[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to go ahead and start reading the. Meeting notice so that we can get ready to move on. Please be advised that on Wednesday, September 18th at 630, there will be an communications and community engagement subcommittee meeting help remote participation via zoom. The meeting will be viewed live on public schools, YouTube channel through metric community media on your local cable, which is Comcast 98 or 22 and Verizon channel 4345 and 47. the meeting will be recorded. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log in by using the following link or call-in number. The meeting ID is 952-4299-2411. Questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing jennigraham at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford Street address, and your question or comment. So roll call. Jenny Graham here.
[Nicole Morell]: Nicole Morell. President, I also can't change my name, so sorry. I don't know why that's still coming up like that.
[Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey. Here. Marissa Desmond. Absent. Luke Preissner. Okay, so we have one, two, three, four present, one absent. We have a quorum. Hello, Dr. Edouard-Vincent.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Hello, I thought it was a separate link.
[Jenny Graham]: So I did too. I signed off and back in. So I did the same thing. So for this group, I did want to introduce Will formally and give him a minute to introduce himself because we will be working really closely with Will. So welcome. Will, did you want to introduce yourself?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely. So hello, everyone. My name is Wilfred Pacelli. I joined the team here in Medford around late July. So catching myself up to speed with all things Medford, really happy to see. The students are back in our buildings. It's been so nice to kind of see them throughout the hallways and whatnot. We're very happy to be part of this project as well. Being able to build the high school and create a space for so many generations of students is a really great opportunity in the fact that you know, I get to be part of it pretty much from day one, it's super exciting. So really happy to be here, looking forward to working with everyone in this call, as well as the other members of the committee that we were just hanging out with on the last call. So looking forward to it and can't wait to get started.
[Jenny Graham]: Thanks Will. So Will and I have, as I mentioned in the last meeting, been working behind the scenes to sort of make some of those submissions a little bit more digestible. All the credit to Will for doing a really fabulous job and doing it in a really quick turnaround kind of way. So thank you. And we will post those out on the website and make them available for people. I think the maintenance and capital planning document is dry reading because it's about maintenance and capital planning, which is inherently not that exciting. But there's actually a lot of really great information in there about how the district is moving forward around maintenance, Um, our custodial services, um, we have a green cleaning plan. We have a. Ongoing preventive maintenance plan. Um, we have a lot of things now that are documented that, you know, well, that was not always the case. So it's nice to be able to sort of showcase all of those things. And 1, like, cohesive package. The other thing that's really enlightening about that document, I think, is when you look at some of the capital planning questions that the MSBA posed, they asked questions like, how big is your maintenance budget? And how big should it be? If there's a gap, why is there a gap? So they really are looking for people to be good stewards of their of their funding and they asked really good questions. They asked us to break things down sometimes in ways that we don't break things down in our sort of universe here in Medford. So that has led to some conversations about. Breaking things down differently in the future, which I think is all good stuff. And then the, the, the other document about the enrollment projection, I thought was very enlightening. That 1 took a lot of work to come together cohesively because they were seemingly very desperate, desperate things that had to be covered and we were able to, I think, do a good job of sharing. in that document everything that we've provided to MSBA about our plans and some of the things that we see coming down the line and ultimately a justification for a building size for 1,500 students plus 200 pre-k students and I think another 100 kids corner Early childhood folks, so children, so the total enrollment we put forward was 1800, which includes 1500 high school, 200 pre K programming and then 100 for kids going. To sort of comprise everything that is in the building. So it's sort of interesting to dig in there and see some of the information that we provided them, particularly if you've ever wondered, like, what are we doing in housing in Medford? It's like a nice handy summary of those things, because we really had to boil it up to provide it to MSBA. So we'll get those out on the website, but I did want to have some space on the agenda in case there was anything else that you all were thinking about for the website. Now that we have will on board, he'll be taking the reins on that. So I just wanted to open it up to the group. I know there's not been tons of conversation of late in the community about this project, because we've got other big things to talk about as a community. And I think that that will continue through November. But I think just as soon as that's done and we're sort of moving on to those next gates, this will become all the conversation. So I did want to set aside just a little bit of time for us to think about some of the planning exercises to be ready for that. Does anybody have any questions, comments about the website, Luke?
