[Unidentified]: I think we can get started.
[Jenny Graham]: It'll take us a minute to call the roll anyway. Okay. Welcome everyone to our new location. Hopefully we will have better audio quality here. So I'll read the meeting notice. Please be advised that there'll be a meeting of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee held at the library at Medford High School or via remote participation. This meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools YouTube channel or via Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is 9, 8 or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 or 47. The meeting will be recorded since the meeting will be held both in person and remotely. Participants can call or log in using the meeting ID below, which is 9 6 9 0 9 3 5 0 6 5 2. Okay, I will call the roll and we can get started. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Mungo Kern. Present. Dr. Galusi. Present. Marta Cabral. Present. Libby Brown. Present. Marissa Desmond. Present.
[Rocco]: She said she'd be here. Not on Zoom.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Maria Dorsey. Present. Brian Hilliard. Present. Tracy Keene. Present. Emily Lazzaro. Present. Nicole Morell is absent. Erin Olapade is on the way. Luke Preissner. Present. Joan Bowen. Present. Ken Lord.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Bob Dickinson.
[Unidentified]: He's here. He's on the phone. Let me just get him so we can talk.
[Adam Hurtubise]: He's here now. We can unmute his mic.
[Jenny Graham]: Bob, are you with us?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_26]: I'm here.
[Jenny Graham]: Hey, Bob. Fiona Maxwell.
[Maxwell]: Good evening.
[Jenny Graham]: Hey, Fiona.
[Maxwell]: Hi.
[Jenny Graham]: It's Will on tonight?
[Unidentified]: He is home, he's not on. Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Chad Fallon?
[Chad Fallon]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Lori Hodgson? Present. John McLaughlin? Paul Rousseau is on his way. Philip Santos? And Lisa Miller? And Dr. Talbot. Here. OK. So we have 11 present, 4 absent. So we have a quorum. We can continue. OK. First item on the agenda is approval of the September 15, 2025 SBC meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. By Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Is there a second? Second. Second by Maria Dorsey. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, yes. Dr. Galusi, yes. Marta Cabral, Libby Brown, yes. Marissa Desmond.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, she might be here. She's listed as Marissa on here. Oh, okay. Bring her in. She's done.
[SPEAKER_21]: Hi, thank you. I'm here. And yes. Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Pomerale is absent. Aaron Lopate. Yes. Pricer. Yes. Joe Bowen. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent. That's our vote. Okay, next we have approval of the September 2025 OPM invoice. Jen, did you want to introduce this in the financial piece before we vote? Yes, perfect. Yes, so you can see on the screen, there is one left field invoice, number four. We have $20,000 for September 2025 services. The next piece I'll show you how it factors into the budget. Well, it says. You're going to trust me on those little gadget eyeballs. Exactly. So we are 18% committed. and 3% spent to date. The actual spent to date so far is $95,000. That includes if we approve the next invoice.
[Emily Lazzaro]: And so that would leave us with... Yes, I will need to update this document.
[Jenny Graham]: Sorry about that. So we are 18% committed and 3% spent to date, including the $20,000. We are on target with our fee proposal as it was approved. And so there's been no amendments or anything like that. We're still just at the base contract. And so on a monthly basis, we'll approve these invoices. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Dr. Galusi, is there a second?
[Aaron Olapade]: Second.
[Jenny Graham]: Aaron? Call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Galussi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Nicole Morales-Obson. Aaron Olapade. Yes. Luke Kreisner. Yes. Joan Bowen. Yes. And Ken Lord. Yes. Okay. So The invoice is approved by a vote of 14. And the affirmatives are negative, one absent. Just, sorry, make one more comment about this. When you do see it on your own computers in the presentation, the total project budget on the left-hand side, those are the numbers that the MSBA had given to us. Once the designer contract is committed officially and approved, we will be working with the MSBA to align the budget line items so that everything matches up to what we've approved. Great, thank you. We did meet with the left field team last week or the week before to just sort of hash out the invoice cycle payments that begin with us approving here. But then there's a whole series of steps that have to be taken. So we're working all of that out now when the invoice is view because that won't last forever, but trying to make sure that we've got the right visibility for you all in this project budget update. So if there's anything that you want to be able to see in this project budget update that you're not able to see when you can see it, please let me know because we can work on evolving this to make sure it is meeting our needs. On to item number four, most of the meeting we're going to spend today talking about the designer selection panel. And I'm super excited that you all will get to meet the selected designer today. And they have a presentation to share with all of us about what happens next, what comes next, and all that good stuff. But I think Jen has a handful of slides just to frame what has been happening since our last meeting. So I will turn it over to you. Fantastic. So since we last met, I think everyone remembers we went through the proposals that were submitted for designers submitted proposals. We went into the first designer selection panel meeting and the DSP members, as you probably remember, we had three local members and the rest of the DSP had 13 members. So there was a 16 member board that met twice. The first time was to review all four proposals. In that first meeting, you can see on the screen how the DSP, the full DSP, ranked the four firms. AI3 and SMMA were tied for first place in that first meeting. Perkins & Will was next, so second, and DLR Group plus Jonathan Levy Architects was last. At the end of that meeting, the DSP, voted to interview three firms at that following meeting, which is typical. And so in the second meeting, we had AI3, Ferguson Well, and SMMA were the interviews in that order. And as noted here, the votes from that first meeting did not carry over. So this was a new vote from the DSP. They voted SMMA first, which is why you see them here tonight. AI3 second, and Perkins and Will last, and as noted on the bottom, contract negotiations are ongoing to make sure everything aligns with our budget. And with that, I think we do have the SMMA team here tonight, and they have a presentation prepared to introduce themselves, review their work, and I will hand it over to them. That's all right. Would it be helpful if we all introduce ourselves briefly to the SMA team now that we're at this portion of the meeting? That'd be wonderful. So why don't we start here in the room. Actually, before we do that, our folks on Zoom, can you hear us OK? Is this?
[Unidentified]: Yes, perfect. Perfect. Yes, we can.
[Jenny Graham]: Amazing. So many thanks to Ken. We're making this happen. So the accommodations are not nearly as modern as the Bistro as I look at a hole in the ceiling, but it is a fitting symbol of why we're here. So we've moved to the library at Benford High, and certainly for anybody listening, this is an open meeting. People are welcome to join us. Um, there'll be lots of ways for you all to, for people to get involved, but if you want to come to the monthly building committee meetings, you're more than welcome to do that too. So, um, why don't we start, I'm just going to start with the mayor on this side. Um, if you could, if we could just go around and introduce yourself and like what sort of. Things brought you to the building committee. I think that would be helpful for the SNMA team. Sure. Um, mayor Brienner, I met you last week and I look forward to your presentation tonight.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Excited for the high school for our students and staff.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke Reisner, professionally an engineer, three children, school system. My oldest daughter is a freshman this year. I guess it started at the grassroots and really pushed all the people that I knew to pursue a new high school. And that started by collecting information to support the SOI. involved with that and looking forward to hearing from you today.
[Tracy Keene]: My name is Tracy King. I'm a parent. I have a child currently a year at Medford High School, one at Andrews Middle School. My day job is I'm a building manager for Harvard University, overseeing the Performing Arts Center, Lowe Drama Center and the new Goel Center that's being built across the river. So I'm in the weeds of the building.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm Kimberly Talbot. I'm the Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instructions for Medford Public Schools.
[SPEAKER_14]: Hi, I'm Joan Bowen. I'm Director of Student Services for Medford Public Schools, and I also had two boys who went to Medford High School, and I'm a resident of Medford, and I'm excited to see the new building and what it can bring to this community.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Hi, I'm Emily Lazzaro. I am on city council in Medford, and I am the city council representative on the committee, and I have two kids in the school district. They're both in elementary school right now, but very excited to see this new phase. I also used to work in Medford Public Schools as the executive assistant to the former superintendent.
[Libby Brown]: I am Libby Brown. I am an architect and also a parent of two kids in a public school system. They're also both in elementary school, so I expect they'll be going to this new high school. I'm very excited. This is a very, very much a connection between two worlds, so I'm very psyched to be here, both as a parent and as a designer.
[Unidentified]: I'm Brian Hilliard. Some of you may know me. Obviously, I have a vested interest in what happens here, primarily because our son is a junior in the engineering and robotics system here. And super excited because we're ready for an upgrade, but we know we're in good hands. So I'll get back with you.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm Jenny Graham. I'm the vice chair of the school committee and the chair of building committee. I have two students in this building this year. One is with Ryan's son in the vocational program with robotics. And my freshman doesn't know where he's going to land yet, but I have my suspicions.
[John Falco]: My name is Paul Rousseau. I'm a secretary of the school committee. And I have one child who graduated earlier this year and one that's graduating this coming year. So they made sure to let me know. I'm just pleased they are here to see this. So you can come to the opening. I'm Aaron Olapade. I'm a member of the school committee.
[Aaron Olapade]: in the school system yet, but I did graduate from Medford High in 2018. So I saw the ways in which the building and the faculty support students here. But I think at this point, we are now growing out of this building. We're ready for a bit of a change. So I'm really excited to be here and to see what you all have for us. So I'm just gonna be part of the process.
