[Matt Rice]: couple minutes to sign on and show up in person.
[Unidentified]: They are coming in person.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know where Kelsey is. We're expecting Kelsey here.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't see Stacy on here yet though.
[SPEAKER_24]: Is the audio good for folks online? Yep.
[Kimberly Talbot]: It's OK. It's a little echoey, Matt, but we can hear you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Good.
[Will Pipicelli]: And then we are live in our recording. There's a heads up, too.
[Matt Rice]: Thank you, Will. Then for the recording and for those that may have just joined, we're going to give people another couple of minutes just to hop online or join us in person. floating around the high school for some reason and you want to come up to the science lecture hall, there's a good number of us that are up here. Happy to see you in person, but also happy to have you virtually.
[Unidentified]: Looks like one might be commuting here too. Thank you.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Matt, I don't know if you're able to see the chat. Aaron messaged, he's stuck in traffic. And then at some point address Norman's question about inviting other stakeholders.
[Matt Rice]: That was a good question about the other stakeholders. I don't know that would have been asked yet. I think if there's other thoughts about other folks that would be great to bring into this advisory team I think you could send it around to myself and the left field team and we'll share it with the school leadership and district leadership and we can definitely take that under advisement and eventually add some folks in. Thank you for asking the question Norma.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would just also want to cross-reference the sign up when we put this out to the community.
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_24]: And Erin, you should be fine if you're stuck in traffic and listening, completely understood and appreciated that you're still with us remotely. All right. So we are about 4.05, so I'm going to get going.
[Matt Rice]: I just want to welcome everybody again to this advisory team meeting. for the new reimagined Medford High School project. This is the second meeting that we're having in this particular series of advisory team meetings. We're going to do just a real quick round of introductions of the team again from the design and OPM side of things. We're not going to go around and do introductions of every Medford community team member at this point in time. because we spent a great amount of time doing that at the first meeting and hopefully everyone got a little bit of an introduction there. I do, after we get done with this, so I will say that if anyone who is not able to attend the first meeting has joined us just for the second meeting, I will give them just a minute to introduce themselves and their connection to the project as well as their goals and priorities similar to what we did at the first meeting. So if that is you, if you fall into that category, you can just prepare some thoughts really quickly. After we get done introducing ourselves, feel free to open the floor for that sort of supplementary introduction piece. So to start things off, again, my name is Matt Bryce. I'm an architect and the principal in charge of the project for SMMA. And we'll start in the room here.
[Rosemary Park]: Hi, I'm Rosemary Park from SMMA, and I'm an architect and educational planner who is working on the educational programming, the program spaces for the Revenge at Medford High School.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, I'm Sohla Jain. I'm an architectural designer at SMMA.
[SPEAKER_24]: All right, we have Helen online.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yeah. Hi, everyone. Helen Fantini, a project manager with SMMA. I'm an architect too, but I play a project manager on a day-to-day basis, anyway.
[Matt Rice]: All right, and Mike Perrello is not able to be with us this evening. He is our visioning consultant on the educational planning side of things, but then we also have our left-field team here.
[Matt Gulino]: Yep, hello, everyone. Sorry, I couldn't make it in person tonight, but my name's Matt Galino. I'm the day-to-day project manager for the left-field team.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am, excuse me, Jen Carlson. I am the project director with left field as well.
[Adele Sands]: I am Adele Sands. I'm the education liaison for left field.
[Matt Rice]: Right. Excellent. And then this is the team from Medford. And again, if there's anyone here that was not able to speak or attend the last meeting, happy to have I have a quick amount of time for folks to introduce themselves. You can raise your hand or shout out. I'm guessing there's not too many, because I think that we were almost all here the last time around. So we may not be in the scenario where we have any window. Absolutely fine. Great, actually, that everyone was able to attend the first meeting. All right. I'm going to move forward then. Just a quick recap for those that have been participating in the project, you've seen this slide probably too many times now, and it's all just been completely internalized. But in case anybody is not familiar, again, we are in the feasibility study, the first portion of the feasibility study right now. We are looking to open the school in the fall of 2030. But over the course of this feasibility study and really stretching into schematic design, We will be conducting these advisory team meetings to get some detailed feedback from really experts in the Medford community on particular focus areas. The focus areas are really divided into these four categories. And again, these are not intended to be, they cannot be siloed topics of discussion. There are overlaps between all of them. But it's important that we have these conversations around these particular topics just to advance the thinking and hear from everyone in the Medford community. And so now we're going to move into the content for this particular meeting. And the way that this is going to be structured for all of our sort of second in the series of meetings is we're going to build off of the topics that everyone provided to us during the first meeting. We're not just going to sort of run through a list verbatim. What we've done is gone ahead and categorized and tried to group together topics, thoughts that we heard from everyone at the first discussion so that we can have some additional conversation around each of the group of the topics. We have some visuals to support it. And for each one of the topics that we bring up, We're going to be having a little bit of presentation. So we have some timeframes that are listed out for each one of the topics that you see here. About half of the time we'll use for presentation on these topics. And then we'd like to have a little bit of conversation, some Q&A, additional thoughts, additional questions that people have on each of these topics as we go through. So we'll try to break up the time half and half between the presentation Q&A so that we're not talking to you guys for an extended amount of time. And we don't have to go back in the slide deck or anywhere just to find particular topics that we're running through. So again, I'll turn this over to Rosemary in a second. But these are the collection of five topics that we're going to run through overall. Um, and, and then we'll wrap up with some next steps. I'm just talking about what to expect in meeting three, when that comes up and when that is scheduled to be occurring. Um, so that's, that's the outline of what we're going to be doing today. Um, if there's hands up or anything, as we go through, um, I don't know if Helen or Will, if you guys just want to shout out, because I don't have the ability to see the hands come up, um, quite as easily on my end. So it's helpful if anyone can just help on the moderating side from sort of the remote perspective.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yeah, Matt, I think Jenny, did you have a question or statement?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, Matt, I think you just need to flip your presenter view because what we're seeing is like the presenter view instead of just the slide. So it's making everything very small out here in Zoom land. Perfect, thank you.
[Matt Rice]: You got it? OK, so wait a minute. Yeah, so I got it working for you guys, and then I garbled it up here in the room here. So give me one second. I'm going to get out of that. Thank you, though, for mentioning that, too.
[Unidentified]: All right, so we're going to go over to you.
[Jenny Graham]: I found myself trying to read ahead, so I figured I was not the only one. And you're back in that same view.
[Matt Rice]: Yep. OK, so now we should be good online, and we should be good here in the room.
[Kimberly Talbot]: No, no, not good online.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yeah, yeah.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I think it's okay to have it in here.
[Matt Gulino]: There you go. I think it was just taking a second to change.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, we're good now.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, we'll get back, get back there in one second. Bear with me. It's gonna, it's gonna be not great for a second.
[SPEAKER_24]: We're gonna swap it over.
[SPEAKER_28]: Give it a little. Okay, just
[Unidentified]: And let me advance back to where we were.
[SPEAKER_28]: Are you guys good online. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Okay, excellent. We have Suzanne, who is checking us here and All right. Here we are. Okay.
[Rosemary Park]: Okay. And so, As Matt said, we had listened to everyone's feedback on the things that they really wanted to see in a new or re-imagined Medford High School and try to understand what this meant for the different priorities and how they were all fitting under similar categories. So the first priority that we saw that we saw was surrounding equity, inclusion, and belonging. And the three main takeaways from that were that equity should be experienced daily through inclusive spaces throughout the school, which will help reduce any type of stigma that may be associated with some of these. And we'll touch on this topic. You'll see after we go through these how the design or how physical spaces would help support these goals and priorities. We also heard that the integration of special education and EL and other types of student services embedded throughout the learning communities, again, contributing to reducing stigmas attached to that, were going to be a critical point for this school as well. because we really wanted to be able to strengthen the sense of belonging for those students and integrate them fully into the Medford High School community. And then related to this, it was stated that the house model was going to be, was going to play a really important role in providing that sense of community, that sense of belonging, a safe space that would provide not only an area to form and strengthen relationships, but also a space where if a student is in crisis or is having trouble, they immediately know this is where they can go. And we already know that Becker High School model already has the strong house model that you want to be able to grow a little bit stronger. For topic two, or priority two, was surrounding wellness and well-being. Um, for not just the students, um, but also looking at, um, areas of respite, um, and collaboration for staff as well. Um, we talked a lot about the need to recharge, um, across all applicants in the building. Uh, for priority three, uh, we looked at the, um, how students can express who they are and find their identity. find their sense of who they are within the school. And we heard about how the CT programs need, you know, purposeful and right-sized space that will help prepare them for their time beyond Bedford High School. And we also heard about how they could really benefit from being integrated throughout the school with other types of departments. We heard how the visual and performing arts should be more visible, that we should be, because right now, as we know, they are tucked away right now in their own wing, in their own corner. So really trying to give those students the ability to show off what they are doing as well. And then just overall, that students should be able to see themselves reflected within the school, within the building. For the fourth priority, looking at a flexible, agile, future-ready school, because we're not just designing for when we open in 2030, but we're looking at 50, 70 years beyond. So how can this building you know, be prepared to meet the challenges, not just today, but in the future. So, and how can the building support different styles of learning, different types of students? We heard that the interdisciplinary adjacencies should be able to, that those would be necessary for creating a better learning experience for students. Collaboration spaces for both students and staff should be easily accessible. You shouldn't have to go all the way down a hallway or walk five minutes to get somewhere. That will promote that type of hands-on collaborative learning that we're looking for. And that the building design should support robust course offerings. We've heard a lot about the different types of courses that want to potentially be offered in the future. So what can we do with the program in space in order to support those types of future course offerings. And then the fifth priority as identified by this group was about community connection. And so talking about how the high school should reflect Medford's identity, but also making sure that it's serving the future generations of community and students. And then that All the community spaces should be able to function as active learning environments so that they are being well utilized throughout the day. So then we'll go over some of those types of spaces. Just before we move on, is there anything that we'd like to add here or just wanna talk about, reflect on?
[SPEAKER_28]: Can you go back one slide, please? There's a lot of words.
[Matt Rice]: There's more pictures coming. Don't be afraid of this presentation so far. And I'll mention, Kim, as you're looking at it, that we labeled as topics and priorities. The priorities are really the things that we heard coming from the group at the first meeting. There are some topics that we want to make sure that we cover as part of this initial discussion that maybe didn't come up directly from the group, but just given where we are in the project, we want to talk to as well. So I would say the lion's share, maybe 90% are those priorities, but there's a couple of topics sort of interspersed in through there. And also if what you mentioned individually is not necessarily reflected exactly in one of these categories, we're happy to talk about that a little bit further. What we're trying to do is just organize a conversation around these, but we can branch off as we can to some of the dialogue as we go.
[Rosemary Park]: There is also a list of givens coming after this.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Did you cover, and I'm sorry I have to step out for a minute, but did you cover at the beginning where this data and information came from so that people are aware of like the input that was involved in how we got to these five buckets?
[Matt Rice]: We covered it really quickly, but maybe just to summarize again so everyone is on the same page. So we had our first advisory team meeting for each one of the groups. And what we've done is collected all the feedback, the thoughts that we heard from everybody in terms of their own individuals or connections to the project and priorities and goals. And we've tried to categorize them, summarize them through these topics so that we can sort of organize the conversation around that. So there definitely is some interpretation and analysis and collecting of thoughts that has happened here. And we're happy, again, to sort of modify this further as they go. This is really just an organizational framework for the conversation today.
[SPEAKER_28]: I just wanted to elevate then that on that number two, wellness and well-being, bullet A, that talks about spaces for students to decompress. I know we've talked about that a couple of times. Like I've said this a lot, I want to make sure that that's appropriate to a high school setting. We talked about needing to make sure the building is safe without synchronies that could provide an unsafe situation for students. So I don't know that a non-education person would read that bullet and think what I just said out loud, so I just want to be really clear.
[Matt Rice]: So and we'll, going into the next meeting, we're jumping ahead a little bit in terms of what's coming, but we'll actually be coming up with sort of more of an itemized list of exact sort of recommendations to be including going forward. So I think, Kim, something like that, which is a great example, actually, for everybody to sort of be thinking about as we're going through there, So if there's things specific line items that we want to make sure are captured, we'll be able to reflect those in sort of the next version of things that come out of this meeting and eventually go to the building committee.
