24:
I don't.

01:58:00,470	S1:
Mean to be rude.

01:58:01,300	S24:
But you got it all wrong to.

01:58:03,869	S1:
Shove one option down. The people of this town is completely inappropriate. It then gets perceived as a done deal. I've been through this before. I've seen this. It's not my first rodeo. You guys have to engage. I'm sorry. This is a mess. Whether it was.

01:58:22,029	S24:
Intentional or.

01:58:23,199	S1:
Not.

01:58:23,899	S24:
You guys have to engage the community. Otherwise, this is what you get.

01:58:31,029	S1:
Thank you.

01:58:31,699	S10:
You get it? Us versus them. You splinter the community and we end up losing. Everybody ends up losing. You can't go to the neighborhood after it's all done. This. We are direct of Butters. We had no idea. And I'm on Facebook and I pay attention to everything. And I had no idea this was so far down the pipeline. And we all know sitting here which option you all want. Because in plain English, it will line your pockets. And I don't mean to be rude, but that's just the fact of life.

01:59:06,069	S1:
None of these people get a choice. We're not on the. They're not part of the school building.

01:59:10,829	S10:
Get paid if we go with it.

01:59:16,699	S1:
It's not a it's it's not valid. The the school building committee is made up of people in the community.

01:59:23,069	S10:
Teachers to be here tonight.

01:59:24,770	S1:
Neither am I.

01:59:25,670	S10:
Well.

01:59:27,069	S9:
Yes you are.

01:59:28,829	S1:
I know, I forgot it's 24 over seven. The. The reality is the school building committee is made up of town administrators, town managers.

01:59:36,329	S10:
We're asking is please be more transparent.

01:59:38,670	S1:
Absolutely.

01:59:39,329	S10:
Let the Butters know.

01:59:40,529	S1:
Absolutely.

01:59:42,029	S4:
Don't wait. Did you tell your brother about engagement now?

01:59:47,529	S1:
Can you put up the thing? I want to make sure that people have the opportunity to weigh in on the survey. You can pop it up on your phone with the QR code up here. We'll also make the QR code available on the website tomorrow at the school district website. So if you can't do it tonight, you can do it tomorrow. Um, there's also a box at the end to ask questions or give comments. If you don't have a cell phone or don't know how to use this technology, there are some paper versions right down here on the front, uh, that have just been brought down. So thank you very much. We'll continue to have these forums and continue to work with the community. We appreciate the feedback. Uh, it's very helpful as we grow this process along the the