[Rocco]: I'm Maria Dorsey. I am the librarian here at Medford High. I've been with the Medford Public Schools Libraries for 30 years. I've worked in all of the schools. And I've seen all of the transitions. I've worked in the old schools. I was happy to be the first librarian to open the Brooks School where I have a granddaughter in second grade now. And then after working in that beautiful building was sent here. And with the advances in technology, it's just so inadequate. and the changes in education too. So I'm really excited about being able to put energy into the libraries mostly, but all of it, very exciting.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm Lori Hodgdon, I'm the school director of Curtis Tops, our therapeutic day school. That's part of the non-curricular schools that the school committee has said needs to be integrated into the new high school. So I'm looking forward to being part of the visioning
[Jenny Graham]: that celebrates our students who are off campus being able to have access to all of the things that the new high school will bring. It's very exciting.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm Marta Cabral. I'm the high school principal here.
[Jenny Graham]: I spend countless hours here in the majority of my day trying to figure out how to make this place continue to be pretty and to fix things throughout the day. in the building. So I'm really excited as to what this could bring for our students and faculty. And I'm happy to be part of that process. Susanne Galussi, Interim Superintendent. This is my 29th year in the district. I also grew up here, so I'm very invested in what the community and our students deserve in what should be our flagship school for the city. I think Everyone has really said it perfectly. It's about time and it's really needed. We have educators and school leaders that have really done significant work to do as best they can with these current facilities and conditions. And I'm just so excited to be starting this work right now. It's very needed.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Ken Lord, I'm chief operations officer responsible facilities, technology and security. So I am keenly interested in this project. We'll start at the end of August.
[Jenny Graham]: Marissa, did you want to introduce yourself?
[SPEAKER_21]: Sure. I am Marissa Desmond. I'm an architect. I also live in Medford, and I have two kids. One is in first grade, and then one's still in preschool. So also very excited for this project and hoping that they'll get to go to the school.
[Jenny Graham]: Bob, do you want to go next?
[Luke Preisner]: Hi, I'm Bob Dickinson. I'm the finance broker for the City of Medford. Any time you want to spend money, I'm going to be back.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO.
[SPEAKER_09]: City CFO.
[Maxwell]: Good evening all. I'm the Chief Procurement Officer for the City of Medford and I am Beyond thrilled to be part of this exciting project for the city of Medford. As you all say, it's well overdue. And I'm really looking forward to being part of the team that moves this project forward.
[Jenny Graham]: And Chad.
[Chad Fallon]: Hi, everybody. Chad Fallon, Executive Director of Career and Technical Education. Really excited to see how this new process will enhance our career tech offerings at the high school.
[Jenny Graham]: All right. And I think that is the whole crew here. No, we got Marissa. He's not here unless he has joined. Oh, he has. Okay.
[Phil Santos]: Hi, everybody. I'm Phil Santos. I am a dad of two boys at the Brooks, and I'm excited for this project. I'm also a civil engineer, and I graduated from Eppitt High School in 06, so really interesting to see how things will change from what it was to what it'll be.
[Jenny Graham]: All right, and I think that that is everybody. So I will turn the mic over to the SMMA team. Welcome.
[SPEAKER_25]: So you're obviously thrilled and excited to be here. We're going to take just a couple minutes and do some introductions as well. And I'll let Lorraine kick it off. We'll just go in the order that we have on the screen.
[Jenny Graham]: Good evening, everybody. I am Lorraine Pennington. I am the chairman and CEO of SMMA.
[Rocco]: I have been there for 27 years and worked on K-12 school projects for 26 of those 27 years. So I'm thrilled that SNMA is here to support the city of Medford and I'm here to support you and our team with whatever you need.
[SPEAKER_25]: My name is Matt Rice. I am going to be the principal in charge. I'm an architect by training. I do live in an adjacent community. I have a son that just went into college and I have a daughter that just started high school. I will say that I've been coming to Medford High School for quite a few years for soccer games and I have built into me already the understanding of the traffic challenges that exist. Hi, everyone.
[Jenny Graham]: I have never met a more qualified and large building committee before. This is amazing.
[SPEAKER_08]: I am also an architect by training, although I feel like I am an idealist trapped in a pragmatist body. So therefore I'm a project manager in this case. I am also a mom of three. I can't call them boys anymore, but young men, one of whom was a CTE beneficiary. So I, the ability to work on a comprehensive high school, this means the world to me.
[SPEAKER_26]: Hi everybody. My name is Michael Pardek. I'm an architect, I'm the director of design at SNMA, and I'll be guiding our design team through the earliest stages and beyond for this project. I'm your neighbor, I live over in Malden with my wife. We're foster adoptive parents for the last five years. We've got two great kids, one's in the Malden College Schools, second grader, and our first grader's at the Manville Therapeutic School down in Boston. excited to help shape this project with you all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I was waiting for the next person. Hi, everyone. I'm Mike Carlo. I'm principal at MLP Integrated Design. It's an educational planning and consulting firm. Part of the work we do focuses on school building projects and supporting districts in the educational planning and programming efforts for that. and social-emotional practices. I come to this work, this is my eighth year in educational planning work. Prior to that, I spent the first part of my professional career for the first 20 years as a classroom teacher and drama director. So I was excited to hear what you had to say there. Everyone's talking about their children. I don't have a child yet. Hopefully that's coming in the next year. But I do have two rescue French bulldogs that I can I'm so passionate about education. That's why I stepped out of the classroom because I feel like there's a bigger impact that we can make by looking at teaching, learning and space. And you seem like a really excited group. So I'm super passionate and excited about working with you. So thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Erin Crestelio. I am a civil engineer at SMMA. I've been at SMMA 18 years this fall.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've worked actually mostly on high schools. And one thing about me that you may not know is that I have come to appreciate and really love the permitting process.
[Jenny Graham]: Something that is really challenging and rewarding. I'm really excited to be here. I love working on teams at SMA to get schools done.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hi, all. I'm Kate Tooke. I'm a landscape architect and principal with Agency Landscape and Planning. We're subconsultants to SMMA. And I really love that Erin loves permitting, because that makes the design of the site much, much easier and more fun when those logistics are covered. I have a background and a former career as a public educator in the Boston Public School system. I was a math and science teacher for eight years. And I brought that love to landscape architecture, so this project is a real sweet spot for me to blend youth and education with landscape and creating a great new school campus. And I am a Cambridge resident with three kids in the Cambridge public school system, so right nearby.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hi, everyone. I'm Emily Ehlers. I'm a mechanical engineer at SNMA. I'm so excited to get to know Medford as a community. I live adjacent to Austin. And I'll be one of a whole engineering team that will support this design.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good evening, I'm Martine Dionne, I'm the Director of Sustainable Design at SMA. I've been with SMA for over 25 years. I was involved with the early initiatives in the state for green schools, very familiar. And we'll talk a little bit about this later. And I'm also, and I think I've said that many times to my peers, I lived at Medford for 12 years before getting married. couldn't negotiate. So I miss it and I'm so happy to be here. I'm going to be looking forward to those meetings.