[Rosemary Park]: All right. So for those that have been in our programming meetings, we've seen this list a lot. I know that Chad and Marta have seen this over and over and over again. What we wanted to just let everyone know is that whether, we don't know yet if this is going to be, you know, what scope of addition renovation or new building the project will be, but regardless, the building will have this list of givens that are on this slide. So when we talk about things like air conditioning and we don't want, can we not have the noisy ventilated, the ventilating systems. Can we have more, more outlets? You know, reliable, reliable Wi-Fi, better technology, all of these things, those are all part of the project. They are givens. That's a baseline for, for the project, regardless. Good acoustics, all of those things as well. So we just wanted to make sure that this was covered in case someone thinks that these are not priorities. They are they're just already given.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Can I ask a question about a given? Is it a given at this point that teachers will no longer have individual classrooms and that classrooms will be shared spaces? Because I was sort of under the impression that is a given, but it doesn't kind of show up often in these conversations. So I just want to make sure that that's out there. And as we're thinking about some of the other topics, whether it's collaboration or not, knowing that there's not individual teacher assigned classrooms influences how we might think about other spaces.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, thank you for asking questions. So yes, it is a given. It is a requirement of the MSBA process when you participate in grant funding through them that there's a shared classroom model at the high school level. that is assumed in terms of overall facility efficiency. That's really what they're trying to get at. So we're trying to get optimal use of the investment for the taxpayers over the course of a day. That's really what's behind it. It's not that they're inherently against teachers having their own work, but just trying to maximize the investment. So there are things that we've talked about and things that we'll talk about probably a part of this discussion that are helped to make that a little less challenging in terms of the implementation, in terms of sizes of classrooms, in terms of shared teacher planning resources, in terms of actual space, providing that in very purposeful ways. And then we can also talk about what that looks like in terms of a teacher's perspective, in terms of how many spaces you might be in over the course of a day, which will vary a little bit per discipline or department, in terms of the types of spaces
[Suzanne Galusi]: Your classroom model is about what you spoke about about use and efficiency so that there is a calculation around. That classrooms there. You should be like something like. 85% right? Yeah, so I think that. That's part of the calculation. I just wanted to be clear that it's not just this broad. General everyone has to share their classrooms. There's like that goes into making sure that we are not creating spaces that kind of go unused for more than 85 or less than 85% of the time. And I think we in going and touring other schools have had a really nice opportunity to be able to engage in conversation with a lot of educators that are doing that. And I know that a lot of the conversations in other districts are around One district in particular made it so that teachers were in more than two spaces within a given time, so that they know that their core classes were all in this space. So that when you're talking about materials that you need, anchor charts for kids, and things like that, it's in one space. And you're able to collaborate with that person, but you're in a different role. maybe for core teachers, electives or things like that may be in a different space because you have to look at how the schedule goes and what the availability is. I think it's a great way to frame it.
[Rosemary Park]: And I'd like to add that on top of what the MSBA formula is, we do our own analysis on the curriculum, on the schedule to see if that number will differ from the MSBAs. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Which one? I'm sorry, what number are you referring to? The number of classrooms.
[Jenny Graham]: I think we lost your audio in the room.
[Matt Rice]: computer microphone. It's probably not going to be great quality. Or let me try one other thing. If I hit the button on the owl again.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yeah, it's red right now, so.
[Will Pipicelli]: Matt, we can hear you by the way.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yeah, actually more clearly through your computer.
[Matt Rice]: Well, that'll work for me, but I'm not sure it'll work for you. Let me change back to the owl. It seemed like it just needed like a little button press to get it working again. Um, all right. Can you guys still hear me?
[SPEAKER_28]: Yes, we can.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, so I think we just know now what's going to happen if the owl goes to sleep for whatever reason. I just run over there and I press the buttons and then it'll come back.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Do you want to sit on that side? I can jump up and do that. I want to turn red, it's 8.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, um, so thank you for bearing with us, everybody. This is our first remote hybrid meeting, so we're working through that.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Did we miss much of that conversation?
[Matt Rice]: How much of the shared classroom conversation did you guys hear?
[Chiesa]: I felt like we heard the majority of it. OK.
[Matt Rice]: You heard Suzanne's explanation towards the end as well?
[Adele Sands]: Yes. Yes. And Roseanne. Rosemary, not Roseanne. Rosemary.
[Matt Rice]: All right. I was worried if it's Roseanne. I don't know who that is.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I know.
[Adele Sands]: I don't know who it is either, so I don't know where it came from.
[Chiesa]: Matt, I had a question on the priority slide, if this is an appropriate time to ask.
[Matt Rice]: Yep, we can back. We're going to get into each of the priorities as we run through it. So does it make more sense to just wait till we get to that section?
[Unidentified]: Absolutely.
[Matt Rice]: All right, so I'm going to let Rosemary just give a quick primer here, and then we can just jump into the discussion.
[Rosemary Park]: So we've talked a lot about, you know, we've heard that we're trying to really make this school as equitable and inclusive as possible in trying to remove stigmas associated with special education or being an EL student, or we're calling it ML. We'll say it like that. And so, We were thinking about how to best illustrate how the architecture and how design can actually support this. How can the building support this? And so in looking at it, really wanting to zoom into how a learning community or a classroom pod can help support this idea of community, of integration, of welcoming and of belonging. And so You can see up on the screen, typically, you know, if you're looking at a very traditional old model of a high school, you used to have the very siloed departments. And so science right now, currently in your building is like one of those, where you've got, you know, all science, just in one, in one location. In an integrated learning community, You could have special education, self-contained special education programs, resource rooms, core academics, EL, science, CTE within the same learning community to really help make it feel like one cohesive community. We've got administration, a house office, also embedded within this learning community as well to provide that support. Within this floor plan as well, we've got small group rooms, breakout spaces that help support the sort of pullout for special services that are required for special education. Students don't need to go to another far end of a building in order, you know, there used to be a special education, right? And so students can receive their services within their learning community without having them feel different or isolated or separate. And of course, this is one example, just one example of how it can be done, but there are ways of using adjacencies programs in order to help create a cohesive community in which everyone feels welcome and like they do belong. Now, of course, this is something that we would work closely with you and the school to understand what those adjacencies want to be. We don't want to just randomly throw things together, but really take a deep understanding as to what are some of these relationships that can be formed here to have everyone feel like they are under this umbrella of Medford High School
[Matt Rice]: Just to quickly clarify, so this is an example floor plan. And if people are not familiar with reading floor plans, the lighter yellow spaces here are illustrating corridors or hallway spaces that run through the more vibrant yellow or stairs that run up and down. So there's other levels here. This is an example from our Waltham High School project. To just give you an idea, this is actually a STEM wing in terms of the overall organization. But just in case people are wondering sort of what we're looking at. This is not necessarily like a design suggestion for Medford High School yet. We're definitely not there yet in the process. The overall design process is really just an example for people to see in terms of how we might bring together different spaces to achieve the goals that Rosemary was
[Unidentified]: with that as well.
[Rosemary Park]: EL is considered a core academic room. It's not special education. And so the idea is that an EL class or a PIMS is more infrastructure so that they really can't go anywhere and lose as needed.
[Adele Sands]: I think we're missing a bit again. I think the owl is coming in and out.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would just use your computer because we in here can hear you speaking and we have to hear you at all.
[Rosemary Park]: And then when we talk about access, you can see.
[SPEAKER_24]: All right. Can you guys hear us again?
[Rosemary Park]: And when we talk about access, student access to counseling or other types of support, we're showing here on the plan in that kind of light tan color, a peachy color, administrative offices, but then that darker maroon purple within the center of the plan or the center of the wing shows teacher planning spaces. So students, and ideally these are in locations that are consistent throughout so students know where to go, where to find that support, but also just making it so that staff and administration, they're readily available and easily accessible.
[SPEAKER_24]: Thoughts, questions about this type of diagram?
[Matt Rice]: Is it clear sort of what is being depicted?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Toilets.
[Rosemary Park]: We have a lot of slides about toilets too. But I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on some of these. If there are any questions also on the way that spaces can be organized.
[SPEAKER_26]: There's a single CTE shop in here. Can you talk about more why it would be done that way and the thinking behind that, having an isolated CTV shop? Want me to take that one?
[Unidentified]: Go ahead, Chad.
[Adam Hurtubise]: In a situation like this, if we're talking STEM, I would think- We're having a really hard time hearing you guys in the room.
[Jenny Graham]: So I think we need you to speak loudly or more loudly than you are right now. Like we can hear you, but very faintly.
[Adele Sands]: And also, if you could,
[Matt Rice]: because we can't see you um it would be great if you yeah i think so everyone's gonna have to sort of unfortunately like yell use your teacher voice when you're in the room in order for folks um online to hear because right now the audio is coming through the microphone on my laptop because that's unfortunately what the owl is going to allow us to do the consensus is that you may keep getting booted off the owl because you're
[Suzanne Galusi]: Not on the staff Wi-Fi, you're on the guest Wi-Fi.
[Matt Rice]: I am actually on the staff Wi-Fi.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I have no idea why it's happening.
[Matt Rice]: OK.
[Rosemary Park]: Matt, is that a mic that can help?
[Matt Rice]: It was, but the owl's not on this mic.
[Adele Sands]: Oh, I was wondering, can you plug that into your computer? And just to help us who are listening but can't see you.
[Unidentified]: Wait a minute, I have something.
[Rosemary Park]: One second, Matt has a backup plan.
[Unidentified]: Well, I think also, again, this is not
[Rosemary Park]: this is not depicting anything that is representing your school, because this is from another program. But I think the way that we've been looking at this and in speaking with you, Chad, is, as you were saying, clusters, are there these various clusters of CTE programs that, you know, for an we're thinking like biotechnology, health assisting, dental assisting, you know, could these be programs that could be related to a STEM link? So that there is still that CT identity, but you're still within a learning community with departments and other programs.
[Adele Sands]: All right, we're just gonna do one. Matt, can I ask another favor? Because we're just looking at a screen, we can't see any of you. It would be very helpful if people speaking identified themselves.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, that's good.
[Adele Sands]: It starts being a kind of a blur of who's speaking from what team.
[Matt Rice]: Sure, how is the audio? Is that better though in terms of volume?
[Adele Sands]: It's excellent for us. Yeah, agreed.
[Matt Rice]: It's good here too.
[Adam Hurtubise]: OK.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[SPEAKER_24]: We're still figuring it out. Hopefully we're there.
[Matt Rice]: All right. Sorry, there was some dialogue in terms of where we were. OK, so I might want to try and push us along just to the next topic, unless there's anything that's really burning on this one that folks want to talk about, because there's a much more exciting slide coming up which is toilet rooms. Alright, so just really quickly in terms of the larger topic of equity inclusion, toilet rooms are something that actually play into this fairly heavily from a school design perspective. And before we get to that, though, there's a lot of other issues associated with toilet rooms here at Medford High School, right? We have heard this time and time again. We've heard it from students, we've heard it from staff. It's a pain point in terms of the overall experience here. On the left-hand side is one of the existing toilet rooms. I think this might even be one that's in the science wing. So this is probably one of the nicer toilet rooms, student toilet rooms that exist throughout the building, right? On the right-hand side, as we were touring through some of newly built recent high schools, we saw the image on the right, which was an open airport entry toilet room, student toilet room, that the school had devised a way to lock off the students, even though it had no doors on it, which is using this sort of foldable gate that they had put up. And like neither of these is what we want to end up with as a solution when we open the new school, right? We want to find something in a design approach that works, means that there have to be some probably change expectations in terms of staff. There needs to be some change behavior in terms of how students interact with them. And it needs to be a collective decision about how we go forward. I know that there's been conversations. We've heard there've been conversations before in terms of how things have moved forward, but we're not going to solve that here today. We're just going to let everyone know that this is definitely something that we're focusing on as we move forward. And we're going to look at it not just through sort of user experience lens, but we're also going to look through the lens of equity as well. And so that means thinking about whether or not we're going to be designing toilet rooms that are based on sort of traditional gender designations, or whether or not we're going to expand that and think about an all gender model, which is less sort of specific about sort of what toilet facilities someone might use if they're going in. And it's more specifically around sort of a multi-user toilet room model. As we move forward, the plumbing code recently changed in Massachusetts to allow a more inclusive model to at least be considered. And we're not saying yet that that's where we're gonna be going, but we are saying that we need to have the discussion as we go forward, that is in terms of behavior, and in terms of operations, we at least need to think about this and talk about this to understand what is the right model moving forward. This is, again, an image from, an earlier image from our Waltham High School project, which was not designed as an all-gender, but as an all-gender ready set of toilet rooms so that they are set up with men's and women's sides right now, but they're also able to be converted by removing a section of wall that you can see here on the right hand side so that in the future they can remove the gendered signage out front. They can remove that wall and become sort of free circulation. There are no urinals in terms of these private stalls that are established. They're all toilets and so they will allow for that all gender model moving forward if that's desired. There are some more even inclusive models out there. There's not a lot at the high school level, but we're going to start seeing that. I think these conversations happening in at least the state of Massachusetts. This is actually an image from RISD down in Rhode Island of a much more integrated model where it was designed to be all gender right up front. So there are private stalls surrounding a shared laboratory model. As we get forward in the discussion, the conversation, we can certainly point out some local locations that people can visit as part of the process to understand how they work and sort of what some of the concerns are there. But vape detection, fire protection, dedicated exhaust, dedicated lighting, all these things come along with those dedicated sort of all gender but private toilet stalls. And then just lastly, a quick note to signage as we move forward. This gets a lot more thought, I think, as we go through the process, but as we move forward, the signage will be less about sort of which gender is potentially using the room and really about what the purpose of the room is. And that helps for it to be something that's less differentiating and less othering for any individual is sort of walking up and using a particular room. It's not like you're disclosing your gender identity as you're just doing that most basic of functions.