[Luke Preisner]: Sure. So earlier on the other meeting, we talked about an OPM. Currently, we're sort of cash-constrained. We have a short timeline. We should have realistic sort of design goals for what our website contains. Personally, I prefer substance over pizzazz, but at some point, there's going to be a need actually for Pizazz to kind of present the project in its best light, make navigation, looking for information convenient, all those things. So back to the OPM. When we select an OPM, is there a sort of responsibility that they have for organizing kind of a professional website, which is common to all of these school building projects.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I do believe that they play heavily in that space as well as in general in this community engagement space. They will help drive some of the community engagement events that happen as we get into the design phase and that kind of thing.
[Luke Preisner]: I think for the near term, prior to forming the project team, prior to awarding a feasibility study. It makes sense to prioritize substance. Certainly, I think there's been a good start made by Will's predecessor, Will Walkum. I see useful documents there, and I think adding the documents that were shared earlier today is a continuation of that pattern. I think building out uh, you know, the content, um, and having a good starting point for when it's taken over by, uh, um, sort of a more resourced and, um, you know, a contractor in that field. Um, it should be our goal. Um, so, uh, just thanks for expressing an opinion.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, thank you for that. Um, any other Questions, comments, thoughts about the website? I know it's just been quiet at the moment.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Maria?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[Maria D'Orsi]: At one point, we did talk about having some kind of a video. And I did speak with the instructors that are in our film and TV production classes at the VOC. And they are very excited about having the students involved in possibly doing a tour of the school, showing some of the deficits that might, you know, help our case in selling this to the public. And as far as a timeline, I told them that I felt that it was a little bit away, a distance away where we'd need that. They're excited to get started now so that it gives them plenty of time to include things, to work with us on what we wanna see, what you wanna see in that film as well. So they are a go and they're excited about it. So I was very, very happy about that.
[Luke Preisner]: Great. Have they seen the old one? The one from 1970, the year the school opened?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yes, that's amazing. It's funny too.
[Jenny Graham]: So I will, I will. take a look through some of the model OPM procurement documents to figure out, like, where do they fit, I guess I'll say, in the process of, like, doing some of this work around PR, just to make sure that we have, like, sort of an understanding of that. But I don't think there's really any reason why they couldn't get started in advance of that. I just want to double check, and Maria, I will follow up with you and let you know. Um, okay, so the other thing I wanted to sort of circle back to that. We talked about back in June was. 2 updates to surveys that we were going to do, and I wanted to sort of bring will into the fold. We had some conversation about doing a survey to all of our boards and commissions. So, Medford has, like, I don't know, 20 or 30 boards and commissions. Well, and they all have different, probably different. Sort of attachments and levels of interest in the in the high school project. Some probably have a very high interest in a lot of things about the project. Others may have just sort of fleeting interest or want to know different things. So. We did talk about creating a survey for the boards and commissions to try to get a feel for and an understanding of, like, where best to plug them all into the process. And I wanted to check in with this group. I actually think now is good timing to put that survey together. And we do have questions from our last meeting and give them some time in the next, like, 6 weeks or so to get back to us. so that we can be prepared with that information. On the flip side, the FAQ survey I have a little bit of a different opinion about, but I wanted to talk to this group about that timing, and whether you think that's the right timing for boards and commissions, and whether there's any reason for us not to pursue that in the next two months or so.
[Luke Preisner]: I wanted to clarify the scope of the interaction with the boards and commissions. Do you intend to engage with them in a structured way where you prepare a questionnaire ahead of time? Or is it more organic where you go to them and you ask, do you have any questions? You record the responses, you do that for all the boards and commissions, see what comes up over and over and do your best to answer the questions.
[Jenny Graham]: No, we actually had established some questions in 1 of our last meetings to actually push out a formal survey so that we can get some standard responses. And I think if I'm remembering correctly, 1 of the questions is. Do you want somebody from the building committee to come present to you about the project? Like, will that would that be helpful for you? And if so, like, what is your meeting schedule and that kind of thing? And then we probably will have to do some descriptor of, like, what we see the process as so that they can say, you know, this is how I think I can be helpful to this project, or this is the kind of input or place in the process that I would like to. So it's questions like that to help us frame, like, when we should be reaching out to them. Does that make sense? And, of course, like, welcome their other questions, but it is a, it is like a defined survey set of, like, 4 or 5 questions so that we can get a consistent response from them and then figure out how we proceed once we have it.