[SPEAKER_25]: Right, so everyone should have a placemat in front of them. If you don't, raise your hand and we will get one over to you. We don't need to focus on them right now. I just want everyone to be aware that they're there. And these are really an open invitation. for people to give us a little bit more information. The introductions were amazing, but tell us a little bit more about sort of where your focus is going to be in terms of the project as we move forward. We'll collect these at the end so that we can take them in and then we might do some reporting back afterwards. But we just want to make sure that you know that these are there and that we've heard that you'll be very engaged and interested in writing some things down. So we're looking forward to seeing sort of all that feedback that comes back to us. And we'll probably land on this at the end as well, just as a starting place in terms of some discussion. In terms of what we're going to run through, I think we already covered introductions. We're going to talk a lot about schedule and process, because we want to give you an idea of what's coming up next. And there's going to be a lot of activity very quickly. It's all going to be very well organized. But there is going to be a lot of it. And so we know that everyone is here for that. But we're also not just working within this committee We're going to be reaching out to everyone in the school. We're going to be reaching out to the entire city, the community, to make sure that we get impact from a lot of different places. So that's what we're going to run through on schedule and process, just to outline that. We're going to talk very quickly about sustainable design. And it's definitely not to minimize Martine's role here and the role of sustainable design in the development of the project in general, because it is absolutely critical to what we're doing. But just as an introductory topic, we don't want to give you 15, 20 minutes of sustainability this evening. So we'll just hit on it very quickly. And then we'll spend some time talking about our initial observations of the site as well as the building. Again, not a huge deep dive this evening, but just some initial thoughts. And really then what we want to do is listen to all of you. We know that this has been a long time coming, and we're sure that there are things that you would like to tell us that are top of mind. We want to make sure that we hear that feedback this evening. So we're going to try our best to sort of keep things relatively brief. And really all this is going to be framed within this concept of working with a comprehensive high school mindset, right? That it's an integrated activity that we have and we're going to try to figure out what does Medford High School look like in the future? What do you see it as in the future? Thinking about it being a comprehensive high school, we know that We have made this change here very recently in terms of this integration from a curriculum and a schedule standpoint. So what can it do from a facility standpoint as we go forward. So just to start things off I know we have said that we are absolutely thrilled to be here. We are absolutely thrilled to be here. It is it's not an understatement. We're so excited about Medford High School because of the complexity that is represented in this project. We know that there are so many different parts and pieces that come together. We are an integrated design firm, blend architects and engineers and educational planners all together. So we really think and love the ability to work on comprehensive high schools. But this is really not about us in terms of the process moving forward, right? This is about really tapping into that excitement that everyone here has The multiple years of pre-work that have been going on, the year of this building committee working before we got into this point. So we're really, really wonderfully excited to jump into it with you and to really feed on all that excitement. The respect, responsibility, empathy, and kindness, those core values that are listed within the program of studies for Medford High School, we know that they're around the building as well. We really embrace those as well, and we'll embrace those through the process as we go forward We're going to be using those as our North Star to come back to to make sure that everything that we're doing is really framed within those values because we really do think that those are the way that we want to be proceeding. And then lastly I just want to say that this the concept of thinking about Medford High School as a flagship for the district is something that's very important to us. So obviously the high school is the project. Right. But there are so many pieces of the project that extend beyond the bounds of the high school itself, out into the alternative school, the Curtis Tufts program, out into, there's so many different, the preschool, the Kids Corner Daycare, really the ability to bring and elevate all of those programs together, and to think about what this building will mean as sort of a signpost for the rest of the district, really a beacon moving forward for the entire community. It's one of the wonderful things about this project. And then just a little bit about us again. We have deep local experience in terms of school design within New England in particular, Massachusetts in general. A lot of that experience is focused on MSBA high schools. You heard Aaron talk about it earlier. And we have actually designed three different comprehensive high schools over the course of the past 20 years. So we do have the expertise in this particular project type. And within those three comprehensive high schools, we have designed a total of 33 different CTE programs over a wide range. And those are all so interesting because they're all so different. Designing this type of building is like designing a small city because you have all different sorts of activities that have to happen and have to operate well within it. When we design schools, there really is no SMMA style that we're looking to bring to you. What we like to do, what we will always do, is find, through discussion with yourselves, what does the new high school mean for Medford? What is the design of the school going to be? And we will work with you to evolve what that's going to be as we have those discussions. We did want to give a little bit of just a window and glimpse into what can be using our Waltham High School project, which is recent, just to frame things. because the existing building in Waltham was not too dissimilar from what you see here. I think this is a series of before and after images, and hopefully we didn't label it and you can tell which is the before and after image that we're even getting. But again, not too dissimilar from where we are here in terms of this existing building. So what we want to do is really get people thinking beyond the low-hanging fruit. We know that the building is going to have climate control to it. It's going to have natural light coming in. It's going to have technology that works. Those are all the pain points that are here that everyone feels on a daily basis, right? But we really want to aspire to something even grander than that. We want to think about the potential really in terms of what the impact could be for educators, for students, and for the community at large. So we're really looking as we move forward to think about what those transformations can be. This is the cafeteria dining commons in Waltham High School. This is the change of the auditorium. And this is an interesting one as well, because we know that there's some interest in really growing the performing arts here at Medford High School. We have a very limited size auditorium. This was an auditorium that didn't reach beyond the basic or the base size of an MSBA auditorium, which is at 750 seats up to that thousand seats. So this is just a small glimpse into what that can be. Waltham had a much actually larger High School Auditorium, it was combined with a local theater company previously, but in terms of the quality of the space and the quality of the performance environment, just a tremendous improvement. And then CTE programs as well. The CTE programs at Waltham High School actually were not anywhere near what you have for existing CTE programs here. They were all located in the basement of a single-story building, so they were adapted into that high school. So on the left-hand side, you see the the forward image of the carpentry program crammed into a tiny area. Had a wonderful wood floor, but other than that, it was a challenging space to work with. The focus on daylighting, having a double-height space so they can build a double-height mock-up house within that environment, just truly transformative there, but also the placement of that space adjacent to the auditorium and the stage allows them to really engage in that stagecraft and try to create some interdisciplinary learning opportunities. Then lastly, the auto technology program as well at Waltham was an outbuilding. It was not connected to the rest of the high school itself. So students going out there really were ostracized in terms of their educational experience. The building, the auto tech space is now integrated in. Again, you can see the abundance of natural light from that space. And that's something as we move forward, there's not going to be a second tier of design for spaces between CTB and academic spaces. We treat all the spaces similarly in terms of the value that comes from access to daylighting, access to air conditioning and heating, and connection to the rest of the school. And then lastly, the cosmetology space, we just like this. This was actually a new program for them added in, so there's no before space. to be seen here. We know that we are adding four week programs as part of this project as well. So it's a slightly different process there. But again, end goal is to have something that really sings to everyone as a space and really creates a space that students want to be in.
[SPEAKER_08]: And as the pragmatist, I get to talk schedule and process. Take a deep breath out. This is your project timeline. And we acknowledge you've been doing this for a while now. You submitted your SOI two years ago. So you are here. There should be a line that pops up, Matt. You're at the beginning of the journey, the MSBA process. And we know that you would like to see this project done by 2030. So it is, I edited the board from aggressive to ambitious, but this is an ambitious schedule, and we're ready to go along with you and start right away. And so we did also want to teach a little bit of MSBA speak. You will all know these acronyms really well, very, very shortly if you don't already. But the process, the first phase we're in right now is called feasibility. Part of that is the PDP, or Preliminary Design Program. I call this the getting to know you phase, literally and figuratively. We will get to know all of you. We're going to get to know your educators. We are going to get to know your building really well, and your site, somewhat not invasively, too invasively, but investigations to understand the building systems, to survey for hazardous materials. Um, so we are going to be touching on all of those things in this early PDP phase. Um, and really the critical things we're trying to get to at the end of PDP, um, the educational program, which you've already started. Um, but there is work that Mike will be doing to help inform and complete that. That roadmap for you from an educational standpoint, the space summary, which is, I think the roadmap for the building building program. how many classrooms, what size, how many CTA spaces, what type, all of that. Doing that roadmap, that space summary correctly is going to really help you get the most from the MSBA funding process. I already touched on the evaluation of existing conditions inside and outside the site and the building. And during this phase, we're gonna start to put forth options. The MSBA does require us to investigate what it will cost to bring this building up to code, not change a single space. It's a baseline number to understand what we would need to do to make it energy efficient and meet all current codes, make it accessible. What is that dollar value? We have to explore at least one addition renovation option, and we have to explore at least one all new option. So those three we have to, regardless of how many options we show you, there will likely be many variants, especially not on the first one, but the ad reno and the all new. And yes, there are going to be a lot of meetings and I will get to that in a second. So the second part of feasibility is the FERG schematic report or PSR. And it pretty much is very self-descriptive. At the end of PSR, you've selected your option. evaluated it, you've established criteria for making this decision. Yes, probably cost will be one of them. Does it meet all of the educational programmatic needs? Does it fit well on the site? We will help develop criteria with you. And I think actually left field has done that to some degree with the sites that you looked at previously. So essentially at the end of PSR, you've got your preferred option. We've wrapped up the existing conditions. We know what we're working with. And that preferred solution needs to go to the MSBA for a vote. It's their acknowledgement saying, yes, we think you're on the right track as your funding partner. So again, we'd have to check in with them. They are participating financially in all of this. And then just briefly, we're not gonna dwell on schematic design, but after that approval from MSBA, after the board meeting, schematic design will then ensue. And that's also really critical because at the end of schematic design, the budget is set, which sometimes feels really early. We have to make sure we really account for the size, the scale, the site requirements, so that the budget is correct, so that when you go out for your votes with city council and with community, you've got the right number. All right, so let's dig into feasibility a little bit more. From the schedule, I think that left field had shown you most recently. They had shown PDP going into MSBA at the end of January. We're suggesting maybe pushing that into February for many reasons. One is all the things I just described that need to do both investigatively, meeting-wise, holidays. The reality is we've got some big holidays towards the end of this year. And just to give a tiny bit of breathing room, overall, this will not affect the project timeline. So we are still on track to submit the preferred schematic report or PSR. In June, that is a required date in order to make the August board meeting with the MSBA. That FAS will get into, I think, another time, but that is another milestone where the MSBA weighs in and says, they're gonna ask you a bunch of questions about your preferred schematic.
[SPEAKER_25]: FAS is Facilities Assessment Subcommittee. We'll spell these out, yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and if I could just add to that schedule shift, like we'll work with SMMA pretty closely to talk about, to make sure that that shift one month does not affect that submittal date of June, 2026. And I think it actually, it gives us a little more room for the get to know you phase as Helen mentioned, and will help inform a lot of the discussions that will be happening during that PSR, preferred schematic report phase. So we thought it was a really good move as well.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then just to zero in a little bit more on the PDP into PSR, but really the PDP, because those meetings, all those meetings that I talked about, really they need to happen right now in this phase. And so there are two flavors, we'll call them. There's the educational visioning piece that Mike will talk to more. And we keep saying educational, our space, our educational planner, I did it again, Rosemary, who couldn't be here this evening, she said, just call it space programming, space planning. So those two things really need to get mapped out in PDP right now. So the visioning piece, and we're gonna actually kick it off this Friday with a meeting with the educational leadership and define who that is as well, to really map out engagement opportunities, and that will include the educational leadership, the educators, those teachers, some students, and the community will be invited into those sessions. The space programming piece is really one-on-one meetings with each department rep. So we'll be meeting with the English department. We'll be meeting with, you know, So special Ed will be meeting each CTE, exactly. So those are really focused, concentrated meetings over several days, wherein we can really confirm the space needs, adjacencies, et cetera, for each program. So the visioning informs your Ed plan, which you've already started. And the programming phase informs that space summary, that document that I've talked about, the size and number of rooms.