[Rosemary Park]: And just a little context is that what we hear often, especially from students from counseling departments also, is that when, if a school says, well, we can just identify this single user room as all gender, the question pops up, you know, is a student outing themselves by just using that, by just heading to that, that instead of going to a multi-user, all gender facility. And that's, it's typically with the students that have that, that have that fear or have that experience.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, I'm Jack Aberdee from Somerville. My kids go to Medford. Everybody uses the single stall, not just non-gender conforming, so it doesn't seem to be an issue there. They're interspersed throughout all the bathrooms. There's the single stall you can use, and then there's the open. In our space, next to the full circle, we only have single. It works really well, especially the vape detectors.
[Matt Rice]: Jack, can you just describe a little about what Nixville Full Circle is? Because I think everybody online in here may not be aware.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, it's just that they're- And Jack, we can't hear you, so we need you to get closer to the microphone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm not trying to say a lot, but... Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was just saying that people don't... Is it your mic? It's right there, yeah. People don't seem to... Everybody uses the single stalls if it's open and It doesn't seem to be like a place where only people that are worried about being gendered go. And then next wave full circle is the therapeutic alternative school within Somerville. It's middle and high school. And we have all single stall bathrooms that works out really well. The only thing I would say is you need some way to get in. If a student locks himself in there, with SI these days, it needs to be like a quick access point. And sometimes the door locks have not been.
[Matt Rice]: If any other quick thoughts, I think our technology has thrown off my timing a little bit, so I don't want to push us along because I think it's an important topic, but I'm just curious if anyone else has any thoughts either online or here in the room. Toilet rooms. Again, a lot more to come on this, but.
[Rosemary Park]: OK. OK, so when we talk about the priority for wellness and well being, we've talked extensively actually, just throughout this process about, you know, having calming spaces for students, but also spaces where they can take a moment, where they can be, where they can interact with their fellow peers, and then just be able to rejoin as needed. Also, if they're needing to just, as Kim, you had said, you know, making sure that we're creating these spaces that are not just, you know, tucked away in a corner where there's no visibility, no staff oversight. So being intentional with the placement site lines. But there are definitely many different ways to be able to support this. So you can have even just creating small breakout areas along a hallway can give the student the opportunity to just sit there and, you know, just even take five minutes to just remove themselves from a stressful situation, whether they are by themselves or with a staff person, they can just pull right over into the space. The top right image is an image of a small group room nestled between two classrooms. So and there's access from these classrooms into that space. And that allows for a student to, and you can see it's being used for just some services, but that can also be space when it's unoccupied for a student to go in, take a moment, and then rejoin their classroom as needed. Teacher has oversight, has direct sightlines into that space. And then another one I'd like to point out, and the next slide has some more, but just Opportunities, this doesn't have to just be inside the building. We can also provide these types of spaces and opportunities outside as well. And so you can see there's this rooftop, this outdoor courtyard, elevated courtyard on the lower right. If you go to the next slide. So the outdoors also provides lots of opportunities for these, whether it's to just physically move and get that energy out, or to be able to take a little stroll through a sensory garden with different things that can either tactile or auditory, like maybe some water features or something. But again, giving those opportunities for students and staff to be able to just reset during a stressful time. Next slide. And so also talking about again how staff need these dedicated spaces also because it's it is a school. It's a place of learning place of education, but it is also a workplace for many people in this building and so. Meeting areas for recharging like this. lounge, staff dining area, but then also having a teacher planning space where you can collaborate with teachers, do some head down work. Collaboration can happen anywhere, but we understand the importance of being able to provide both head down spaces and collaborative spaces for staff also. Any comments on any of that? Anything you'd like to see more of or less of?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I'd be curious to learn more.
[Rosemary Park]: Lisa, do you want to just speak up? Sorry.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Should I just talk wildly?
[Matt Rice]: Or just identify yourself also.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I'm Lisa Miller. I would love to know more about how other buildings you have gone to shared classroom spaces have utilize these staff spaces, what's work, what's not, learn from research, I guess. I feel like this is a very new model for our school, and I would like to learn more about, like, sometimes things can sound like a good idea, but in practice, they don't play out the same way as we anticipate. And I would love to learn more about what other schools have learned about these shared spaces. I would find these very hard, like seeing these two, very hard spaces for me to do my prep work, grading, they're a little too communal for some of my heads down work. So kind of understanding how those spaces better would be helpful.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, I think it's a great point that there's a wide variety of staff, teachers, administrators that are here in this building, right? And so staff member on the CTE side of things and chapters and core program may have a lot of sort of different needs in terms of that type of space. And there's also sort of different resources, right? There's typically going to be dedicated office space that's associated with Chapter 74 programs associated with the space. So I think it's definitely something that we can talk about as we move forward. But sort of the concept of lessons learned and sort of learning from some of the recently built examples, we saw some of them as we toured different schools, but any more on the left, I think was the Bill Ricka School that we walked through and some familiar faces for everyone up there. And we heard a couple of sort of pros and cons as we were walking through there. chatting with any staff member that was willing to talk to us, but I think we can be a little bit more sort of direct and purposeful about trying to gather that feedback and that input.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Can I elevate two others? One would be Waltham. This build was what, six years ago?
[Matt Rice]: The Bill Ricker, yeah.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Waltham, their shared space was there was like a dining area or a communal area, but there were a lot of more private areas some that were actually like completely blocked off. I know some schools have almost like that telephone booth where you can kind of like go in and be quiet, make a phone call. So I think we can definitely be flexible about that. In our visioning sessions, one of them that we had last week, there was a teacher who also elevated, his wife is also an educator, and in the district that she works in, they had some conversations about how to assign these spaces. So they found it helpful to be assigned by department or role so that it really enhanced the collaboration. So I think all of those types of conversations, we will be engaging in to see what will best fit our needs and whatever layout we decide on for the instructional aspect of the school.
[Matt Rice]: Anybody online with any thoughts on this topic and priority?
[Rosemary Park]: So for student identity and expression, we wanted to, we talked, people have brought up some things about how the CT programs, CT shops are going to require some, you know, intentional specialized spaces. And so we're not going to show examples for, all of your CTE programs right now, but we're going to show just two that I think illustrate exactly what we mean when we talk about this identity and this expression. We know that the CTE students are often the ones that have a very strong identity on who they are and what their purpose is. And so these are some images from a cosmetology program from cosmetology shop where it looks like a real salon where they have the, you know, and they have the manicure stations here. They've got the salon, the hair areas with that's all set up to take the community in. And so it's community facing. It's really about making it feel like they are in a professional work setting. Do you want to move to the next slide? And then another example with health assisting where we're setting it up so that the students are working with the equipment or mock equipment, like mock headwalls, so that they are getting that real the real training that the curriculum calls for, and making sure that when they go off into their co-ops, that they are fully prepared with the types of technology and equipment that they will be working with in the real world. Chad, I don't know if you wanted to add anything with any of this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That's awesome, because I remember how impressed I was with the simulation table. And how they really, it was the first school I'd ever seen that had truly mimicked a ward of a hospital, complete with a nurse's station out front and adjacent related classroom. So super impressed with that program. And I think that's like similar to what we're gonna see when we open dental. It's gonna very much simulate that environment because of it being a new building and just this opportunity we're getting. So I think Waltham is a good representation of what I would like to see.
[Matt Rice]: I think it's also important to note that there's pockets of this type of sort of vibrancy that the CT programs here have already put up in and around their own shops, either to sort of create a public facing window to the rest of the school or within the shops themselves. And I think what we're going to be doing as we move forward is really trying to find ways to amplify that and sort of bring this type of mentality so that every program really has that ability to like really announce itself and to create sort of that type of really engaging environment throughout. And I think that the spoiler is that it's not just limited to CTE programs here, right? I think these are some examples, but like the next set of slides as we move forward, spoiler, yeah. It's gonna extend really to all programs. This is something that we've heard through the visioning, right? That there's such a pride that the CTE students here have in their spaces. And I think that's probably a commonality for a lot of Chapter 74 programs. across multiple schools, but we want to make sure that every student has that ability to have the pride in whatever their passion is here at the high school, whatever they've chosen to do, so that connection is made in a visual way and it's really made in a tangible way so that you feel like you're connected when you're in this space.
[Rosemary Park]: Right, and so in this image you've got on the left an art room. It's a digital art room, but by by being intentional about where they're located so they're not far off in their own wing, but then also providing the opportunities to be able to create the visibility from the corridor so that you are creating that kind of exposure. And this is a strategy that we've talked about also using with CTE and other types of programs so that we're aware of what's happening throughout the school. And you're able to, a student who maybe never realized that that art program existed, walks by, sees the amazing things that are being done, and then decides maybe next semester I'll take one of those courses.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice versa, a student going through, like right now, you really are segregated. A student on a pure academic track wouldn't go down the hallway, one or two.
[Rosemary Park]: So, it's really about, again, creating the opportunities to be able to come together and get to know one another and form those relationships and become this comprehensive Medford High School. And so we're also showing, because we wanted to highlight the fact that we're gonna be designing a 1,000 seat auditorium. And so, This will tie a little bit into some of the community connections also. But how can we be intentional about where the performing arts also get located? And how are we showcasing those spaces as well? And then looking at, this is also part of the performing arts, Looking at a smaller performance space, a black box that can be used for not just performance and showcasing of their own dramatic work, but can also be utilized by other parts of the school as a large group instructional space. But you can see in the image on the left, a black box doesn't necessarily have to be completely closed off. But maybe there are also opportunities to be able to locate that in an area that is not just tucked away, but again, showing off what your students are doing. And also, I think something about the school store, which we know is also related, the Mustang Mall is related with your business marketing, but just the sense of the student pride and student identity, trying to make that front and center, really trying to showcase that level of Mustang pride, making it central. In some schools, the school store is right next to the main entrance. Um, and so how can we make that more visible and, um, just really elevate that, that sense of pride with the students. Um, and this is actually, these are some images that, um, relate not just to the culture of the students, but then also just the, you know, how can we connect school and the design, um, and the building to just community at large too. So it's not just the student identity, but also the community identity. And so there are many ways to be able to represent that through environmental graphics, through design. And these are a few ways in how we've done it just across some schools, but Medford will go through a process in trying to understand how can we best represent Medford and your students throughout the architecture.
[Matt Rice]: Okay. Thoughts on this particular collection of ideas, priorities,
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, can I add, Matt? This is Chelsea, if you can see me.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_06]: We've talked a lot about making sure that the EL classrooms are core classrooms that are embedded in their learning communities. But I think the registration hub is a great place to sort of embed some of this identity. and celebrate the linguistic and cultural diversity. So I just wanted to say that I think that that's a really great opportunity to bring some of these images from the culture slides into that parent registration EL hub space too.
[Matt Rice]: I know we've talked also, Chelsea, about the concept of affinity spaces as well. And those are a great opportunity, I think, to reinforce sort of through the visual and the design of the space, opportunities just to reflect culture back, right?
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly.
[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_09]: I think going back to the performing arts section, I think it's also, I really liked the theater and black box ideas to have and the window to show stuff just to really make sure that there's enough space for everyone to have a space at the high school where they're able to do their arts. And then also where they're able to be known. And I think that's really important.
[Matt Rice]: Appreciate that. Thank you.
[Rosemary Park]: We know that your students are doing some really great work. And so we want to be able to highlight that and want everyone to be able to see those things. I know, I know it's 508. So when we talk about flexible and future ready design and a building that can adapt as your curriculum and your student body evolves as You know, as time goes on, we know that education evolves. And so how can we best prepare for those types of future changes? So, you know, the key is to really be flexible, to provide agile classrooms, agile spaces. And, you know, we know that already some of your classrooms are doing this. Some of your teachers are trying to do what they can with, you know, what they have in terms of trying to provide small group instruction, doing more collaborative work. So providing you with the types of furnishings and equipment to be able to easily adapt your space, depending on the curriculum delivery, I think is going to be a really key component of that. Um, and so things that can, um, easily be reconfigured, uh, without having to, you know, spend 10 minutes for the teacher to have to do it all on their own. Um, and this is also the type of, um, this also helps support, you know, the, the differentiated learning styles that your students do have. So, um, not everyone can learn in that, that top right And so, we're seeing a lot of the small group work, you know, being able to turn and do partner work as well. So, this type of flexible furnishing is going to be critical to your school.
[Maria D'Orsi]: But I think some of the classrooms we've seen in other schools, maybe there's dividers between classrooms that can open and close. Are there other ideas for creating flexible spaces? Yeah, you'll see them.
