[Unidentified]: We're good? Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Welcome everyone. I hear like maybe a little echo from the room. All right, please be advised that there'll be a full building committee meeting of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee in person at the Medford High School Library at 489 Winthrop Street and via remote participation. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools YouTube channel and through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast 98 or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 or 47. The meeting will be recorded and you can join us on Zoom with the following meeting ID. It's 945-393-67116. The public is encouraged to reach out in the following ways. If you would like an official response from the project team, it's mhsproject.medford.k12.ma.us. And if you have a comment or perspective you'd like to share and aren't able to come join us in person or would prefer to do it that way, You can email the building committee members at mchsbc at medford.k12.ma.us and your email will auto forward to all members of the SBC. The public is invited to participate tonight and we do have a standing rule that people are allowed to speak once on any given topic for no more than three minutes. For folks online, if you do wanna speak during a topic, raise your hand, we'll hear from the committee first, and then we will get to anybody who wants to speak. And if you're here in person, we will make space for you to come sit so that you can be heard on the Zoom as well. So I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham here, Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Present. Dr. Galusi, present. Marta Cabral. Here. Kim Lord. Jen Belanger. Here. Libby Brown. Here. Maria Dorsey. Here. Brian Hilliard. Here. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Here. Liz Mullane. Here. Erin Olapade. Here. Luke Preissner. Here. Bob Dickinson.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Kim Clinton. Here. Chad Fallon.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Hodgkin here. Fiona Maxwell.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Fiona's not here tonight. Sorry.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Uh, Lisa Miller. Wilka Paselli here. Bill Santos here. And Dr. Talbot here. So we have 13 in the 13 present to absent and the meeting can be called to order. Um, the first item on the agenda is approval of the meeting minutes from September 10th, 2026. Is there a motion to approve the minutes?
[Unidentified]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: I can. And is there a second?
[Aaron Olapade]: Second.
[Jenny Graham]: By Aaron. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Paul has his hand raised.
[Jenny Graham]: Oh, sorry, what?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Paul has his hand raised. Oh, sorry. Not sure why.
[Michael Pardek]: Hi, I wanted to recommend. Hello, everyone. I just wanted to recommend an amendment to the minutes. OK. It says two things. It says that currently there are seven MEEP classrooms across the district and the project would increase it to 11 in the district while freeing up space at other schools. And my understanding from Dr. Galusi and others that adding 11 MEEP classrooms does not mean that there will be no MEEP classrooms in the existing elementary schools. but it could sound like going from seven current to 11 in the district means that this would be putting all the eggs in the basket of the new high school. So I would recommend saying, increase it to an additional 11 in the district.
[Jenny Graham]: Or 11 at the high school. Yes. Okay. And did you have one other thing, Paul?
[Michael Pardek]: The minutes are out of order from how the meeting actually happened. Does that matter? Does anybody else care?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so Paul, we just followed the flow of the agenda, which is why they're a little unsequenced. So I think that's OK as long as it's accurately reflected.
[Unidentified]: That's fine.
[Jenny Graham]: So Ken, are you willing to accept that amendment? Yes. And Aaron?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. Any other questions about the minute? I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galussi. Yes. Marty Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Mullane. Yes. Erin Olapade. Yes. Luke Kreisner. 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent, the minutes are approved. The next thing we have on our list here, taking this like just slightly out of order. Actually, is there a motion to take the adjacencies and efficiencies out of order?
[John Falco]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: I can, second. Nicole, thank you. We're going to take this out of order. I'll just call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galussi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Jen Lord. Yes. Jen Belander. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Malone. Yes. Aaron Olapodich. Yes. Luke Kreisner. 13 affirmative, zero on the negative, two absent. We'll take this out of order. Okay, so we're gonna focus the first part of the meeting just as we did last time on some of the project adjacencies and efficiencies for a myriad of spaces, including our core academic spaces, Medford Academy, special education outside of MEEP, Chapter 74 programs, non-Chapter 74 lab spaces, and the media center. So I'm going to turn it over to the project team, and we're going to take this one bite at a time. So let's get started.