[Jenny Graham]: I think for the rest of the committee, when we say we've already started the ed planning, that's because with left fields, the superintendent and her team have been working through a lot of the information that needs to be gathered and collected. So it's not necessarily like a community-facing activity. It's really about what happens in the building day to day. So that work is well in hand and just about complete. So we're on our way from that perspective.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what does educational planning and visioning actually look like? From my perspective, being formally an educator, I really believe that there are so many integral and then interrelated components of education. and all of the intersection points, the different components, we need to look at all of them separately and then together, because those will inform the greatest, most comprehensive holistic educational vision, and then educational program that the district will create. So when we go through the visioning process, you'll see that we hit on all of these different components of education. We'll really start with who is an adolescent, a high schooler, who are they as a human being, as a student, as a community member, as people that are trying to figure out who they want to be as they move on outside of school, how that impacts teaching and learning that we put in place, how the learner, teaching and learning impact the learning environment, and then how the learning environment can push back and influence the teaching and the learning of the student. So we'll look at each component and them together throughout the process, and you'll see how that rolls out in the next slide. So what that looks like. So the approach, and this is in draft form, because on Friday when we have our kickoff meeting, the approach that we have for this district will be different than every single district. As I say, every student in my class needed something different. Every district also needs something very different. So we work within this framework, but really we'll define what that is on Friday when we meet with leadership to really go through the vision plan so they can come up with a detailed plan. So phase one is what I call immersion and inspiration. It is really that getting to know you phase like Helen was talking about. It's really all about context, meaning that we use that as an opportunity to learn about you as a district. We go and explore the day-to-day happenings. We shadow students. We document what students and teachers are doing. We spend days in the schools, but then we also take you on tours of other buildings. We have listening sessions. So we can kind of lay a foundation for educators and leadership to come from a place of understanding when we ask questions about the future. Because so many educators make do with the little that they have, they make miracles happen. So when you ask teachers, even myself that does this work, when I was involved in the building projects, I didn't know what I didn't know and how to come from a place of what could be. So we really spend time before we even get to the actual visioning sessions, building our capacity to understand you and your capacity to understand what could be. Then we move into phase two. Phase two is really where we will have these visioning sessions. There'll be large active and interactive sessions with a number of stakeholders from educators, community members, parents, students, minute in the next slide. But really it is that those sessions will unpack all of the items that you see here going from academic and social emotional development of kids. What student life and school culture is. We'll go back and say what are the pinch points in the daily student's experience. Not only just thinking like aspirationally about education but operationally and organizationally what it actually looks like now and what it could be. So we even look at things like school schedules and groupings and all of the things that play a role in the overall student success experience every day. Ultimately in phase three, we take the outcomes from visioning and then we start to kind of think about operationally and spatially, how we can put that vision into life. So we start to explore things that come out of visioning. Like for example, in Brockton, one of the things they're talking about is how do we create more integration and opportunities for CTE programs and for academic programs to see each other spatially, visibly, experientially. So we dive deeper and more granular into those program and synthesis meetings with a smaller group of folks. Every time we have a meeting, we get closer and closer and closer to kind of like landing the plane, essentially. So, The different perspectives that we pulled from, you'll see there's two groups that I use for this process, the Educational Leadership Team, and then the Educational Forum. The Educational Forum is a much larger group. It can range from 20 to 30 people to 50 to 60 people. It's where we have large visioning sessions where we have many educators, it's very educator-based, but at the same time they're sitting with parents, and community members, and business members, and students, and other staff members, and administration, to really build this holistic vision and hear each other. At times, students not only have a seat at the table, but also get involved with me to run and go lead some of the activities in the visioning sessions. So we'll definitely talk about that, because I always love to do that. All of those outcomes are brought back to that group that's on the left, the educational leadership team. It's still an educator-based group, but it really represents all of the major programs in the school. So we take the larger, bigger picture concepts that come out of visioning and go back to that smaller group to really start to make refinements and decisions, ultimately then inform the educational program document that's ready. It informs the space summary template that gets done by SMMA. And then it ultimately informs the design
[SPEAKER_08]: hear those meetings again. So the visioning piece is represented by that top bar. We're seeing we're having the kickoff with educational leadership on Friday. Happy Halloween. And we will plot those points along that line in terms of where those visioning meetings will occur that will be broader and more open. um, to, to the community. And then the low, we've got the education program, space program, programming meetings that we're hoping to cluster together in November. And Suzanne, we will work on schedule to, to make that happen. Um, and that could be, you know, several days. So a lot.
[SPEAKER_25]: So just really quickly, I know there's, there was a lot of information in terms of upcoming meetings. Um, and we just want to, shed a little bit more light onto the process for the CTE programs, because they are technically more involved in terms of the discussion. There's a few additional stakeholders that come into play when we're talking about the CTE programs themselves. Specifically bringing in the advisory committees that are present, as well as obviously the instructors. But the advisory committees help to make that connection to the community around and make the development, the evolution of these programs specific to Medford. And what we'd like to do is even for the new programs that are not established yet and may not have a program instructor on board, say today, moving forward, trying to get those advisory committees started and up and running so that we can get that industry feedback moving forward is a critical part of the process. We will also be engaging with DESE at different points within the process to make sure that their safety and accessibility staff is well aligned with the thinking as we move forward. And then one last set of meetings, um, in terms of engagement moving forward. Um, and while it could also already be tired in terms of where we get to this point, the focus groups, um, that is another mechanism that we use, um, are really, really critical from sort of a larger community engagement perspective. Um, we have come up with this, um, approach, um, and sort of tried and true on past projects. In terms of thinking about really four buckets of engagement and input that is going to drive the design of the high school moving forward, it's important to note that none of these four groupings are individual silos. There are overlaps that happen between all of them, and there may be members that are sitting in some of these focus groups that may attend two, three, or all four of them, depending on sort of where their interest and expertise is lying. But this, Similarly, in terms of what we're just talking about in terms of participation, certainly is going to include educator representation from the school. It's going to include students, but it's going to have a broader reach also out to city departments, commissions, committees, not the entire committees, but selected members that would be coming as a representative just from city council here. as well as potentially expert community members that are not necessarily within a particular committee or department, but have something really critical and inspiring to bring to the team. And that can range, obviously, between any of these groups in terms of what the actual role is. But this is really an opportunity to reach out beyond the school, beyond the district, and make sure that we're pulling in those voices that are really interested in helping to guide and shape the future of lives.
[SPEAKER_08]: And just to sort of summarize this a little bit is to say we're going to start with this in the school community. And then we're going to broaden out from there with all of these different mechanisms that we're going to use. And when Matt was talking about focus groups, this means you. If one of those categories is one of your superpowers or something you might be interested in helping out with, definitely let us know about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: So in terms of sustainable design, sustainability, MSD has a green school policy and they have specific requirements. That's all part of the process. They require the LEED green building certification standard. The school has to be compliant with the LEED silver minimum. We will be definitely listening So you're sitting down and looking at a goal of going beyond that, if that's something that feels comfortable for you. We've done it for many communities. We've achieved gold, made gold, which is the next level, always being mindful of your budget within this. The MSBA requires the standard stretch code. This is the current energy code in Massachusetts. Medford has adopted the specialized stretch code And that actually qualifies you for an additional set of reimbursements. So MSBL offers 4% additional reimbursement. 3% of those 4% is for meeting the specialized goal, which in this project we will do. And then the other 1% is for additional criteria within the LEED system for healthy materials. And our school design pay quite attention to health and wellness, and that includes health and material and indoor quality, which goes hand in hand with that goal. So our goal is to really optimize the design to achieve that additional 4% reimbursement, which is considerable amount of funds that could be reimbursed to the community. In terms of the specialized stretch code, we're very familiar. I sit on the stretch code advisory council. We're keeping an eye on the next, the next iteration of the code. It requires for schools, all electric heating and cooling. And so that's something that we will explore with you. And then we are, happy to explore net zero energy. The code does require some renewable energy readiness. We will discuss how and if you're interested in actually including installation of renewable energy. And we're very familiar with the code's pathways. So this code is, let's say, a step above the previous energy codes. And so we're looking forward to really help you understand what the options are between the performance pathway and the opportunity for the passive house pathway. We're working with TransSolar. So TransSolar will bring a level of expertise into the design discussion around sustainability. And then we're really looking forward, Matt mentioned the focus groups. So we're looking forward to engage into a discussion with your community, which we know has, you know, green communities and green constituents. And that's the focus group is the best place to have that conversation with your community. We understand you have sustainable design guidelines. So we're really looking forward to you know, align your guidelines with what this project can do and the requirements of this project for leave and search as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's no secret. You all know that you have a really, really special campus. This is a site that's working hard for you every single day, year in, year out, all times of week, all times of day. the weekends, all times of year, first and foremost as an academic center, a high school, with both the academic and technical programs, and also teaching life skills, social transitions, the arts, and high school sports. But it's also a place that attracts community members and regional interest from all over as a sports hub in the evenings and the weekends, as Matt shared. It's a place that's really active And finally, it's a gateway to the fells. This is one of the key trailheads to one of the region's most incredible natural areas and trail systems for urban kind of natural wild experiences. So this is a really incredible site. Over the next few minutes, we're going to share a few of our high level observations with you all. We're going to begin to frame some questions that we'll start to look at together, but really we hope that you see this as the start of a conversation. with us. We've asked you on your placemats to share a little bit about your hearts and your heartburns. What do you really love about this site? And what are the things that are causing you anxiety? And you might see some things in the next couple of slides that trigger you to say, yay, yes, that, we love that. And you might also see some things that are kind of indicative of the things that cause you heartburn. You've already pointed at the hole in the ceiling and we're excited to hear lots more of those kinds of things that are causing you pain and that are worrying you about this process so that we can make sure that we really unpack those together in this first get to know you phase. So we shared with you all, as we got into this project, I think what was so captivating to us was the way that this site sits at that intersection between the Medford community and all that it offers kind of downtown and its residential communities. And then the Fells and the natural resource that that is, the geology, the ecology, the opportunities to provide recreation. And this is this really incredible opportunity to leverage the Fells and the community in the education of the city's teens. So on the next slide, we're just going to share a few high-level observations. OK, so ready, site access.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It might be one that gives you anxiety and not one that you're energized to solve, maybe. But things that we know about site access, there's one way in and out.