[Rosemary Park]: It was hard to, as I started putting the titles on some of these slides, because really a lot of these slides can really depict more than one thing. So a lot of the slides that we've seen before do are also those types of flexible spaces. But we'll see them again just in the next couple of slides, too. And so we've talked a lot about the need for collaboration spaces. And in some of the visioning, we have the visioning team has identified what types of collaboration spaces they'd like to see. We want them to be purposeful. They want to be intentional. What sizes do they want to be? The location of where they are is going to be critical too. But again, providing the opportunity to be able to pull out of the classroom, and give students a different type of learning experience than just within their classroom is gonna be a priority here too. And then, so Lisa, this is one of those types of spaces. So large group instructional spaces. I mean, this is considered a large group instructional space, right? It's not necessarily an assigned space. It can be signed out. But providing a space that is multifunctional, you could have two or three classrooms meet within one space. If you've got a speaker coming, you can set up these rooms to have also remote capability. So we've heard from like world language that it would be great to be able to get, you know, my, my Italian one kids together and be able to zoom in and have like a virtual meetup with the class in Italy, who they're learning English. And so being able to, you know, use that space for across all of the disciplines departments and also community groups too. So we've talked a lot about how the school also needs to, the school should prioritize also connections back to the Medford community at large. And so this is a space that, and this is a space that where the school committee, correct, the school committee at the school actually holds their meeting. But you could have another community group that wants to come in and use this There, you go to the next. And so the dining commons, it's a large space in which it's occupied. Yes, it's used for lunch, but after hours. Could that be a space in which there is another community group coming in or a large, maybe there is like a sports banquet being held here maybe there is a speaker that comes in, and if there's a learning stair, then that could be used as a seating for it. But all of these spaces, we also have a media center on the right. These are spaces that can be, that are used, can be used by the community. We already know that your, many spaces within your building already, are being utilized by the community and being rented out anyhow. And so when we design and start planning where these spaces will go, we'll also be thinking a lot about how the community accesses them. How can we do it in a safe way? How can we close off access to other parts of the building that we don't want the community necessarily going into? And how people are accessing the site as well. the auditorium would be another one of those spaces.
[SPEAKER_31]: That's good. I have a question. Yes. I'm Cooper Seager. I'm a senior at MedCon. When I think about community and equity you guys are trying to create, yeah, I think about the dining and athletics department and even the library. Have you guys taken, like, I guess, started considering what the spaces would look like for those areas. Because right now, that is where I find, where I see the student body makes the most connection.
[Rosemary Park]: I mean, no, we're not at the design phase just yet. But we are talking a lot about what What is the dining commons? How do we want it to serve not just the students, you know, and not just during your breakfast and lunch hours, but is it available for use outside of those hours, right?
[Suzanne Galusi]: And I would say, Cooper, that between the, because they all have interviewed some students and had some student panels, even when we did the belonging video at the beginning of the year, those three spaces that you highlighted have come up again and again, that students have elevated that as those are really important spaces for them. So I think when we get into the design phase, I think that input will be really important.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, I think in addition to the design of the spaces, which is obviously critically important and to support all the activity that's happening here. It's also the location of these spaces within the overall building, right? Having like right now where the library is, is actually fairly central, but the gym is all the way at one end of the building, right? So there's a lot of cases where people are not experiencing the gym unless they're making a deliberate effort to go all that distance. So try to find ways of like the auditorium, bringing these centralized spaces, the library, into the middle of the building so that we really maximize the opportunities for people to interact there and experience those spaces is going to be one of the things that we focus on as we go forward.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's very perceptive though.
[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_09]: related but slightly different track, mostly with like desks and classrooms, making sure that there's enough space on top of them for like a computer and like a binder and a paper. Recently one of my class, a year or something ago, one of my classrooms got new desks and the tops of them are tiny, like I can't fit a Chromebook and a paper on it. And that doesn't really work during class.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, that's a wonderful observation. I know we've gotten lots of questions about sort of that whenever the subject of new desks and new desk shapes have come up. So something that will be coming in the future as one of our activities is we do like a mini furniture fair within the school where we'll actually have different vendors bring in different desks, different chairs, and some other pieces of furniture as well. And so we'll bring people in and have the opportunity to vote options to see what works and you'll be able to take your Chromebook in and put it down there and make sure that that's not going to fall off when you also have your notebook there and those types of things. But it's definitely a critical part of the process as we go forward. Any other thoughts on this piece of it? This was the last section, so we're actually okay on time. because we're getting close to 530, and we just have a couple of additional slides afterwards. So if anyone was hesitating because you were worried about time, you're good. This is Jenny. Go ahead, Jenny, and then we'll let Lisa go.
[Jenny Graham]: I actually just had a question for the students who are on the call. I didn't hear any student reactions to the bathroom options. I'm just, I'm just curious, like, tell, tell us what young people think about this so that the rest of the old people in the room can start to, like, get in, get in alignment with how you all are thinking about this.
[SPEAKER_31]: Oh, for sure. Um, I know I've been in some various bathrooms, like Northeastern's EXP building. they have these all gender bathrooms that people can go into and it's more, it's like an airport where there is no door and you can walk in. And the thing that makes it so, uh, I guess secure is the door comes from floor to ceiling, right? It's, it's pretty, pretty locked and you can do whatever you need to do there. I think the idea of having an all-gender restroom, again, for equity purposes, trying to not place a name on your gender, but also the fact that it can interchange if need be, is really smart. I mean, personally, it's just a small design.
[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_09]: I agree with Cooper. And then also making sure that at the same time, yeah, there's stalls that fully cover because there's lots of gaps in the ones we currently have. And then keeping it like vape detectors be helpful that are like, checked and fully utilized because I think a big reason that the bigger bathrooms are closed off and a lot of bathrooms are closed off is because we don't want just gatherings of people vaping, but that's happening anyways. And so finding ways to make those who are using it comfortable and then also to try to move that out.
[Matt Rice]: There are particular design details. If we do end up using partitions that are called zero sightline partitions that are detailed to joints in a particular way that eliminate those gaps, but certainly what Cooper was alluding to as well in terms of just doing full height partitions and actual doors is another way to sort of create the sense of privacy that's really critical to this type of approach if we go down that road.
[Rosemary Park]: Thank you. Those are really insightful comments. Thank you guys.
[Kimberly Talbot]: And not only the students noted the need for stall doors that do not have gaps. So Norman had added that in the chat. OK. Yeah. Thank you, Norm.
[Jenny Graham]: And I do think for the students, we welcome you to come join us at other meetings where we're going to talk about these things because we adults can get really stuck in our ways. And we will, I can promise you, we will have a conversation about bathrooms at some point in a building committee meeting coming your way very, very soon. And I want to make sure that we are listening to what students are telling us about their experience. And it will be, if you and or your friends are able to join us at some of those meetings, your input would be very valuable. And I think it would help the adults in the room understand that high school is different now than it used to be. And that's, it's really hard to remember that when you are in a high school and you remember going to high school and then you're seeing something that is just a complete departure from your experience. So I would just encourage you all to keep joining us and encourage your friends to do the same because we want to hear from you.
[Matt Rice]: And I think as a precursor, we will have a dedicated group, I think, that's going to really focus in on exclusively toilet rooms. And to me, that's actually a really exciting thing. I think that could be a really interesting discussion as we go forward. So I echo Jenny's sentiments that we're really going to want to pull in as much student voice there as possible.
[Jenny Graham]: Just like I can't wrap my head around that being a whole group, Matt. So I'm going to think about whether I want to be on that one or not. I appreciate that it's happening.
[Rosemary Park]: In your free time, Jenny. Lisa?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I just wanted to do a quick clarification. I think I saw somewhere, sort of brought up the dining hall, and I made me think about this. Are we going to be required to have three lunch periods now? Is that my understanding? So, OK. Correct. So we'll have less cafeteria space and the space will be used for three bunches. Is that right?
[Matt Rice]: It is correct on a square footage basis. Yeah, it's again along the same concept of efficiency of the space. They're looking to sort of manage the amount of size, but what we're going to be doing, which should be a tremendous benefit, is centralizing the cafeteria space so that there's not multiple spaces that need to be managed and oversaw during the course of a school day, which I think will make the experience much more pleasant for everybody in the school in terms of being able to just be in one space that, as Rosemary was saying, has a lot of differentiated seating opportunities and is sort of a welcoming and comfortable place to be in.
[Maria D'Orsi]: So I know that when we visited schools, almost all of the new schools, all of them had kind of a big central open dining area rather cafeteria room, it was almost like sort of part of the first kind of a lobby, just like a big open area. Is that kind of the norm now for new buildings?
[Matt Rice]: You see it in a lot of buildings, but again, we don't necessarily know that's where we're going to end up. That's going to be part of the design discussions as we start to go forward. We'll look at options that have that and options that maybe have more of a closed off room and see what feels better here.
[Rosemary Park]: And I know that we're coming up against time, but I do want to just say that You know, we have heard a lot about the need for quiet dining spaces too. And so that's something that we are, you know, definitely looking at how can we incorporate that into whatever the design ends up being.
[Matt Rice]: All right. So just to foreshadow a bit in terms of where we're going. So this is our second review and respond meeting that we're having for this advisory team. We will have our next meeting actually during the next phase of the feasibility study. And this is where it just gets bogged down in the semantics of things. But on March 10th is when our next meeting is going to occur. And at that meeting, we'll actually go through in a little bit more granular detail each of the sort of design aspects that we're going to be looking to include from this advisory team in the project moving forward. And we're going to categorize them in a real simple way of like stoplights. or traffic lights, right? So we have a green, which is going to be a given item that is just going to get included in the project, similar to the ones that Rosemary ran through at the beginning. Those will be included there. But there's other things that people have brought up that is just no question we're going to include it. There's going to be some that are going to be sort of the yellow flashing items that we're going to talk about here and agree as to whether or not this is something we want to wrap into the design process or not. And then there's probably going to be some red light items as well, that while they might be sort of interesting ideas, we don't necessarily want to carry those forward. So we'll be doing that for every design advisory team as we go forward. And then that list of green lights and yellow lights and red lights will then be brought back to the full building committee. And then those will actually be sort of approved or authorized to sort of go into the the project moving forward. And so that's really how the organization of these advisory teams is going to work. And again, this is really just describing what I ran over just now. So again, we're going to be March 10th. We're going to do 4 o'clock for this meeting. It will again be remote hybrid. I think even with the technical hiccups that were here, I think this actually felt a little bit better in terms of people being in the room. Certainly people that are not in the room, we appreciate your presence here. In terms of dialing in remotely, you know it's tough to sort of make it here at four o'clock on any weekday. So the more that you can join us in whatever way, we're appreciative of your time and thank you. So we will have access to the slides. I think the recording of this meeting will also be available. I think, Will, can you confirm that? It'll be on YouTube. Okay, similar to the first round of meetings as well. So you can sort of view it that way. Yep.
[SPEAKER_19]: Somebody asked me.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, I think we can we can find a way to make that available. All right. Thank you, everybody. We're gonna we're gonna keep the meeting live because we're switching over to the next advisory team. If which if you're saying for that, please do stick around. But If you're not, you're also welcome to go.
[Adam Hurtubise]: This is the site safety and security.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Jackie.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Site safety and security.
[Unidentified]: Site safety and security. Thank you.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Do you want to just give that to folks?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you for coming.
[Unidentified]: It's a group project. I was having
[Will Pipicelli]: Hi everyone, we're we're just switching over presentation over at the Medford High School. We're having a little trouble with the owl on the camera so. We'll see how meeting 2 goes, so just sit tight and we'll get started shortly.
[Unidentified]: For those that are online, we're just going to get going probably in about two minutes or so.
[Matt Rice]: I'm just flunking around with the AV setup again, just to make sure I have some power and that we have video here. So bear with us for a couple more minutes and we'll get going. All right. Just as a quick check, can folks online see the intended version of the presentation?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.
[Matt Rice]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: Looks good.
[Matt Rice]: Okay. Lovely. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Matt Rice]: And I think we're going to get going just so that we try to stay on schedule here. We do have a sign-in sheet that is moving around the room that we have here that we will use afterwards, and then we have the online attendance that we'll be able to sort of collect overall attendance from. So I know Helen just sent me a question about who is in the room, but I think we'll have that through the sign-in sheet. I do want to welcome everybody. So this is our site safety and security team meeting for the new or reimagined Medford High School project. This is our second meeting of the series that we've had so far, and just as a quick overview of what we're going to cover today, we're just going to do a very quick round of introductions of the design team. so everyone knows who's here. We're not going to do individual team member introductions again, because we did that last time. I will, though, say if there are folks that are new that were intended to be on the advisory team but weren't able to join us for the first meeting, I do want to take a couple minutes and just give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and indicate the connection to the project and priorities and goals similar as we did during the first meeting. And then we're going to move really to the bulk of the meeting, which is reviewing the comments and the priorities that everyone outlined previously. The way that we're going to do that is not go through every individual line, but we've actually collected the priorities that everyone has shared with us into a series of about five topics that we're going to go through. And we're going to share some information back. based on those priorities that we heard. There may be a couple of topics as well that we didn't hear necessarily from the group, but we wanted to make sure that we cover here today, just as part of the process. So it will be that mix of topics and priorities. And then we'll just do a quick preview in terms of where we're going, which is if you caught the end of the educational planning equity meeting, that's going to be very similar, but we'll tell you when the next, the third meeting is going to be occurring. So just to do the introductions really quickly for the design and OPM team. Again, my name is Matt Rice. I'm an architect and I'm the principal in charge for SMMA. And we'll go through the room here and then we'll go online.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm Laura Swan, civil engineer. Hi everyone.