[Matt Rice]: All right. And I just want to start off by reminding everyone the context through which all these efficiencies have come out in terms of our process. So since we met two weeks ago, we have been continuing to have our schematic design programming meetings. with many of the departments programs that are located here in high school as well as some of the outside programs as well. And so those meetings are not exclusively focused on space efficiencies, but they certainly have all included the topic of space efficiencies. We're also getting the necessary program data that we need for the schematic design phase. We're talking more about layouts and space allocations in addition to trying to make sure that we can identify any efficiencies that exist. We're also checking to make sure that we have included everything that the programs need to operate in case we didn't collect everything during the course of the first series of meetings that we did. Or if things have changed over the course of the past year, we need to make sure that we're staying current with where planning for education is going, as well as with the educational plan itself. So I just wanted to give that context because we're not We're having a lot of meetings. There's, again, more than 50 in total. There's probably anywhere from three to six individuals that come to each one of these meetings. The superintendent has been at just about every one of them with us. There's been an incredible amount of time invested in these program and discussions as we've been going through them. And so we're gonna start off with core academic spaces. We have met with just about all the core academic departments. ELA, math, world language going through. And so we have enough of a critical mass here that we have reviewed through that we do have some recommendations in terms of efficiencies that are here. But just to go through all the different spaces that are included under the umbrella of core academic spaces. We have all the general classrooms for the school. So there's 48 of those. We have the general teacher planning, shared teacher planning spaces, 10 of those, each about 470 square feet. Small group seminar spaces, three of those, again, part of the MSBA guidelines that are there. 12 science labs at that 1,440 square feet, which is listed and required. Prep rooms associated with the science labs, one central chemical storage room, large group instruction rooms that we talked about previously and then some academic support hubs which are intended to provide a space for tutoring and supplemental instruction both in terms of teacher-to-student as well as peer-to-peer tutoring as an environment. So the efficiencies that were identified here are really circling around the topic of the size of the general academic classrooms right. There's a large volume of them. throughout the school. And as a reminder, we were at 950 square feet previously in terms of what we had planned. That is at the upper end of the range for what the MSBA would allow us to build. So the very largest that we had. And where we've landed or where the suggestion for the efficiency is, is now down at 900 square feet. 900 square feet was still deemed to be larger than sort of in the middle of the range. We're allowed to go anywhere between 850 and 950 per the MSBA. So we're getting additional square footage above and beyond the minimum. But this was also bringing us more into alignment with some of the peer communities around that had built new high schools. So we didn't after surveying local school projects both that are in design right now ones that have been completed. We did not find any that were above the 900 square foot mark. So we're bringing it down to sort of an equivalent number throughout, while still providing some amount of additional square footage. And seeing it really as an opportunity because it does reflect itself, not just in the general academic classrooms, but there are other spaces that are tied to that module. of 950 square feet. For instance, the academic support hubs were seen as like a half classroom size space. So that one is also suggested to go from 475 down to 450, half of the 900. And we'll be seeing that also as we jump and we look at Medford Academy, as well as when we look at some of the special education spaces, because a lot of the special education spaces are meant to be analogous to whatever the general academic spaces are. So beyond the total square footage shavings that's identified here, we'll see it in the next couple slides as we go forward as well. Are there any questions there, or does anyone want to add anything in terms of the dialogue?
[Jenny Graham]: Libby?
[Matt Rice]: I think this is an easy one.
[Jenny Graham]: How many students, roughly, do we expect from each of these classes? Like 25?
[Matt Rice]: I think it's 27, potentially.
[Jenny Graham]: 27 is the max in most classes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Science is 25. But there is a wide range from class to class. I would say max of 27. Max of 27. Yeah.
[Aaron Olapade]: Is there a square footage to pupil number to determine how you quantify the amount at all.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah so it's not as formulaic as it is for like science labs or it's very straightforward that it's 60 square feet because the National Science Teacher Foundation recommends 60 square feet per student and that's just like a safety regulation chart. In terms of what MSBA states they ask us to design to 23 students per classroom that's sort of what their general the space summary is really meant to anticipate as it generates the number of classrooms. But they have that range, right, from 850 to 950. So I think they acknowledge the fact that there's some variability in there. It's not a strict number of square feet per student in the general academic classroom.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions? Lisa, I have a question. One is just a straightforward. How many current general classrooms do we have in the building? 65? Something like that?
[Matt Rice]: Somewhere in that range, I would have to pull up the space somewhere.
[Maria D'Orsi]: And then with the teacher planning room, one of my concerns, I guess, about the new building is that there will be teachers sharing classrooms. And that will be a big change from a teacher perspective. I have heard from conversations with teachers at other schools that there's There's more successful ways than others. Some are more successful in making that transition to teachers not having their own classroom and having a separate teaching and planning area. I guess what I'm wondering about is with the teacher planning, it looks like there's 10 smallish rooms for teachers. Is that based on surveys of other schools that have gone through that kind of transition? Is that adequate? plan? Are they communal spaces? Are there individual offices available for when teachers need privacy for either conversations with other staff members or parents or just need a quiet space to work?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, it's a great topic. And I think what even when we get together for our programming being if we have a little bit of time, I would love to hear so that direct feedback that you've been getting from other instructors that have been through that process and maybe have some takeaways from it. I will say that the 470 square feet and the 10 quantity of those spaces teacher planning spaces is a direct pull from the MSBA space summary at this point. But as we move forward and we actually look at the distribution of classrooms and where the teacher planning spaces are best located distributed throughout the building both vertically and horizontally we will potentially look at reallocating, like within that 4,700 square feet, it might be better. And I think that maybe is what you were alluding to, that if we have five of them, let's say that are 540 square feet a piece, just to sort of provide a bigger critical mass or somewhere in between. And I think the right number is gonna be a combination of both the square footage and sort of the resources that are allowed, it allows for within each room, but also how they're distributed throughout the building to make sure that teachers have easy access to them from their adjacent classrooms, wherever they may be.