[Jenny Graham]: We heard it earlier. There's a variety of public and private and different types of abutting properties to balance when we think about site access. They're multimodal access to the site for arrival and dismissal. And a variety of landscape conditions like wetlands or forest or parking lots. And so we want to know what your goals are relative to access. What's the best way to access the site? These are the questions on the bottom. Are there more points needed? And what does that mean for a timeline for approvals? access. So we're going to get through this, but we want to hear more about this. So the next slide is about topography. So, so again, we know that there's about 80 feet of vertical grade change throughout the site. You know, we kind of have two major plateaus, one where you meet the building in the parking and another further up behind the school where the fields are. And so how do we navigate that with the building or with, with landscape? What is, what is the best way, what are your goals to deal with with this great change and from a civil engineering perspective, how can we help mitigate stormwater, not only on this site, but what an incredible opportunity to provide flood mitigation across the city. This is not a low-laying land in the city, which is a perfect opportunity to mitigate flood in the city. So what we want to hear more about, what your goals are relative to topography, to stormwater management, to access, so we can start to solve these problems.
[SPEAKER_06]: And finally, we said this is a hardworking site, and you know this more than anyone, how many people come to this site every day, both for the athletic purposes with these three hardworking athletic fields used by both high school and community groups, the pool, which is, again, something that needs to be accessible to both high school and community groups, The trailhead to the Fells, which provides parking, but it sits on DCR land, but accessing the parking lot for that particular trailhead requires navigating through the high school campus. And then all kinds of opportunities for outdoor learning, which currently kind of spill out from many of your CTE programs. So these are, you know, lab spaces and building spaces and outdoor classrooms, but there's sort of more opportunities to use the Fells as a lab, and to enhance the age appropriate play areas that provide play space for the preschool onsite. We know and we've heard that there's a desire to increase the onsite field programs. We wanna hear more about that. And we know that parking and traffic are a pressure and we wanna figure out with you all the right creative ways to solve that. So I think we're gonna be looking to have these conversations with you all about how do we balance these many You know, not competing, but coexisting uses on site. How do we leverage the best balance of all of those and make sure that there's clear intuitive use patterns for all of these different programs?
[SPEAKER_26]: And as we go through the very start of the project, how many of you have been walking around the site and thinking, where is this school going to be? So we've been starting to try to understand that. And for us, It's not about deciding what the shape of it's going to be, as Mike went through and Helen went through. There's so much to go into that educational space plan that's going to dictate how the building is going to form in response to the vision. But what we've done in this slide and the next one is just to take a survey of recent MSBA schools. And you can see the 600-foot radius, that was Waltham High School. But here's about six schools, Waltham, Wakefield, Somerville, Delmont, Revere, and Arlington. So you can see that 600-foot radius. It doesn't matter what the size of that building is, the population, number of floors, whether it's urban or more suburban, it generally falls within this 600-foot radius. We've taken that and dropped it on your site. So that you can begin to understand when you're standing in the main parking lot, or up at the Field of Dreams, or along the side of a building, how much space a new building might undertake. So in the parking lot, you can see it is the entire parking lot, entire A building, building B, and half of building B. It's up at the Field of Dreams, it's both fields. And of course there's everything in between called these hybrid options that we're excited to explore with you. And of course, you know, some are flat like Kate and Aaron were saying, some are, you know, 30, 40 foot grade change. Some are really great fields that you all have worked really hard for.
[SPEAKER_25]: Just when we start to think about the building, again, part of the MSBA process, we have to evaluate code repair. We have to evaluate addition, renovation and new construction options. But there are some very, what we call very high value assets that the school has right now. The gymnasium is a larger gymnasium than the MSBA will allow us to build new. So if we want to maintain the size of that gym, we have to think about renovating it, what that can be. That's one piece to consider as we move forward.
[SPEAKER_16]: They won't let us build it new and pay. We can build a gymnasium the size of the whole place. You will not be allowed to, no.
[Libby Brown]: We need to pay for it ourselves.
[SPEAKER_25]: They will max out paying for a new gymnasium at 18,000 square feet. That's not something we can do.
[John Falco]: We can make it as big as we want. We just have to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_25]: No, you can make it 18,000 square feet. they will not allow you to build something bigger. And the rationale from the MSBA perspective is they want to avoid the perception that they're funding sort of athletic grandiose facilities. They want to be supporting athletic facilities that are in support of primarily physical education and sort of the school in general. And so that's why they put that cap in terms of what it is. It's one of their statutory limitations in terms of their ability and what they're willing to fund.
[Rocco]: I don't know if- Yeah, no, they have a very particular memo.
[Jenny Graham]: It covers field houses and auditoriums. So they max out at the 1,000 seat auditorium, you can't even go bigger. Even though they're only reimbursed to 750 seats, you can only max out for communities paid to 1,000. The same with the gym. They max out at 18,000, but they don't let you go bigger. If you have an existing gym that's bigger and you renovate it, they reimburse you up to 18,000 square feet of the cost of renovating it. So Winchester, for example, has a 27,000 square foot field house we renovated when we did that project. They prorated the cost of the renovation of that space. So they paid the 18,000, Winchester picked up the nine, just to be clear. But they will not let you build a field house. If you want a field house project, you'll build it on your own time at a different project. It will not be part of the Medford High School project. They are so clear.
[John Falco]: Well, it's like hundreds more than we have now. All right. Yeah. Is this why I'm going to decide to just get the MSBA?
[Luke Preisner]: I think the point is, we can build whatever we want on our own time, but it would not be an MSBA overseeing process involving this designer and this project. It costs a lot more to add it on later.
[John Falco]: Yes.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I think that's why it's very big for the MSBA to be funding.
[SPEAKER_25]: And we can run through those types of scenarios as we're doing cost estimates. If you want to understand, okay, what is that going to mean later on if we go forward? Because just from a due diligence standpoint and a community transparency perspective, people will probably want to understand that. But that MSBA contribution is really considerable in terms of making the project viable. And again, renovating the existing gymnasium that you have, I mean, the functionality of it can be dramatically improved from what you have right now. We can tear down the entirety of the exterior walls and the roof and sort of build around it. The definition of renovation is a very sort of flexible thing that we can evolve as we go through the process. But in terms of the size, they take a lot of pride in the fact that there has never been an MSBA funded build house that has not been at least a partial renovation of a project. So that's just one of the guardrails that we have to understand. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_16]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_25]: It's fine. This is what we want. And we have a couple more slides, actually. That might be our last slide. Yeah. So this is good. We want to get into the conversation on it, obviously. But just other high-value assets that we've heard about, certainly the CTE shops in terms of the size of them is something that we're going to evaluate as we look at them. We have to go through that programming process. We're going to work with Director Fallon as well as the entire school community to understand what are the projected enrollments for each of the CTE programs, both the ones we have now as well as the ones we're adding. Because it's through those projected enrollments that we size each of those SHOP programs. In some cases, we might be able to get a SHOP that is as large or larger than what we have there if that's what we're projecting students to be enrolled into. And it's all something that is subjective and that we can decide upon as a group or have to present that to DESE, but there really isn't a lot of challenge to that. We just need to make sure that it reflects where the community is going in terms of supporting all the various CTE programs. But if we want to keep some of those, that's one thing that we'll think about. We certainly have to worry about, just as we move forward, where do those programs go during a renovation? If we're renovating it, like if we're doing new construction as well, can we build a new CTE space before we tear down the old one until we move them over? If not, what are some, and we have strategies and experiences in terms of how we tackle that, but something to consider. And then lastly, the pool. So the pool is another sort of just interesting MSBA sort of funding mechanism in terms of how it works. We'll be allowed to renovate the pool in place if that's decided that wants to go forward. We know that there's been some dollars invested recently in terms of upgrading the pool. And so we have to be aware of that and get some renovations that are going on maybe right now. to it as well. So just something to keep in mind there. If we do build a new pool building, the MSB will allow us to do that, but it has to be a completely separated building from what we have to bring separate key services to it, like a heating plant. And it can be, so we've just under construction now in East Lawn Manila project where there was an existing pool. It's a brand new pool that's being built side by side there. It is connected with a vestibule, but it's essentially a separate building. So We have sort of a path that we can explain on that as well, just so we can understand a little bit more about the pool going forward. And that is, we said the last slide as we go forward, this is really just, again, a call back to the placemats that are in front of you, but we don't also want to short circuit the conversation that's here. I know I already get the sense that there's some topics that have come up that people may want to talk a little bit more about. So we're happy to do that for the rest of the time that we have.