[Matt Rice]: Alright, and then online if you want to go Helen.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Sure, good evening. Helen Fantini, project manager with SMMA.
[SPEAKER_24]: Alright, and then Kate.
[Erin Prestileo]: Hi all, Kate Tooke, Landscape Architect and Principal with Agency Landscape and Planning. We're sub-consultants to SMMA.
[SPEAKER_24]: All right, and Matt. Sorry, Matt. Sorry, got to come back.
[Matt Gulino]: Go ahead, Matt, you can go. Oh, hi, I'm Matt Galino, day-to-day project manager for Leftfield, who's the owner's project manager.
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: Jen Carlson, yep, sorry, I wasn't sure if we were going back to the other Matt. Jen Carlson, also an OPM with Leftfield.
[Mike Cabral]: And Matt, why don't you go now? Okay, Matt Elaine, Good Harbor Techmark Security Consultant. All right, great.
[Adele Sands]: And Adele Sands, I'm the Education Liaison for Leftfield.
[Matt Rice]: Thank you, Adele. Sorry, we didn't get your photo on here, but appreciate you sticking with us through the site safety security meeting as well.
[Jenny Graham]: No worries.
[Kimberly Talbot]: And Matt, I see a couple of other agents on the call. Barrett?
[SPEAKER_33]: Hi, everyone. My name is Barrett Cherokee, and I'm a landscape designer with Agency Landscape and Planning. Yeah, so alongside Kate Tuch and Keisha Rodrigo, who's also on the call.
[Matt Rice]: All right. Again, do we have any new Medford members that weren't able to make the first meeting that would like to just introduce themselves? I'm seeing no in the room, and I'm hearing no online, so we'll keep going then. This is the group, though, that we assembled for the last meeting and ran through everyone's thoughts. And again, just big picture schedule, this is where we are in terms of what we're projecting for the schedule of the project. We are looking to open, again, the newer reimagined school in the fall of 2030. And we are currently in the first part of our feasibility study, the stars indicating our advisory team touch points. This is the second of those discussions. We'll be meeting a third time moving forward. We'll give you the date for that in a little bit. And then we'll meet again at the start of the schematic design phase moving forward, which is going to be towards the fall of this year. And just as a very quick refresher, Again, this is one of four different advisory teams that we're conducting a series of meetings for. These are not intended to be or could they be siloed discussions, but we want to make sure that we give each of these areas enough space for discussion as we move forward so that we can understand where the priorities are for the city, for the school, for the district moving forward. And then just very quickly again, the objective for this particular advisory team meeting or this advisory team is really to focus on topics of site safety, security, circulation across the site, and all the different perspectives that some of our city departments have in terms of how the site is viewed and interacted with on a sometimes a daily basis. So, I think with this, I'm going to turn it over maybe to Laura to kick things off, or we're going to go right to Kate.
[Alicia Hunt]: We can go right to Kate.
[Matt Rice]: Okay. And then just to give everybody a quick preview of our topics moving forward, we are going to present on each of the sort of groupings that we have, and then we're going to have a little bit of discussion on each of the groupings. So we're not going to be talking to you for an extended amount of time and then wait, circle back. So there will be opportunities for engagement as we move through.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think security is first.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, Laura, I'm going to tag you back to summarize what was on that slide and dive into security.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. So we heard back and quoted all the comments. One of the biggest things that people mentioned was an accessible site, circulation around the site, improved security, and this desire to have an open, welcoming site that could bring the community in, but also be secure. I think that you'll hear a lot about that as we go through all of these topics. And you'll see that reflected in what you see. And if there's anything else that we've missed or that we do need to hear back from you, please, there'll be lots of opportunity to share.
[Matt Rice]: Just as a quick reminder, I think for everybody in the room here, our audio is going through our little conference puck at the front there. So I think if we can all just do our best to speak up, it'll be helpful for the folks online to be able to hear us clearly.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure. So we'll start with balancing the open campus and community access with safety, and then talk about mobility and access across the site, how to make this a connected Medford destination. Then go into program and operations, how this is going to be an active site every day year round. We've heard about all the programs on the weekend and everything that happens at this school pretty much every day of the year. Also then discussing the physical site and It's unique location between the fells and the city. And we'll end up talking about construction site safety because there will be construction. And what would that mean for the students and their experience here in the population that is on site while that happens?
[Matt Rice]: All right. So now we're going to kick it over to Madeline.
[Mike Cabral]: Okay, thank you everybody. Um, so I'm going to talk a little bit about site safety and security I do have, I think there's about four slides or so I'll run through them and then if there's any questions after we can go through, go through that. But, you know, in order to frame the discussion about, you know, school site safety. The site itself is really the first layer of defense before the doors, before cameras, before staff response. So the goal here is to balance an open welcoming campus with clear and intentional safety measures. As said in the previous slide, we're not really trying to harden the site to make it feel institutional, but we want to design it safely for everyday use for staff, students, and visitors. So one of the ways that we're going to look at doing this and use as our guiding principles is the crime prevention through environmental design principles. And I know one of the members brought this up in the last meeting, so they stole my thunder a little bit, but that's good because we're going to use these principles as we look at the site and the design through the options that are going to be presented to you. And there's essentially five principles that will be looking for natural surveillance, you know, seen, and be seen natural access control, guiding how people enter and move about the space territorial reinforcement, which makes it clear that this is a school space. Maintenance and visibility, we try to keep the spaces well kept and the feeling of always being able to see onto the site so people feel like they are not necessarily surveilled, but they can be seen to reduce some activity that really isn't supported by the site. And the last one is activity support. And again, this goes about making the site used for legitimate use and discourage misuse. So all these strategies work best when they're designed, when operations support them, and all the policies and procedures align. Some of the things on here I'll just point out quickly, we'd be looking, and some of these have to do with the school design as well, but we'll be looking at large windows, clear sight lines, appropriately scaled lighting to support after hours activities. We'll look at landscaping, we'll look at fencing, we'll look at vegetation to define boundaries without creating hiding spaces. And then we'll look at sidewalks and pathways that encourage predictable movement along the site. We want to jump to the next slide. Some of the other things that we're looking at here, you know, speaking about windows is you know they play a dual role right so windows allow visibility, but there's also vulnerability as well for them so we'll be looking at different ways to. protect the windows, either through blinds, controlling shelter-in-place activities or lockdown situations. We'll be looking at potential for security film, for reducing entry. And then there's also gonna be situations where we might look at impact-resistant glazing at select high-risk areas, specifically probably around the main entrance vestibules and potentially some other areas of the school. Next slide. The way to balance the open campus and community access is through electronics. We'll be using an electronic access control and security management system. You know, these platforms allow, you know, camera visibility, the control of doors, receiving alerts, response, you know, from staff members as well as outside emergency personnel as well. So this will all be balanced from the access control system, the video management system, as well as some other devices as well for intrusion detection, and then security communications. And I think we'll hit that on one of the next slides. The communication part of this really helps to connect exterior spaces with the interior spaces. So we'll be looking at door stations on the exterior where visitors will have an opportunity to speak with staff inside the building to allow entry. We'll also be looking at other devices as well that could be put out in the fields or in the parking lot that provide emergency communication outside of school hours that can provide reduced response times for staff and emergency personnel.
[Matt Rice]: I think that's a collection of slides that we have and I think I do want to just reinforce something I think we heard from Chief Buckley at the last meeting that The topic of school security and safety is obviously a very sensitive one these days, given recent events. And so it's certainly okay to talk about these in generalities as part of this meeting, but we will be holding detailed discussions with school administration, district administration, as well as the first responders to sort of sort out the details of the security approach that we're not going to necessarily be getting into. in sort of this larger context, but that's really part of like the overall strategy of how we're designing the building. But we're happy to talk about any thoughts that anyone has given any of what Matt has gone through here today, reactions, reinforcements of yes, we love that or no, we should think about this. Anything that was maybe not covered on that topic that we want to run through. And it's okay if we're quiet, that's fine. It actually gives us some more time for discussion on the later topics. And I'm not going to turn that down. I just want to make sure that folks online as well, please feel free to unmute if you are muted and pipe in if there's any thoughts or comments here. All right, going once, twice. We're going to move along then. All right, Kate, I think you're up here. Sure.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah. So this group had a really robust and lively discussion back in December before the holiday. And what we've done tonight is try to just reflect back some of the really productive conversation that you all had. and add a little bit to it based on what we know about the site, and then open it up to a little bit more dialogue for you all to add more color in terms of what's needed, desired, and any pain points about the existing site that you're hoping would be addressed as part of this process. So what we've done is we've taken that feedback that you shared both in person as well as afterwards and some written comments and categorize those into three big picture categories. The first is really about mobility and access, thinking about what you shared about making this a destination that's connected to Medford. These are a lot of the comments you had about arrival and egress, circulation moving to and through the site, the ADA compliance questions, and then some of the emergency vehicle access and service access. We heard from you a lot about program and operations as well. So this idea that you want this to be a place that's active and it's every day and it's year round, it already is, and you want that kind of access to continue. So site amenities that support that activity, such as fields, and gathering spaces, school and community resources that sit on site, like the preschool facilities, as well as site security and management, which Matt just touched on a little bit. So how does that all feel safe and cohesive, even at night and even at times when school is not in session? And finally, you shared quite a bit about the physical site. There was a lot in your commentary about the unique topography and vegetation and the unique location next to the fells. And it's something the design team has also been thinking a lot about. You also shared a lot of comments about how that should be treated around construction logistics and how the site materiality and permanence and character could reflect some of those unique pieces. So again, for each of these, what we'll do is we'll share a little bit about what some of the key data points are, as well as what you shared, and then open it up to conversation kind of one at a time. So we're going to dive into mobility and access first. That was the first category that you all really shared a lot about, as Laura shared. So big picture, if you look at kind of how students are arriving to site, there are three big categories. About 37% of students are arriving by car, whether that's driving themselves or getting dropped off in some sort of family vehicle. There's fewer of those in the morning than in the, sorry, fewer in the afternoon than in the morning. So more kids are getting dropped off in the morning. About 22% of students walk or bike, but that number goes up dramatically if you're within a mile of school. About 62% of students that close do exercise to get to school. And then the vast majority of students, especially those living further away, are getting to school on either school bus or MBTA bus. On the next slide, you can see there's really a lot of service, especially of MBTA buses close to the site. And then these buses actually come onto the site, as you well know, and something we've been looking at and are curious to hear more about in terms of operation. There is one dedicated bus route in in North Medford that does provide direct access in a school bus to the high school site. But it's a really well-served site. There's also a number of routes where students are taking routes through the fells, especially from the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to school. So we know that those walking routes, whether they're formal or informal, are pretty important. On the next slide, you can see just a little bit more information that we've been looking at around the site program essentially, and especially the idea that a huge part of the site is dedicated to that vehicular circulation and existing parking, about 476 spaces on site now, both in consolidated lots as well as scattered around the perimeter of the school and used informally around that service access which circumnavigates the school. Um, big picture, there are some barriers to access, so it's difficult to access the site on foot from the neighborhoods to the north and to the west because of fencing. Um, and there, you know, are some significant existing conditions where service, um, and that primary access to the pool are behind the main school building. So you really do have to navigate significant portions of the service access to get there. We are working with a traffic consultant to do some more capacity analysis on the existing parking and are glad to hear some comments from you all about how how much that's utilized and how much parking is really part of the demand for the future of the school. On the next slide you'll see just a couple of summary points and we know there's a lot of text here but what we did is work to summarize what you said to us last time in the meeting and to a couple of clear priorities. So there was a lot of commentary about ensuring that the future campus is legible, it's easy to navigate, that there are safe pedestrian routes, they're well lit, they're accessible, that emergency egress and gathering areas really are obvious and intuitive and really clear for fire and police and EMS to use. that there's some hierarchy of pathways. Pedestrian, bike, and vehicles are separated really clearly. And then there are some good connections to the Fells trails, specifically to allow access for the community into those, but to do so in a way that doesn't degrade the landscape of the Fells. So really providing really clear access points so that there are fewer towpaths through the Fells as it sits adjacent to the campus. So we want to pause here on the next slide, thinking really specifically about circulation and kind of moving to and through the site. Is there anything big that we missed hearing last time, burning things that you didn't get a chance to share, that haven't been reflected back here, or that would be useful to discuss tonight before we talk about program and physical site?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Thank you. I thought that was wonderful. Um, I, I'm super encouraged to hear this with the 62% within a mile. I'm just curious, like, are you bumping walking Mike with that? Or do you have a breakdown? I just, I think I have this perception that nobody rides their bike to the high school and I would love to know if I'm wrong. Do you have a breakdown?