[Luke Preisner]: I'd like a copy of the questions. I may have seen them before, but it's, you know.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, I think we talked about them in our last meeting. Yeah. We can certainly pull those back up and Will and I will work on that and put something together. Will, we will send a copy to this group so that you know what those questions are and if there's any comments, you can let us know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. I am attached on documents, so I got them right in front of me. Okay, we just they're on the notes from the last meeting right yeah yeah yeah i'm looking at right now so. They make sense to me and.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I think the timing is very good too, because people are just gearing up in the fall season, and I don't think everybody is inundated yet. So if you give them a relatively short turnaround time, I think when I say relatively short, I think six weeks is probably a little long. And then the results would be in before people start to worry about the holidays coming and groups that meet every other month that may have to delay things for that reason as well. I like the speed of how you're looking at it.
[Jenny Graham]: The other survey that we talked about was a survey around The so really to start to ask the community, what are the kinds of questions you have about this project given. Given that we have a lot of other hot topics related to schools going on in the community right now, I'm of the mind that we should defer pushing that survey out until mid to late November. And that with a goal of being able to put some of those FAQs up by the end of the year, I think it will get lost in the noise if we try to do anything sooner than that. Does everyone agree with that approach?
[Nicole Morell]: I agree. And not only will I get lost in noise, but I would assume we would get people saying they want answers to questions related to the other things happening.
[Luke Preisner]: Yeah, yeah, I think so, too. Yeah, I think there'd be a lot of entanglement. But I do think that having a community sourced FAQ is a better choice for many reasons than more of a directed FAQ where we just kind of cut and paste from other school building project pages and kind of make a super list. That's more of us talking to people or, you know, instructing people. And I don't think that that's really what people want. I think having the survey and truly pulsing community services is the best foundation for the FAQs. And I agree with your timing.
[Jenny Graham]: Cool, so, um, so we'll. I think roughly speaking, we'll plan to meet at some point after, like, in the mid November timeframe, if we can, like, will and I will can draft up the survey to be able to push out. We can review it together and then make a plan to push it out. So I think for this group, maybe the next time we meet can be. You know, mid to late November, like, mid November ish. post-election. Does that work for everybody?
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm. OK. Makes sense to me. Perfect.
[Jenny Graham]: Um, and then the other thing that, um, I do think. I would like for us to work on and it can, it can come from the, I think, from the district, maybe as an attachment, Dr Edward Benson to your weekly email is just an update on where we are something sort of brief that says we're done with our deliverables. You can find them all here. Um, and, you know, the next step is this and we await that we await information from on taking that next step. And in the meantime, we'll be coming to you to solicit questions and stay tuned for that. So, something along that line, so that people have an understanding of what's going.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah, we can definitely add that to the weekly memo. And MSBA is actually doing a new logo contest. So they've been emailing me and our students They want to rebrand, and it's going to be a new logo for MSBA. So our students, Ms. Suzanne Fee, our director of arts, is going to be working with students to design potential logos for MSBA. And that's from September 16 until November 22. So we have such wonderful arts programming. I am keeping my fingers crossed. that maybe one of our students designs will be selected for the new logo for MSBA, which would be fabulous for us. So we can definitely put an MSBA update though in this week's update, Friday's message.
[Jenny Graham]: It may not be ready for this week, but maybe next week. Okay, perfect. Okay. And that was it. That's all I had for this group. So it actually was a quick, short meeting again. So thank you guys for joining. Are there any other questions before we adjourn?
[Nicole Morell]: No, I just wanted to say welcome, Will. I'm actually also a URI journalism grad. I looked you up. So you're in good company.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice. Go, Rhody. Go, Rhody.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved by Nicole, seconded by? Seconded, Maria. Maria? OK, roll call. Jenny? Yes. Nicole Morell? Yes. Maria Dorsey? Yes. Will? Sorry, not Will. Luke Preissner? Yes, Luke?
[Luke Preisner]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. And Marissa Desmond? Absent, okay. Four in the affirmative, one absent. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone.
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