[Jenny Graham]: Great, thank you all. Are there questions from the committee for the SMMA team? And Ken, will you keep your eyes peeled on the Zoom? Thank you. Don't worry. So I have a question.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? I actually have a lot of questions. Thank you for the presentation. A lot of material to think about. It moved pretty quickly through, but I thought, you know, a very thoughtful exposition. certainly got my mind going. Just, you know, to be respectful of people's time, I'll focus on one area that I'd really like to learn more about. So like with this project, there's a lot of community interest and people have kind of been on the sidelines. You know, people I know, they ask me, how's the good project going? And I point them to the media center, YouTube channel and the limited resources that we have. We do have kind of a website was started that carries some documents, but the community is very interested in how this is going to take shape and how fast it's going to happen. There's interest and urgency. So my question is, thank you for kind of presenting that visionary timeline. And, you know, I thought that you have a good overview of maybe touch points. I heard about talking to students and educators and focus groups and maybe some self-selected parents, but in terms of broad community engagement, can you just tell us a little more about the plan for that? How do we communicate to the community broadly and how do we record their feedback in a direct form?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, we skipped over, you know, there will be full community meetings. Right now we're targeting one for phase, meaning two during feasibility and one during schematic to get that input. But there are other mechanisms and tools we deploy in addition to everything we outlined in more detail. I mean, we certainly do show up at farmers markets or community events in a tent or not in a tent to get more informal feedback. And I think also we would like to make sure we understand strategic plan that's happening now with school committee and making sure we are talking together about ways we can get input in that fashion. But it really has to be any and all of the above. You know, online communications, in-person, hybrid meetings, and making sure people know what's happening and keeping everyone informed about what decisions are being made at what moment in time. So some of that, we will also rely on all of you to continue to do your own outreach with your people that are asking you about what's happening. But it really is all of those tools and all of those methods that we are going to have to use in order to ensure that people, when it comes time to vote, understand exactly what they're voting for.
[Luke Preisner]: And not only that, have had an opportunity to express what their personal opinions are. It would help avoid blind spots, you know, kind of break up the deep thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep. We are well-versed in community meetings and no tomatoes, but, you know, people do need to tell you how they feel about what they're seeing. And a lot of times people don't feel comfortable stepping up to a microphone or, you know, we use a mentimeter often in, in meetings where wider folks, you know, may not want to, get up to the microphone and say their piece. Surveys can also be used. But again, we're also gonna rely on, the city has a very robust set of mechanisms and looking to you for advice on what is the best way to reach some of these groups that aren't gonna necessarily show up, that we need to go to them.
[Jenny Graham]: So Helen, if I can just add to that, when we have the kickoff with Mike and team on Friday, of the goal there is to lay out this timeline so that we can broadly communicate up front what that plan is and exactly where we are seeking input during that schedule so that there's ample notice for people who want to participate in any variety of way with like a clear list of how to do that. And on top of that, there's a series of strategic planning conversations that'll be unfolding over the coming months about something bigger than just the high school, but for the entire district. And we've already talked about including this team in that conversation because there'll obviously be lots and lots of overlap. So the goal for these early sessions as we're planning is that we can lay out a clear pathway so that people understand how to participate when they want to at various stages. And then when we talk about like, when we get to a point of having designs, that's where we start talking about farmer's markets and community events and all of those things. So that's scheduled to unfold a little bit later, but in these early phases, I think the goal is to be really clear about what those choices are and how people might want to get involved and what we're asking the community to do to participate. So that all is coming once we have the kickoff meeting.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You want to add something? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, we're just going to, before we move on to another topic, I strongly suggested last week, and I know it will happen, we have two really good communications departments, one in the schools, one in the cities. So I think a meeting, especially after the contract signed between all players in the communications realm will be important to make sure we're pushing out all these meetings. So nobody would say they didn't know about it. So your topic is dear to my heart. We're going to make sure we do it right.
[Libby Brown]: Let me add that Lovefield is working behind the scenes too.
[Jenny Graham]: There's a website for this project that I think it's technically live right now, but we've been working with Will and the team to really get more information, to get the structure laid out, and then we'll be reviewing that before we do kind of a big rollout to make sure that everybody knows to go to the website for all the documents that we've been, you know, we'll be developing throughout this process from start to finish. So if anybody has know, questions or thinking about, you know, which meetings to attend, we'll have, that will all be on the website and easily accessible to everybody who wants to look at the Internet.
[SPEAKER_08]: Are there any questions?
[John Falco]: Paul? Engagement opportunities. You know, when we did the superintendent search seven years ago, eight years ago, wherever it was, we had like really quite a substantial outreach effort. But when you look at demographics, if we responded, I think everybody in Medford was very welcoming, very well. So other than opportunities, which seems to me to be a bit passive, how do you make sure that we don't just get a bunch of white folks with $250,000 incomes and master's degrees as the only input, because that's sort of what we've got for the supermasters. And, you know, we were time constrained, we didn't have any money to go do anything about it, but this doesn't feel like the situation where there's no money involved, there's literally people who are getting paid. And I wanna make sure we can do better by reaching some, I mean, the networks demographics are so unlike the results
[SPEAKER_25]: So I just want to. Yes, I doctor Lucy actually asked us that almost exact same question as part of our interview and I think Kate actually had a wonderful sort of precedent example that she shared, but it's really about and also ask her a second, but it's really about trying to meet people where they are, both in terms of location, but also in terms of communication and language. So I don't know if you wanna.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, sometimes what we've had success with is is doing focus groups actually in a language of choice that is not English. So the translator is there to make sure that the design team can keep up with the conversation, which is being had in a alternate language, rather than translating a presentation and then translating statements back into English. So it makes for a more comfortable conversation, meets people where they are, and really promotes inclusion. The other thing I'd say that we often do and can be done as part of this process is match demographics of who's responded to surveys against community demographics, be really humble and self-critical around when we're not hearing from a representative demographic of the community, and then use that to figure out who we need to hear more from. Do we need a youth engagement committee to help engage more people who are younger? Do we need to target specific community groups or organizations to ensure that they drum up more voice that we're not hearing from. Sometimes we do door-to-door if we have to in order to hear from folks that haven't had a chance to participate.
[Jenny Graham]: We're also talking about that with the strategic planning sessions that are going to be happening in the same time frame, particularly with the heightened concern for some of our families about coming and being present in a space right now is not comfortable for everybody. So we're talking about how do we meet those folks someplace, wherever that place is, and maybe it is on Zoom, to allow them and encourage people to participate, even if that is personally uncomfortable right now. So we are talking about that in a variety of avenues. And I think we're just going to have to keep working at that access piece, because with made improvements in terms of how people access these kinds of things, but there's still just a really long way to go. So we'll sort of try to keep those two efforts a little bit aligned so that when we are, when we find some success in one place, we are using it in both places. Like leveraging the community liaisons that we also have that are working in communities across the city so that we can make sure that we are creating spaces where people feel supported and welcome to gather their input.
[Luke Preisner]: And is the process organized to ensure that an opportunity that has little barriers, that is accessible, that listens to a broad collection from the community. to collect that feedback before design options are created. Is the process organized that way, or is the sort of outreach after the fact?
[SPEAKER_25]: I think it's before, but also during. I mean, it's really, we're looking for the feedback from our community as well as this group as well. As those alternatives are put on the table, we start to understand challenges and opportunities. associated with each one of them. I think that's when the feedback is critical. Not so much like after the fact, really we should be hearing as we go along just to make sure that we're keeping everybody up to speed and that we're being transparent in the process. Thank you.
[Libby Brown]: Ready? Developing the project budget, I just wanted to hear a little bit more. You guys could talk about the process. I mean, I believe you have a cost estimator on your team, right? And I assume we want to establish what our project delivery method is, if we have a CM on board early. Can you just talk about that back and forth between your estimator and potentially a CM and how we arrive at that number in SD? Because it's a little nerve-wracking to have a number in SD, and I have to forge ahead and not change that.
[Unidentified]: It's completely nerve-wracking.
[SPEAKER_25]: It's, but it is also sort of how all the MSBA projects go forward. So it is, it can be a successful process as we go through it, but it's really, it leverages a lot of historical data upfront from the cost estimator. And to start off with, even before we have the CM on board, left field has another estimator. So we run a process of parallel estimates that utilize the experience, sort of the cost, historical data that each of those estimators have. And the reality in this market for Massachusetts even is that there's really only a very small collection of estimators that have the expertise to be able to do it, but they are very good at what they do. So again, there is sort of a successful model that we follow along with there. I think that the biggest wildcards are always with the site in terms of the cost. Erin knows, she's not responsible for it, but she knows. And just it's every site is different, right, that we have to deal with. Here we're going to be dealing with some rock in terms of how we're going to do that. Right, so I mean a rock can be also a resource, right? At the Waltham project we removed a lot of rock, but part of the economics for the site contractor there was being able to sell that gravel material out to different sites. We saw it show up on other projects that we had within the state, like up in Andover, they ended up bringing some of the rock that was blasted out from Walden. So I think there's a lot of moving parts and pieces to it. It's going to start from sort of historical cost basis, and then it's going to get more specific and more detailed as we move along towards schematic design. And schematic design for MSBA project is actually pretty well detailed in terms of both the drawings that have to be generated as well as specifications. And by that point, we'll have the input of the ECM as well, for some of the constructability standpoint, logistics, phasing, all that will have to be wrapped in as we go.