[Erin Prestileo]: That data came from Safe Routes to School. And that was a survey that was done last year. And it was provided to the design team by Medford. The number of data points collected do not represent the entire school body. So not every student responded to the survey is what that means. So they are making some assumptions based on who did respond to the survey and applying those to the rest of the school group. Does that make sense? So it's accurate within some degree of assumptions.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Do you have any more?
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah. If there's a way to get more information on that, we really would be thrilled to have more data.
[Alicia Hunt]: She's asking if the Planning and Sustainability Office has more information on it. And so this is Alicia Hunt. We don't have data. what I know is that there is a student, a teacher working with a student group that's trying to actively promote walking and biking to school. And I'll name him Mr. Christie in the robotic shop is working on that effort. And he's actually asked me to advise him on it. So we're hopeful that we might be able to help increase it. But a lot of what we've heard from students outside of his effort, but on the city side is concerns about safety which is why there are bike lanes now. There are problems with the bike lanes and people driving in the bike lanes, even when it doesn't appear to be necessary. So it's a very perplexing situation. And I think that it needs some on the grounds grassroots efforts to help motivate that, to help do that with the goal that by the time this building opens, we would have more walking and biking. But I don't think we can avoid you know, not designing for the cars because, you know.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, I think my question was even more basic than that. It's like 60% gay, but is that like 61% black and 1% gay? Do we have any more data?
[Alicia Hunt]: I would say, you know, anecdotally that there are probably, there are more kids that bike in the next months because we see the bike racks full and we get asked for more bike racks during the months. And it's been sort of a, who can, where, how are we going to pay for them type of situation going on. And now it's sort of like, how much does it make sense with this new building? But honestly, I personally think it would be short money to install some. And we may even have some at DPW, although I'm not speaking for DPW, who I assume is on the call. I think I saw it too. Yeah. So I actually had a separate thing that I just, I kind of wanted to flag, and I heard you saying this about through the woods and accessibility and a walking loop and stuff like that. But I just sort of wanted to flag that the One Mile Mustang loop is something that I understand is heavily used by different student groups and cross-country and stuff like that during the year. It's also something that was sort of laid out and designed by students with teacher support. And so there's a lot of sentimentality around that. And if any changes are gonna be made, they should be really thoughtful. Like the bridge that goes through the wetland area was built by students. Possibly, I think that that was an Eagle Scout project, but I know it was permitted through my office in the last 12 years or so. Right, eventually post stating what I know of it. But I just wanted to flag that, There might make sense for changes, but there's a lot of sentimentality attached to that, so it should be really thoughtful if there are any changes.
[Matt Rice]: I just want to circle back to the bike sort of percentage. I'm wondering if we might drag Marta into sort of trying to find some more current data. If we could leverage maybe the advisory meetings in the morning just to get every student. They don't have to identify names or anything like that, but just to indicate how they're getting to school. I think that would give us the granular understanding of walking versus biking, but it will also sort of get a higher percentage of deviation or assumptions that we don't have to rely on that we could hopefully get the entire student body and then maybe also do it with staff at the same time. And it could be a really low time investment that we just take five minutes of one advisory one day and just try to get that data together.
[Unidentified]: When you see electric scooters, even this time,
[Matt Rice]: Can we use that as an option?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, no, I think. Yeah, if there's anything else.
[Matt Rice]: And bus, right? And I think we should break it out to like school bus, MBTA bus or special education bus transport, right? That's another delineation that I don't think we had in there, Kate, previously.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, the data I think from Safe Routes to Schools doesn't distinguish, Matt. I would just add that I think there's value also in understanding if students aren't biking or walking, why they're not. I think someone raised that. It's an interesting question. Is it lack of provision of bike facilities on campus, or is it the network getting to school that's limiting kids because I think the design response and planning response on the part of the city and the design team can be nuanced depending on what those answers are.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, so maybe what we'll do is we can put together like a one pager and give it to Martha so she doesn't have to like come up with the document herself and then circulate it around.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's obvious from your data that people do different things in the morning and the afternoon and possibly seasonally as well.
[Matt Rice]: Okay, so we might run our little survey past this group as well, just to get the collective benefit of everyone's wisdom.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's probably helpful to know that kids take the bus in the morning and a parent picks them up in the afternoon.
[Unidentified]: Yep, so we have two columns. Nick, do you want to go? The majority of the students on the bus train, we only have one yellow bus, do you think? One yellow bus?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. I will think, think, think, think, think. I will be thinking about the people that bite the ground up.
[Erin Prestileo]: Matt, I'm just flagging, it's very difficult for those of us online to hear anybody but you. I'm sorry for that, but if you could repeat, that would be really helpful.
[Matt Rice]: I'll let Nick finish and then I'll recap what he says.
[Erin Prestileo]: Okay, thank you.
[Matt Rice]: Sorry about that. I know you're good.
[Adam Hurtubise]: As we are thinking about students that bike and all that. Also, I'm thinking just from a personal anecdotal way, I have a power chair. And in the midsummer, I may want to take my power chair to school. especially if it's a bigger building like this. So I'm thinking about sidewalk safety. I'm thinking about is there space on the sidewalk for me to safely navigate, get around not only the school compound, but around town. Obviously, on a city level, that's a much bigger thing, which does not apply here. But I'm thinking about, like, if I want to have lunch outside with my friends, or if I want to just take a lap around the school campus. Those are also big things to be considered Also, walkability and mobility are on the trail. I know I went to Gordon College and a big thing up there is being outside on the trail. But even though I know that they made at least one of the trails at least somewhat accessible. I never went because I know history. So it's good to have that in mind so that from the jump, you can be able to tell your disabled students that, hey, this trail is actually accessible. You can do whatever you need. All right.
[Matt Rice]: So for Kate and everyone else, I think just to summarize, I think Nick was focused on the wheelchair accessibility and general accessibility of the site. Certainly beyond the site is a consideration, but that's a larger topic then the project can grapple with. But on the site specifically, we really need to be thinking about sort of what is it like in terms of actually moving across the site from an accessibility perspective, whether it's a manual wheelchair or a powered wheelchair up to the site and around the site itself. And then the interesting topic also of the trails and finding ways to make them more accessible in terms of both, probably the surfacing, and this is me sort of adding some commentary, but like the physical surface of the trail itself, but also sort of the grading of the trail as it runs around to make sure that it is viable and accessible for everybody.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. I think to tell somebody before they get on the trail is that they can get around because they will assume they can't if they don't see the sign.
[Matt Rice]: Did you hear that piece on signage, Kate?
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, the need to flag that the Fells trails require certain things.
[Matt Rice]: Well, yeah, just the fact that if it's an accessible trail, it needs to be marked at the beginning. And when you're going down a non-accessible trail, that should also be clear as you intersect with anything else.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah. Thank you, Craig.
[John McLaughlin]: When it comes to site access, right, it blew me away at the last meeting when somebody said, hey, I got to drive up that hill on a bike and I get to the top of the hill and I'm winded. Now, if you are in a wheelchair, right, if you get off on Winthrop Street, you know, if the school is going to be put where the field is now, that's like a quarter of a mile. Or if it's going to be put in the front parking lot or renovate. Either way, just the start of it, of getting up the hill, is right, you know, the first priority. Do you go up, go, you know what I mean? Do you have stairs or whatever? But that was, you know, because I've been working up here a long, long time. And we've always, you know, we've made facilities adjustments to try to help people that in wheelchairs like she is. But that particular thing blew me away because it's something that I never even thought of as far as like, you know, because I've always been building base.
[Kimberly Talbot]: So I don't, I'm sorry, I'm going to note that Matt Galusi has his hand up. I don't know how many people can see. Go ahead, Matt.
[Matt Rice]: We'll move on right after Matt's comment, just because we want to make sure we have time to capture things. And we can always circle back at the end.
[Matthew Galusi]: Thanks, everybody. Just to speak a little on the trails, because I actually, I'm the guy who wrote the DCR grant when we put in the Feltloop trail. There is a separate program that DCR offers for accessibility. separate program. We looked into some of it. The problem that we encounter, if you've ever been on the Mustang loop, it's a lot of wetlands. There's vernal pools and it's very soggy ground. We have a lot of rain. We have a lot of snow. So it's very difficult to incorporate into the actual Mustang loop trail. And if you actually look where we had one of the trailheads on the Mustang Loop Trail, we've since kind of moved it a little, because coming down by that entrance by the vocational school, we get some rain, we get some snow, and it's three, four inches of mud. So there would have to be some serious site work done, and I don't know how the DCR is with us bringing in, you know, other products into the Fells to make it more accessible, but I can look into the grant program on accessibility and report back. You know, I'm more than happy to do so. I think everyone should be able to use it. So I think that would be helpful.
[Unidentified]: All right. Thank you.
[Matt Rice]: So I was going to bring that up. It's like so that that it's our neighbor, right? Our partner. And this is DCR. And we have to have some conversations with them to understand sort of what the improvements are. I mean, sometimes when we see wetlands in that type of scenario, like an acceptable approach is to put in some type of elevated boardwalk that doesn't actually modify the hydrology as you go through and that's been acceptable, but there's obviously costs there and that would be construction outside of our site perimeter. So all these things, we're not gonna be able to solve them all today, but it's actually amazing to like hear about them today and start to sort of formulate this list and things that we're gonna investigate as we move forward. All right, so I'm going to push us forward, Kate, if you want to go into the next section.
[Erin Prestileo]: Sure. So the next section is about programming and operations. You all had shared some really great feedback with us about site amenities and the desire for this to be kind of a Medford destination that brings community and high school together. The truth is it already does that exactly. This is a high school, but the demographics of the site are much deeper than just 14 to 18 year olds and staff serving them. So I think you all know this, it's almost 1200 total students, pretty diverse population reflecting the diversity of Medford, about 130 teachers coming to school, teachers and staff coming to school every day. But bigger picture than that, because of the popularity of the pool and the fields at Edgerly Field, roughly a quarter of Medford residents report that they visit this campus 10 times a year or more. And so that's well beyond the population of students and families that might be coming for regular school and school events. The other thing that the site currently houses is the preschool program, and that, you know, could well expand. And so you do have families of much younger children, as well as younger children on site every day, and sort of their needs being met on this site. Beyond that, also the trails and the parking for trails really being a regional destination and a way to access the Fells throughout the weekends as well.
[Matt Rice]: So on the next slide, you'll see just big picture how to- Just to interrupt really quick, just on the preschoolers, so just for everyone's collective understanding, the Medford Early Education Program, that preschool program is not currently located onsite at the building. That is a program that's being considered to be consolidating early education here moving forward. So that is definitely part of the plan. The preschoolers that are here right now are probably through the Medford Family Network Program, or the kids corner daycare, which is a little bit younger in terms of the student population. So there definitely is a population here on site, but we're gonna be bringing more of those younger students here moving forward. I just wanted to clarify that for folks.
[Erin Prestileo]: Thanks so much, Matt. Yep, that's a great clarification.
[Matt Rice]: Sorry, Nick has one quick question. Perfectly okay, yes. Yeah, you're good. Sorry, Kate, keep going.
[Erin Prestileo]: OK, we couldn't hear the question, so hopefully we didn't need to respond. So just big picture, I think one of the things that we've been doing is categorizing the different types of programs that are currently on site. And at a squint, I think you can see that about 50% of the site is gray, as we discussed before. It's school roof and parking. And the majority of the rest of the space are edgerly field and the practice field. Those are big space users on site. Smaller programs kind of around the building immediately adjacent are highlighted in yellows and reds here. These are smaller gathering areas, older plazas, paved areas that were part of the original 1960s plan. and then the areas in red are the existing preschool play areas. Some of the areas facing the fells are the CTE yards and currently used for kind of outdoor program and storage as well. Big picture I think you know there's an opportunity to better integrate these spaces and kind of the daily life of the school as well as improve the overall condition and care of the spaces which you know have been durable for a long, many decades, but are reaching the end of their life. You all expressed quite a lot of good thinking about this last time we were together. On the next slide, We did do a little digging in terms of the city planning that has gone on, you know, has been undertaken in the past just to see if there were any amenities that the city has talked about in the past locating at the high school site in the future. We didn't find as much of that as we thought we might, but there are some great goals for the high school site in some of the recent planning about stabilizing bank, addressing erosion, addressing, you know, climate resilience, And, you know, diversifying the character and use of the space to welcome more community members. So I think on the next slide, you'll see that we've reflected back some of what we heard from you all about what that diversity could look like. There were a lot of great comments last time. especially in the written feedback about dedicated outdoor classrooms, about using the site as an outdoor laboratory for the CTE and the science programs, especially with its adjacency to the Fells. There were some great comments about hosting more community events and field days and joint programming between the Friends of the Fells and the high school. And then some of these comments, which align with the town planning documents about prioritizing climate resilience, and providing some buffer space between the more high-intensity uses, like athletic fields and parking, and the fells, which is a naturally more kind of quiet, introverted space for reflection and outdoor recreation. So we're curious, again, for you all to share, you know, what did we miss? What other opportunities and challenges are there related to the program, amenities on site, and any operational concerns about those amenities? specifically, I think, would love to hear about any desired program for the site that isn't currently hosted on site or an expansion of any of that program that is that we should really be focused on as part of the design process aspirationally. Jenny, I see your hand, so I'd love to go there first, if that's okay, Matt. Thanks.