[Libby Brown]: Yeah, well, they'll be on, I mean, I know we said that exactly how this is going to work, but where, I'm assuming you guys are, do we not know yet when they would come on board and start getting input?
[Jenny Graham]: So we typically do like to see them at, during schematic design, so one, they can inform the logistics, as Matt said, and the schedule. and to run a cost estimate. So that the firm that is building the school has a lot of buy-in before that budget is set with the MSPA. So that is why we like to do that in that way. So it's the last few months of semantic design is usually where we would bring those in. And we'll have that conversation with this group on which delivery method you want to see. And we'll come to a decision with this group.
[Emily Lazzaro]: But not the first step, but in the SD. Yeah, cool.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions? Oh, Aaron.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. I have a question. I know that, as you mentioned earlier, you know, with the way that we approach education here in the district, from my perspective, we really try to keep students in the district, regardless of their lived experience. We want them to feel like there's an opportunity here for them to learn what they need to know, you know, post-grad, whatever that may look like. And so when we talk about ADA compliance and a 508 compliance under the ADA umbrella, for example, For our modern disability disabled students and all the things that come with that, for example, are there people on the team or do you subcontract out when it comes to those compliance questions about like accessibility in physical spaces when our life skill labs and things like that? How do we usually go about that? I know that that may be much later in the process, but I just want to kind of get a little better idea about that.
[SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, I mean, it's good to think about upfront, and I'll talk about sort of maybe the physical accessibility, and then maybe I'll hand it over to Mike to talk about sort of the sort of educational accessibility as we move forward. So we do have an accessibility consultant on board to help guide and sort of provide oversight, but I wouldn't say it's not something that we just sort of look to a consultant, like, do this for us, make the building accessible. The building is going to be thought of from a universal design perspective, really from day one. I mean, it's a challenge also, like with that 40 foot of grade or 80 feet from sidewalk up, even that walkway that rises up to the building, making sure that students who are coming on bike or wheelchair or pedestrian can actually get up to the building itself, that's a tricky thing to do, right? And I guarantee you that the grades out there right now are not conducive to providing access to the building. So we'll start there really from like the minute that you step onto the site all the way to the building, but then throughout the building itself, how do we a building that probably wants to have multiple levels in it and make that feel like it's welcoming and it's not a barrier to somebody moving to the building and so that students don't need to, if they're able-bodied and they have someone that's in a wheelchair that's moving next to them, so they're not separated from their peers as they have to move through the building because that can be very othering in terms of our process. So Those are the types of things that we think about from a physical standpoint. I don't know if you want to talk about that. Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, programmatically and educationally, then that's why we have those program workshops where we'll do deep dives into the world of special education and related service providers. And then within that umbrella, every single different program that falls into that. So we'll look at, you know, a life skills program. Are there students within the life skills program that are also medically fragile and what is their experience within the classroom spaces that they need, you know, making sure that the spaces are large enough and the bathrooms are large enough to have standards and to have cushion therapies and things like that. And then how do we even bring CT opportunities for students in special education programming? So it's an accessibility conversation, but an experiential conversation as well. So holistically, we're really supporting the whole child Thank you so much for that.
[Emily Lazzaro]: If I could, can we have Adele Sands on, from Rockville as well, and I'm not sure if she wanted to add any color. She was a special education director at one point. Yes. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_22]: Can't turn on my video, it looks like, but you can hear my voice from beyond. I also, and I worked very closely with Mike through this whole process. I was a director of student services, a director of special education. So I do keep my eye on this at all times. So I just wanted to let you know that I am sitting in those rooms as this is happening.
[Jenny Graham]: other questions from the committee.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke So I've got another question to kind of, uh, urgency. Um, I personally feel urgency to move this project as rapidly as feasible, uh, in a responsible way. Um, you know, my oldest this is a freshman, uh, little child. She's a seventh grader, and then my son's a fifth grader. And so I'm really hoping to have some, you know, overlap. There's a lot of people out there like me, a lot of people on this committee that are feeling the urgency too. So, you know, I know as this process unfolds, complexities kind of take over. There's a lot of statutory requirements. There's a lot built into the process. Early on though, I wanted to ask about QDP. So that's kind of where my question is. I saw some topic areas and the first thought I had was, well, there's a lot of overlap between these particular bullets under the QVP banner with documents we've already produced. So my question is, have you had an opportunity to kind of fully admire the work that we've put in? And what percentage of your solution does it represent? You have requirements levied to assemble PDP documents in a format, in a form with content that's highly regulated. But I imagine it's not your first rodeo. And so you can look at our profile, our questionnaires, our SOI, all the things that have been generated and kind of get a sense of, well, this is like a 50% solution already or 70%. Have you had that opportunity to kind of admire what's been done and possibly, and have you exhausted any have you exhausted all the possibilities for accelerating the development of those PDP documents? Just a little paperwork behind this.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like the first step, the draft ed plan will be coming our way to admire and become familiar with. And some of the work that we're going to do as required part of the process will reflect back into that educational program. That is the district's document. And so it's great that you've made a great first start and edit. And this group narrowed down the sites. That would take time if we had multiple sites where we had to deploy, you know, all these resources and spread them out. So yes, thank you. We absolutely appreciate all of that. We work with this group this time. But all of that, you know, factored in, we still have to become familiar with the building. We have to know the size of every single space so that we can map it. existing spaces to proposed spaces. We still have to do all the work that we have to do to know you, know your building, know your site. We have to do a site survey. It's a 30 acre site that can take up to 12 weeks. We need to do geotechnical explorations based on, you know, as we start into this work, where we're going to do some geophysical testing so that we understand the soils and where all that rock is. So all of that still has to happen and still be done. So yes, we absolutely appreciate all the work that you all have put into this and advanced, but we still have our piece has to be done.
[Jenny Graham]: I think the message is we're all ears on any ways along the way. So if you can help us out of this slide.
[John Falco]: Yeah. Marisa? In that phase, you just described about the geotechnical stuff. Will you be doing an S-thermal then?
[SPEAKER_08]: That is being discussed. It's on the table. I think we have an allowance set aside. I'm talking with Lovefield for that. We would like to hear the level of interest in geothermal as an option. We haven't started yet, but yeah.
[John Falco]: In the school committee resolution that created the body, that was included.
[Jenny Graham]: So there is there's an allowance identified in the question. I think we're we'll have more discussion before we get to that. The question is, do we do we do that during this feasibility study to really narrow in on the cost of the geothermal or, you know, kind of submitting to the MSBA and locking us into that budget? Or do we push to early right after a project is approved in design development and whether or not we want to, you would have to pass the budget, I think at that point, a little bit earlier in order to do that. So in discussions, I think we are trying to keep that allowance on the table for feasibility study, as long as nothing else more higher priority comes up during visibility.
[Luke Preisner]: And I know in Arlington, like they, initially wanted geothermal and when they looked at their site, they found soil contamination and Arlington High School is purely air source heat pump, no geothermal. I don't know what the past history of this site is. I don't know if it was an old farm or ever treated as a dump, but you know, things would have to be investigated and measured before committing to the soft cost of geothermal.
[Jenny Graham]: For sure. Yeah, we probably will have many of the same challenges here that Arlington and the middle schools and the, I mean, we ran into that when we put the playground in at the Midland, sort of hit those same contamination roadblocks that we had to navigate around. So yeah, I think figuring out like the timing of when we need to know that is really important so that we can decide what to do next.
[John Falco]: Yeah, I mean, I was with Jen actually which school was I at? Agawam. Agawam, thank you. It was so far out there. Agawam geothermal installation that's going in there now. And I asked these questions like, you know, if it's contaminated. And of course, the geothermal people were like, no, we've done that. That's fine. But it's the stuff you pull out that's the problem.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, actually every site is so different. I mean, you can have a site like if there's a lot of rock here, the cost of drilling through it might actually be higher than the cost of drilling through soil. But you can, you know, we've done a test well on a site and we got 190 feet down and we hit what's called a bloody bluff. And so the rock just keeps fracturing and we can't keep the hole open. So then we got to case it 250 feet. That drives the cost of each well up because now you're driving casing down 250 feet. Yeah, we finally got to an 800 foot well. got good results, but the increased capital cost, the drilling case to 250 feet, was more than what was originally planned. So that project had pursued full geothermal and they pulled back to 50-50 because of the increase in the capital cost. It's also a real estate issue, right? You've got to clear the land to drill the wells and have the well heads. And so that takes time and money and know, I live in Waltham. I happen to work on the Waltham project. I know this is actually how much rock we took out and how many days we've lost. We've lost every one of them during COVID when I was home. But drilling through rock to put in geothermal wells has an increased capital cost. It's not the same as drilling through soil. So every site is different. You might think you have the perfect site until you do a test well. But it's really, that's why we said we're going to keep it in for now because knowing in this phase, getting to your project budget,
[Rocco]: You want to know what it's going to cost you. You don't want to have too much money in that you don't get a support for a project. You don't have too little money in that you haven't got the money you need to build what you're hoping for. So that's why the PDB phase is so critical. Every single one of the testing that we have to do, whether it's HAZMAT, geothermal, geophysical, geotechnical, all goes into establishing that project budget and understanding the costs at a schematic design timeframe, which is so early in the project, but understanding what they're going to be when we're putting shovels in the ground. So it's really important. And so if through the process, you end up saying, yeah, we really want to pursue this, you have to do the test well. You absolutely have to do the test well. You have to do the conductivity test. And you have to know what you're going to get for heat gain out of it. Because you don't know how many wells you need. You don't know how many heat you can get. You don't even know if you can drill one well. So it's super critical.