[Jenny Graham]: You know, A couple of the things that we have talked about as we've been navigating through this process is increasing the number of athletic teams that can be supported on the site versus having to travel elsewhere in the community.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: And specifically our football team and our track teams, they have to go clear across the city without rail transportation, I don't think, to get to their field. And I think for practical reasons, what that translates to for the football team is they don't. And they practice on this wonky, dirty practice field. Yes. Um, and so I'm, I'm hugely interested in figuring out how can our site support. not just maintaining the two soccer lacrosse fields, but also, can we pull the stadium onto this site? And what would that take? And then the other thing I think about is our softball team and our baseball teams, those spaces are at a premium in Medford, too. I think the baseball team plays at Playstead, which is fairly accessible, but I don't think I actually know off the top of my head where the softball team plays. But I think it's not a walkable place. So I think when I think about all the athletics teams and what we're providing for, the site, as big as it is, doesn't really provide for athletics. And I think there's huge community interest in seeing our athletics teams grow and be more successful because I think the community really understands that that's part of belonging and feeling like you're part of something. But. The, the site does hinder that we don't talk about that so much, but the site does hinder that kind of activity as well. So, like, if you ask me, like, very all the parking under every playing field that you can jam onto the space so that we can have more more kids with more access, because those create barriers, especially to the kids who. are not transported to and from school by parents. And it just, it makes it harder for students to participate. And I feel like the students that we're disadvantaging are high needs students, which is the exact opposite of what we should be trying to do.
[Erin Prestileo]: Thanks, Jenny. Yeah, really well taken. Nicole I see your hand as well.
[Nicole Branley]: Hi, so I'm a softball in a baseball mom. And yeah so baseball is a place said like member Graham said walkable for the boys but they also have equipment. And so that's tough. And obviously, you know, the later the day gets or the colder the weather is, especially at the start, you know, my son's on the baseball team now. And so practice is in the cages there at the high school. But that does get moved outside and it's not on campus. And even practicing on Thursdays, they go for a run. But it's, you know, down the hill and up, you know, and I know that the track team is doing that too. The softball girls, my daughter just graduated Mefford High, as I can say, last year now, because we're in 2026, but their practice field and where they play is all the way across Mefford. It's in South Mefford at the Columbus Park. So it is as far as you can get from high school, literally, literally the opposite side, you know, to go from west to south. And so I know the challenges as a working mom, you know. those years that she was on the team that we couldn't drive her. It was like at the mercy of other parents who could or she didn't go, you know, or it was a grandmother or an aunt or whoever that, you know, could pitch in for a day. And it does, it gives kids a huge disadvantage that can't get there because there's usually is not enough time to say, well, hop on the bus and go. Yeah. That's not even, you know, and so a lot of the kids are also doing that if they can, but that's not always realistic either. So, but yeah, so the girls softball straight across the other side of the city. So just wanted to throw that out there. But yes, I agree with everything member Graham said about trying to get stuff to stay at school because it opens up a huge door for so many more of our students. So thank you.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, really appreciate that. Thank you. At some point, it would be helpful to talk with athletics about which things can share space seasonally. So I think we're open to that conversation when you all are ready to share. Matt, are there folks in the room? I don't see any other hands up online at the moment. Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: I have one other thing that hasn't been mentioned at all, that over the years, we've been asking students to work on gardening, like being able to do food gardening. And so you may have seen in the inner courtyard, they have gardens and they try to plant trees where you can eat the fruits and stuff. If there's a way to support that effort, planting apple trees and pear trees and having student clubs that take care of them and take the fruit and serve them in the cafeterias or hand them out to the kids or whatever. But thinking about edible landscapes, I think it's both supports what we've been hearing from the students over the past 15 years. as I've been doing this and provides a great example for the public.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. It's a great program idea.
[Matt Rice]: I think one of the notoriously challenging things about school gardens is sort of the primary sort of tending season is when nobody is here. So I think as we go down that road, what we want to do is find community groups that are willing to work with the school to make sure that those are maintenance during. That's really the key to making sure that those things work.
[Alicia Hunt]: The key to that is actually the design of the school and the footprint. Because where the garden made sense for them to put it in the inner courtyard that the general public can't just access during the summer without special permissions or special arrangements. So thinking about how and where you structure these things. And just in those lines, I love the idea that kids should be able to eat outside at lunchtime when the weather allows or during their breaks or whatever. I don't know where things stand right now, but over the years, there have been issues with all the classrooms looking down on the courtyard and it echoing and causing problems for teachers who want to open their windows and the kids in the courtyard, just normal talking is overwhelming. So just floating that out there, that's a building design issue that I'm hoping.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We have heard that and we definitely have heard this desire for outdoor dining in other venues.
[Maria D'Orsi]: That's great.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Teresa.
[Maria D'Orsi]: So I have two things. One is an easy question and then the second is a question slash comment. The easy one is, is the idea that Bedford Family Network will stay?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Okay.
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Brilliant. 100% yes. And then I, this is something I've just been thinking about since our last meeting was I have It's always bothered me that the high school is up on the hill. And when we talk about opening it up to the city of Ventura, that to me in my mind has been key and a big interest of mine in participating in this process. And I forget who it was at the last meeting that was talking about the hillside and the expense associated with grading it down to make it more accessible, which make it easier to walk and bike and be on mobility device and all of that. As I've been in the area, I've been thinking about the other challenges as well. And I was hoping that you could just spend a minute talking about them. Because you've got the celebration of the veterans that are, there's a memorial that's right there. And then you've got the Temple Shalom with Camp Six Acres. And then you've got some properties that are just like, what is the site coming from Winter Street? are you on a flagship lot? Like do you, how much access do you have to increase your presence right on Winthrop?
[Matt Rice]: So I don't know, Kate, whether we have a slide that shows the property line, maybe a little bit clearer here. It's tough for us to read on screen here. It's definitely an excellent question. It's not one that I'm 100% sure we'll be able to touch on today, but we can certainly wrap that into topics that we talk about moving forward and sort of give maybe a very enlarged version of sort of that drive up to show the property lines what we have and sort of who the exact neighbors are in terms of the role from Winthrop Street up to the building to understand that. And then certainly that question of elevation difference is something that we should talk to as a group as well, because it's there is sort of large scope implications in terms of making any modification to that. Definitely some potential benefits there, but also it would bring in some challenges, not just on the cost side, but also in terms of just the environmental impact side, in terms of doing some major land forming. It's not that it's impossible, because it's not, because we've done it recently in some other locations nearby, but it's definitely a sort of a big topic and definitely worthy of some discussion here for sure.
[Alicia Hunt]: Let's see, I think Kate has a slide couple of slides ahead of this where we will talk about the elevation. But just for the property boundaries, it is very narrow along that street. And the Fells actually kind of owns a piece of land in between those houses and the school. And so it's very tight to the existing footprint of the site and what's being used. So yeah.
[Erin Prestileo]: Amanda online has her hand up if that's possible to go there.
[Matt Rice]: Alright, we do one more question and then I think maybe we we push forward into the last piece, but we can always again circle back if we have time.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks so much. This is low priority, I think, in the scheme of some of the other things that have come up. But just because I haven't heard it, I figured I'd throw it out. As a learning environment could be a great opportunity, you know, if we're including things like green infrastructure on the site to have interpretive signage or other types of ways to invite both students and community members in to understand the site design. just feels like a cool opportunity. That's all.
[Erin Prestileo]: Absolutely. Yeah, really hear you there. And as Matt said in the beginning, we've divided your comments into these three categories, but they're all intersecting. And that's a great example of the way in which the physical site and the ecology can also be a program amenity that is tied to curriculum. So really appreciate that comment, Amanda. So that's a great transition to our last category, the physical site. So you all shared a lot of kind of love for the fells in both this conversation and last, and that idea of integrating the two is really powerful and a great opportunity here. We know the fells to be a really rich landscape with a lot of diverse species. It's one of the largest conserved areas of land in the region. and provides habitat for a wide variety of really unique New England species. It's also because of the level of disturbance, especially around the perimeter of the high school site, it's home of several invasive species. that are difficult to control that are on, you know, DCR's radar is something that I'd like to control more in the fells, but also at the sort of border between more developed areas like the high school and the fells. So these are in evidence kind of all around the site perimeter as you make it into the sort of deeper, more conserved areas of the fells. So a lot of opportunity to learn about stewardship, Amanda, both from a stormwater perspective, but also from an ecology and a native species perspective. On the next slide, you'll see just how much the fells really hug this site. It's a site that's been carved out of the fells, essentially. And you can see the way that forested environment surrounds the site really on four sides and how narrow that throat is of access along Winthrop Street. You also know this from your experiences in the fells, but that significant bedrock outcropping and the landscape of like the bedrock being exposed that is pervasive throughout the fells is also in existence on this site. So there are bedrock outcrops that are visible on site, both at the perimeter, but also in areas kind of around the fields and in between the fields. So we know bedrock is not far beneath the surface. The site team is doing some investigations now and we'll learn more about what lies below what you can see, but we are sure that there is plenty of bedrock sitting there. On the next slide, you can see just a rough approximation of how much grade the site is challenged to navigate. There's a series of several different plateaus that were carved out when the high school was built in the 1960s. That was an era of big landscape movement and not a lot of worry about moving ecological features and topography. So they carved out a series of plateaus, arranged those as pretty flat spaces, and have a series of pretty steep grades in between. Some retaining walls, but really a lot of kind of one-to-one slopes that have been eroding with stormwater management issues for quite some time now. So there really is, you know, about 80 feet, the series of plateaus. And as Matt said, the opportunity to think about how we work with that existing landscape as well as, you know, strategic areas where we modify those existing grades as we move forward. On the last slide, just a little bit of context about what you all had shared previously. As Amanda said, a lot of kind of aspirational thinking about designing with the site, locating the buildings, as Matt said, where it makes most sense from topography and drainage and environmental constraints, while also providing some room to be really smart about where buildings and programs should go. You all talked last time about a continuous band of protected space that really might start to address the invasive species and better bridge between the more developed areas of the high school and the more natural areas of the fells. Restoring that natural hydrology was important and thinking about stormwater management that is both reflective of the values of the school and Medford and good for the fells and Medford's environment and water quality. And then finally, These opportunities to share stewardship goals, as Matt said, to think about how students are leveraged for trail building, for stewardship, for learning about the habitat and the native environment of the fells as part of the educational program of the school. So with that said, just one more opportunity to really think about the physical site. We are curious, again, what we've missed, what challenges and opportunities do you think we really need to capitalize on? And are there any other kind of big hazards or things that we should know about as we think about the physical site?
[Alicia Hunt]: It's safe to say that you guys already know about the fact that there's been flooding issues with the water coming in out of the cell through the building. Okay. I figured because John's sitting here, you probably know that, but I figured we should say it.
[Matt Rice]: So yes, but I have no issue with anyone saying it over and over again, just to make sure that everyone out there is aware that this is happening, because it is a huge challenge right now in the building, and something that we have to definitely be paying attention to as we're thinking about any new construction, for sure.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Or renovation, sorry. I'm going to start talking obviously about it. We are going to make an outdoor classroom underneath the lab. Make sure that the spaces are accessible. Because you don't want to have a class when you have a disabled student. Oh, yeah, you can get out there.
[Matt Rice]: So Kate and everyone, I'm not sure if you heard Nick, but the comment was about the accessibility of outdoor classrooms to make sure that they're being designed with sort of universal design in mind. And we can't have outdoor spaces that are accessible only to the able-bodied.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, absolutely. We fully agree, Nick. And so You know, that's a real challenge on a site with 80 feet of grade change, but certainly both a requirement of ADA code and a priority of the design team to ensure universal access to gathering spaces, no matter where they are on site. So really appreciate that and get ready for some creative solutions to navigate all that grade.
[John McLaughlin]: Just getting back to why we're here is security purposes, keeping the kids safe in our classes, keeping the kids safe when they walk about. keeping, you know what I mean, not being intrusive, but keeping people safe.