[Jenny Graham]: I think I saw a hand on Zoom. She lowered. It was Erica. Erica, did you have a question or did we answer your question? Just put your hand in the air if you still have a question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes, she is. Hi. Hi, thank you. So I wanted to jump on Aaron's comment, but I'm really glad to hear about the universal design, because I think compliance is kind of the minimum there. That's the minimum we do. But the question that I had was, what kind of summative evaluation do you do after you've left a school to understand, we know the intentions, we see We see what's happened. And what kind of follow up have you done with the people who are in the school afterwards to see how well things worked? And I'm asking partly because everyone in the community, we play sports with people, we talk to people at work, and we hear what people think are working and not working about their new buildings. And I'm wondering what lessons you take from those to come here, not just the design, but how it worked out a year later, five years later.
[Jenny Graham]: And Matt, I should mention Erica Reinfeld is a member of the school committee. So she's not on the committee, but she has a keen interest. Sure, yeah.
[SPEAKER_25]: So this is what people refer to as post-occupancy evaluation or just another fun acronym is POE, right? So sometimes we just abbreviate it to save ourselves the airspace. I think there are two different types of POE that we usually engage in. There's one that is on the performance side of things. So that's something that like Martine could probably give us a 10 minute description of All the various things that we go back to to understand whether the buildings are performing from an energy perspective moving forward from electrical standpoints, from HVAC system standpoint, plumbing, everything across the spectrum in terms of the MEP systems. But I think, Erica, what you may be asking about also is sort of the educational or sort of programmatic POE. to understand how things move forward. And I think that happens at a lot of different levels. Like in my house, because my son did start at the Somerville High School, the first year it was built and all the way through, my daughter is there now. I get a lot of feedback from a POE perspective at like a dinner table every night as to like, dad, why did you design the high school this way? And particular aspects of it as well. So I get that feedback on a very regular basis. But we also do it on a more formal process moving forward. going back to talk with teachers, to talk with students, even like outside of my own sort of family realm, to understand what works and what doesn't work. And I think as we have sort of moved through all these various high schools that we've designed, the 17 that we had put up there, 13, there have been evolutions of sort of the same concept that we have brought forward, which are a direct result of sort of that educational POE understanding and it's really the great thing about bringing in folks like Mike as well in terms of our team because it expands it beyond just what the SMA experience is. Because really there's a benefit from all schools that are designed not just within the Commonwealth but sort of across where everyone is designing. The MSBA has a wonderful program sort of a new module that they've added at the end of the process that we have participated in. I think our Templeton Elementary School as well as Somerville High School have participated in that relatively new program that has just come on within, I think, like the past two years. So that's a more formalized version of it, but we do do it in terms of going to our own schools and understanding what's working there and what's not working. And again, we evolve sort of design concepts as we move forward based on that feedback.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that's really interesting is I often go do professional development in new schools, not necessarily related to a school building project, but it turns into a conversation of a lack of utilization or, I guess, proper use of the building, the way it was talked about envisioning. Because there's always this disconnect between what conversations educators have envisioning and then the operationalizing of that vision in a new building. And oftentimes districts don't think about that until after a building opens. And so teachers are coming with 20 years of experience in a siloed space, and they're not thinking about collaborative practice. So project spaces and extended learning spaces literally get filled with furniture or microwaves or things that, because it becomes just a teacher lunch area. So the sooner the district can start thinking about what the educational program looks like, in an operational lens and start that process now and build teachers' capacity as we go. I embed that work in the visioning session so we can lead down that path, but the district can definitely benefit from doing that work as well.
[Unidentified]: We'll chat about that.
[Jenny Graham]: I will also say we've done a bit of touring of buildings around the area, both like as a building committee and then over the summer, inviting teachers to join us. And we were at one building, and the person giving us a tour sort of said, like, we have to stop fighting this building. Like, we can't win this fight. Like, we have to change. And it seems like in that particular like community, like that has like not caught them by surprise, but it has been a work in progress for a long time after the building was open. And I think that was very eyeopening for us to hear because we can be thinking about that proactively so that we're ready to grace the new building when it like is ready for us. And there's probably any number of opportunities to sort of like plan professional development, start to talk about those things, sequence all of that work so that the transition is more seamless. Like change is really hard for people. And it's especially hard if you've been doing the same thing the same way for a really long time, right? So I do a lot of change management work in my day job. And so thinking about those kinds of things as we approach, like today we have a new building and we can be a new space. being ready for that is like critically important. It's a whole body of work that like I sort of make an assumption that is not necessarily part of building a new building but is really going to be critical for us. And I do think that like to that in addition to like having those opportunities for people to see what can be possible in the new projects, bringing staff along for the work that we've done so far in the educational plan. I think that's interesting and needed to be done with the tours because part of that work is for first to kind of start with administrators, but it was involved all teachers in the departments to say like, how are things structured now? What are we doing now? And then what would we like to see? And that's the part that can sometimes like, I'm really excited to see what also comes out of the visioning work that can be extended to that. But I think We've touched upon this throughout this meeting about the critical need for communication and bringing people along in the process. And I think I can see through this process that part of that, people feeling like they're informed a little bit and part of the process is really helpful, but seeing it in action. And we did have people participate in the summer, but knowing that that's also going to be part of the work to have more opportunities for tours, I think will be really helpful.
[John Falco]: You know, I remember that interaction very vividly, because it was about how the culture of the body and culture of like, they literally have to transform. But the space was designed where like, there were these like round things where kids could like sit in them and there are a window. And there are these spaces outside of classrooms with chairs that they can hang out in. But staff didn't One, kids hanging out in the halls. So, you know, it's like the staff has to culturally change. The kids, I think they're more willing to just start using those spaces. Yeah, they can't remember the problems.
[SPEAKER_16]: I wish I could say that as an educator. But we, yeah.
[John Falco]: So, I mean, I think that when we're deciding what this is all gonna look like, we're gonna hopefully not just reproduce our culture, what we have now, recognizing that there's a lot of opportunities for culture. It's like our halls here, it's like as a school committee member, it's not a week goes by where we're not hearing some complaints about bathrooms and all these other things that, was it Arlington that did the, essentially the no doors? Airport bathroom. Airport bathroom, yes. And that's been a challenge to like, you can't shut bathrooms down. It's just not an option. I liked them, but that's, you know, and then it's been co-ed bathrooms for everyone just out of school.
[Jenny Graham]: I think there were some people who talked about that being sort of a dream that they had, that had been unfulfilled to date. So to move to that sort of co-ed bathroom, that was one of, I think that was one of the architects that sort of mentioned that. Was it Walsingham? Was it Walsingham?
[SPEAKER_08]: Walsingham had the co-ed bathroom.
[SPEAKER_25]: It's set up. It's an all gender ready bathroom set up. And it just, there's a lot of dialogue that has to happen there.
[Jenny Graham]: I will be absent from the bathroom conversation.
[Unidentified]: The culture is such a huge part.
[John Falco]: And I think it's like the people that we're going to be involved in this, us, the teachers and whoever else, like Most people don't actually like have a way to articulate what the culture is now.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I also think it's all about student engagement and the work that Suzanne and the team are doing and Marta's doing here at the high school with engaging students if they don't want to be in the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so they actually want to be in classrooms learning.
[Jenny Graham]: And I think we sometimes forget, and it goes back to the educator, that it's really about what are we doing in the classroom to get them excited about learning and achieving. And I think it's not about the bathroom. That's stupid. You know, like I don't mean to be, but it just, it's not about the bathrooms. It's about engagement. That's just good instruction and good learning. The bathrooms are what becomes of a lack of engagement in the classroom.
[SPEAKER_02]: In a class because kids are just sitting.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's that in bed that it's structural, right?
[Jenny Graham]: It's also a lack of voice and choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think my kids don't have the voice and choice.
[Jenny Graham]: Oh my god, we are like already visioning session. I'm just saying, it really isn't about the math. No, but in all seriousness, like this is the kind of conversation that I think this like collective committee wants to be having both like How do we move fast? How do we include everybody? But also how do we think forward for the things that are like bigger than just the building around how this is going to be, but then how that we will really transform, right? Like how will we really transform the student experience here? I think is what is exciting to everybody in different ways. I'm not excited about talking about the bathrooms personally, but somebody will be, I promise. It'll be passed. Sort of a running joke that the school committee talks about the bathrooms like way too much and we look forward to the day we don't have to do that anymore. So I think this was very helpful. Are there any last questions from anybody? Okay. Thank you team for joining us, all of you. And is there a motion to adjourn? Emily seconded by by Libby. Okay, I will call the roll. Jenny Ham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Libby. Yes. Yes. Maria Dorothy, yes. Ryan Hilliard, yes. Tracy Keene, yes. Emily Lazzaro, yes. Romarella Zabstin, yes. Aaron Lopate, yes. Luke Kreisner, yes. Joan Bowen, yes. And Ken Lamar, yes. 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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