[Erin Prestileo]: I couldn't hear that one either. Matt, could you share that?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, no, it's so that was from John. And really, it's the circling back on the topic that we're here about safety as one of our primary goals. And it's safety when we're moving around the building, when we're outside of the building in the fells as well. We have to sort of use that lens when we're thinking about whatever sort of design interventions we're going to propose from a site perspective.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yeah, thank you.
[Matt Rice]: I don't know if we have anybody else online.
[SPEAKER_24]: Hands up.
[Erin Prestileo]: No one else with a hand up right now.
[Matt Rice]: OK. We can shift forward then.
[Erin Prestileo]: Yep, there's. There's two versions of this, so any last comments and then I know that Laura wanted to talk construction logistics and make sure that we have time for that too. I'm just seeing a comment from Ethan about adding a mountain bike pump track. Love that Ethan will make sure that makes it into the notes.
[Matt Rice]: Alright. So again, we can. We can circle back on this if people have some thoughts that form, We want to talk about the most exciting aspect, which is construction site safety. It'll be the most exciting in a couple of months in front of us here.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Well, especially after you see the options and start to really imagine what could be happening on this site after our presentation tomorrow, you'll get to hear about things like phasing and the fact that there'll be active construction next to active school buildings And so there'll be different ways of separating this construction activity from the school activities. Things like scaffolding will give access to roofs and the mechanical and like roof maintenance that needs to happen there. There'll be emergency access maintained during construction. But as you can see from that top photo, sometimes that is a gravel road as pavement is taken up and we need to shift where that access happens. One of the biggest things you'll see was a lot of fencing around the active worksite. So wherever that construction is going on, there will be a fence around it to keep people out and to keep all of the people in. A lot of the ways that you can manage these different shifting active zones of construction is to have very clear temporary signage. You need to see big arrows pointing to where the buses need to go, where drop-off is happening, where the pedestrian routes are. And so this will create these safe, well-marked paths for users while all this is happening. Once more options are narrowed down and we have a better idea of what the different parts of the sites are that will be touched, of course, that's when the real logistics happen. And you'll see by the end an actual sort of like a plan, a map of like, this is what we're going to touch first. And this is where the people will park and where access will be. And then this is going to be the next phase and things will shift. But until we can develop options, we can't really lay out a plan like that. But that's the end goal for this construction logistics.
[Matt Rice]: I think I might add, Laura, just the fact that the author of those logistics plans is really someone that is not part of the team yet, which is going to be the construction manager that comes on board. We can certainly do a credible job of sort of trying to understand what some of the costs might be for that in advance. But in terms of actually doing all these things that Laura is talking about, the construction managers are the ones that they are the professionals there in terms of laying it out. to understand and convey to the entire community, staff, students, the larger community coming in to still use the resources that are live, how the whole thing will shift and evolve and morph over time, because it won't just be one construction logistics scenario. It's going to change as we go through the process, depending on the number of phases and the durations and all these things that will come into play later. This is a little bit more of a preview that we're sharing with everyone. And once the construction manager comes on board, or even as part of that selection process, there will be a lot of inquiring as to thoughts there and processes as to how to make that go safe. But safety is the absolute paramount consideration when we're talking about construction logistics on site, because it is a tricky population to make sure it is safe, right? But we have to protect them. from themselves sometimes in terms of everyone moving around. And that's really what the primary goal and outcome has to be.
[Kimberly Talbot]: So I don't know if we have- Matt, we have, Nicole has her hand up.
[Matt Rice]: Sure, go ahead, Nicole.
[Nicole Branley]: So just one thing I was thinking about yesterday when we were preparing for this meeting is where are the construction vehicles and, you know, just people coming to do the construction going to park? Just, you know, I know we said it was 476 spots now on a regular day. That doesn't seem like enough spots. So I just can't imagine all of these crews here, you know, taking up spots, teachers trying to park, you know, just the loop and I'm a mom that's dropping off every morning. So just thinking of all of that happening and sitting in that traffic with, you know, construction vehicles and just, you know, not even the vehicles, but just the people coming to work on the construction itself, just as a thought of like, will they have a, maybe like a satellite spot to park or, you know, just to throw that in, as just a thought moving forward is that, you know, with probably less space for parking with construction going on and construction workers coming, how, you know, just logistically where everybody would be parking. So just a thought.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, that is certainly one of those considerations. Like you mentioned, the satellite lot is seen or used pretty often in a dense urban environment where you don't have a lot of excess site to work with. They need to manage their parking with their lay down space with sort of all the other things that consume site area. And so it's certainly something that they are expert and need to sort of weigh in on. So we'll have to review that with them as they come on to the project team, whoever it ends up being.
[Nicole Branley]: Thank you.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah. So the question for folks online is how much of the school construction is going to be done during the school year and sort of timing of the day? And probably the answer there is that it's going to have to be done while school is in session, probably the entirety of a couple of years. So it's going to be the process of moving things around, establishing those safe sort of fencing lines in terms of where people are active and sort of coming and going. There's going to be no way to schedule things so that like construction only happens off hours or on weekends or during summer. Certainly they will use those opportunities where they are doing particularly noising activities or particularly disruptive activities to try to limit those to during sort of off hours from school. And there'll be a lot of coordination of that with the school schedule. but there's no way of avoiding it in terms of it going through. So that's, it's going to be something that has to be managed. And for those of you that are remote, I know that Marta, like when we started bringing up this particular topic, I could see the angst on her face trying to imagine all these things going on. But all of this will be done in very, very close collaboration with the school administration to be able to make sure that it's clear to everyone what's happening and that there's something completely objectionable that we find ways of working around that, whether it's MCAS days or other sort of quiet periods that need to be maintained.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Matt Rice]: So again, for folks online, the consideration that we just want to keep in mind is that we have to maintain accessibility during the entire course of construction, that we can't create inaccessible conditions at sort of those interim phases as we go. So that has to be wrapped into sort of the operational planning, the logistical planning as we go forward. It's a good point.
[SPEAKER_24]: Other folks online? Anyone has hands up?
[Unidentified]: There's a question in the text. Okay. Where will students have classes during construction?
[Matt Rice]: That is a great question as well. One that we don't know the answer to, but it will be some mixture of students having classes in pieces of the building that are remaining on site while construction is ongoing, and I fully appreciate the fact that there's a lot of variables there that we just are not have the ability to sort of fully answer just yet, but I can almost guarantee at some point there's going to be construction going on and there's going to be classes going on. in the existing building. There's also the potential of us using what are called temporary modular classroom buildings that are brought to the site as basically temporary classroom space that's going to be located somewhere. Again, we have no idea where that might be just yet or if it's going to be part of the mix, but it could be in there. So there could be students in temporary buildings at the same time as the existing building at the same time as construction is going on. So those are all sort of the things that we're going to be sorting out as we go forward here.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think that part of the space study is studying each interim phase so that there will be classroom space for all the programs, even as, you know, renovation and addition happens.
[Matt Rice]: So we have to we have to manage academic classroom counts in terms of making sure there's enough space for those classes to go on. We also have to make sure that CTE programs have shop spaces to go to somewhere. And those are specialized spaces. that are more challenging to do temporary versions of as we go forward. And then there's all sort of the specialized support spaces. And we're going to have, again, close conversations with the district and with the school administration to understand are there some of those spaces that we can't live without during the course of construction? Are there some spaces that we can make flexible use of other spaces or resources on site? The same thing could be said for fields, right? whether or not we have field access ongoing across the duration of construction is something we just don't know yet as we go through it. There's going to be an intense pressure on every inch of the site in terms of utilization. So we have to balance and juggle all those things as we go through, but it's not good. Those decisions don't get made in isolation and they don't get made by the contractor exclusively. They get made as part of a collective project city team discussion and decision.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Again, it's going to be a couple of obvious things. With that, I don't know if you can see, but a number of things have been done. First, the emergency routes, and there are also some things to be very careful about. You don't want to have some type of emergency, and then you only have this purpose, particular way, and then you leave it out. Oh, wait, you can get out this way. Ah, okay.
[Matt Rice]: So, again, the comment is really thinking about emergency planning and access as well, and during the course of construction, making sure that we're thinking about how to get people safely I think probably out of the building and out of the site in terms of overall considerations. All right so I think we may be good with that topic and again I'm just going to spend a couple minutes here forecasting where we're going and again if then there's any other final comments or Topics that people wanted to circle back with. We do have a couple minutes remaining, but we can also adjourn slightly early. So our third meeting is going to be coming on March 11th. I mean, I think the timing, yeah, so 530. We will be doing it as a hybrid approach. I think there's been some value here. We'll figure out our owl issues and we'll get some video working again. But I think there's been enough of a success here that I think having hybrid is valuable. And as we go forward, our next meeting is really going to look to create specific line item recommendations that can be forwarded to the building committee for inclusion in the project. And really, we're talking about cost considerations, I think, at this early juncture more than anything. And we'll categorize those into like a traffic light organization, which are green things that are given that everyone just agrees must be included in the project moving forward. We don't really need to talk about it as a group, but it will be there as a recommendation going to the Billing Committee. We're going to talk about flashing yellow items that are things that we talked about that there may be differing opinions on as to whether or not we're including them or doing some of these things. And so those will actually have a conversation at this next meeting upcoming. And there may also be red light items, right, that are just deemed to be by this group, probably not attainable, viable to be included in the project. And we want to sort of go on record as well that there was some discussion, there was some collective decision. And again, it's a recommendation to the building committee. The building committee could always disagree with those types of things and try to push things into a different category. But generally this process of letting the advisory team sort of the experts in each area come up with these sets of recommendations and then give them to the building committee, it's a good way of tapping into the expertise that we have collectively in each individual area.
[SPEAKER_19]: We know the choices to renovate or do full construction before these recommendations
[Matt Rice]: forward? So I don't know if we're going to have the 100% decision as to there, but we're definitely going to have some actual tangible options that are on the table that we can sort of look through the lens of every advisory team to say, what do we think about like this option versus the other option? And we can weigh in potentially as part of the process going forward. Ultimately, that selection is going to come from the building committee in terms of whether it's new construction or addition renovation. But we can certainly provide guidance as part of the advisory team.
[Matt Rice]: We can categorize as we go. I think the other thing just maybe the point out and we'll go back to the other advisory team. We'll try to get those sent out. in advance so people can think about them and consider them prior to coming to the meeting. Because I think that will make it a little bit more efficient for everybody to have a good conversation and just get consensus. Because that's what we want coming out of that third meeting is consensus so that we can push those recommendations up to the building committee. All right, John.
[John McLaughlin]: So when I look at an F at high school in general, I don't look at it as the public's entrance into the fells. It's not to me where the public goes to the fells. So right now at this point, we have dog walkers, we have track walkers, we have people that come in, park in the parking lot and go into the fells. If that on the security aspect does concern me, you know what I mean? I know we want everybody to use it, but we are not an entrance to the fells. So I think that somehow or another, that has to be put forward security aspect.
[Matt Rice]: So I think that's a great topic because I think I've heard like different perspectives of that here. And I think what we need to do is sort of come up with a collective recommendation because there's different viewpoints. And I think we need to just listen to sort of the logic behind each of them and then figure out, okay, what does that mean? Like, how are we proceeding with that as a project team?
[Alicia Hunt]: One thing to think about with that is, and how do we, maybe the city needs to bring this up with DCS more, but the reason people park here a lot, is that the bells don't really have parking lots. And when they do, they're small. And Medford residents don't like people parking on their streets. And so there are a lot of the streets along the bells are resident parking permit only. And I can tell you as a member of the traffic commission, that the reason that exists is because people who live on those streets petition to have their streets made permit parking only. And I think that's sort of, it's useful to have it elevated that it's a problem, And that we should be thinking about that. And should people be able to just petition to have Governor's Ave up near the Fells, permit parking only. The only reason people park up there is to go to the Fells. Yeah, it happens all over, all by the Mystic Lakes as well. So roads are all permit parking.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's okay, we need some spicy topics. Thank you, Joan. I mean, you're also a citizen, sir. As you mentioned, higher public schools are a lot of alumni, and there are certain situations where you get to comfortably from here. Like, if you go on the bells, there's probably certain places that people want to get you on the bells, but they only know from this background. And so, while it may not be a public entrance, you have a whole bunch of other guys that know that the felons come from this group. And so, there's all those out there as well.
[John McLaughlin]: Depends on how you look at it, because the fact that, like you guys, you all have to sign in with a badge. These people are coming on our campus and they don't have badges. You know, so there's, you know, you don't know who they are.
[Adam Hurtubise]: You have to be careful and you have to be safe. But I think there's also a matter of the fells. I don't know the reason, but at least it's a democratic party.
[Unidentified]: Definitely, it's a flashing yellow item that we're going to talk about as we go forward. I think that's definitely warrant some discussion.
[Matt Rice]: Thank you. I guess there's no one else online I assume that has their hand up at this point. All right, so we'll give everyone two minutes back. And again, thank you everyone for participation. This is really wonderful and appreciate everybody's perspective and time.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Thanks all. Bye-bye.
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