[Jenny Graham]: I believe there was a letter from a community member talking about her experience.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I believe it was at Somerville High School.
[Matt Rice]: Special education instructor, yeah.
[Maria D'Orsi]: She was a science teacher. Oh, really? Okay. I believe. But I think like listening to those stories and that experience is going to be really critical for making that transition. I just want to make sure that we're having that thoughtful approach early on.
[Jenny Graham]: Appreciate it. Let's see, other hands.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Through the chairman, can I ask a question?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Can you just go over your data collection, Matt? Because you said that all the newer schools are building to 900 or less. Could you just maybe break that down a little bit more? Are they building, how many are building to 850, 875, and then how many are actually building the 900?
[Matt Rice]: So I don't have the specific figures in front of me. I would say that there was probably a higher percentage that we're building to the 850 number versus the 900. There was even a couple outliers that may have been down to like an 825 as a number. The generalities, I cannot recall the exact number.
[SPEAKER_16]: Well, Salem is in there.
[Jenny Graham]: Their project right now is 900 square feet classrooms, square foot classrooms. And they have a bigger max class size than others, which is what led them to consider it. Theirs is the same as ours, yeah.
[Matt Rice]: Which is higher than that 23, which is what the RSPA is basically.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So if the majority were building to the 850, do they have less class size minimum, maximums or are we just just trying to get an idea of we should vote just for cost savings, not because we don't want larger spaces, which we all do just for cost saving purposes was 850 or 875 discussed.
[Matt Rice]: It was certainly discussed in terms of what the proper reduction might be to still sort of satisfy the education levels. I think it does tie to the fact that there's the 27 student maximum policy at Bedford High School versus the 23 that is going to be more prevalent and sort of aligned maybe more with the MSBA calculations as they lay them out. I think the other rationale behind the 900 is the fact that there is a lot of good use of the co-teaching model here at Medford High School, which means that there is a special educator, a second teacher in the space with the other students and wanting to create a little bit of separation for those students and for the teachers as well within the sort of the primary classroom environment. As well as a push to try to focus more on project based learning activities and group learning activities, which is inherently require a little bit more space. So all those things are combined to drive us towards the 900 square foot recommendation.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Just my last question. We don't usually have up to 27, but obviously there's a maximum in the CBA. Was it discussed or could we maybe amend this tonight and do half the spaces at 850 and half at 900? So just in case we happen to have those classes of 27, up to 27, we have the 900 square foot spaces. And then for classes that are 15 to 20, we have the smaller spaces.
[Matt Rice]: I think the only challenge with that from a design and planning standpoint is that we promote like a structural grid perspective. We need to plan a consistent resource of classrooms throughout the building so that it's less variable. If we were to create multiple sizes too, I think that would restrict or constrain how the spaces are scheduled. because it would be meaning that we would be looking for those smaller spaces when you have a smaller class and that might be at odds with say where we might want to put a social studies room versus a math class and sort of mixing those up. So I'm not, it seems like it would be a challenging approach. I can't say that we have ever, we've seen sort of that breakdown of slightly different classroom sizes from that approach probably because of the two rationale that I just suggested.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions or comments?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I don't know. Sorry. With the science classrooms, are those also shared spaces, or will the science classroom map, or will they be assigned to individual teachers? I know that one of the things that had come up is that science classes need a lot of prep for experiments and stuff, and having access to that classroom
[Jenny Graham]: being able to set things up, what's important from what, you know, the letters I was sent in and just sort of common sense once you listen to, you know, the science teacher.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I guess what I'm wondering is, does the 12 cover the full number of rooms that are needed or are those spaces also shared?
[Matt Rice]: I would have to look at the utilization to understand sort of where the current classes are. The 12 number is driven by the MSBA formula though, in terms of the quantity. So we don't get a lot of variability to respond to that type of concern, the quantity of rooms. What I will say is that there are prep rooms associated with each one of the science labs. So typically two labs will share one prep room. So that can certainly be used for prepping lab activities within that space and then brought into the lab space throughout. One thing that we can do as we advance in the design is look at putting direct doors from the hallways into the prep room so that teachers don't need to pass through a lab to get into the prep room, though we do do that pretty often as well. But just to try to facilitate maybe sort of prep time areas for of science teachers if they're not in that space the entirety of the day. It is usually a little bit more fixed, I would say, for science teachers than a social studies and math and ELA teacher, just because those spaces are a little bit more interchangeable, even though we don't typically switch between departments. So you wouldn't have necessarily an English teacher and a math teacher teaching in the same space, because there still wants to be instructional material that's up on the walls. and sort of still have it feel like that type of space.
[Unidentified]: Aaron?
[Aaron Olapade]: Can you just add a little bit of context about what the large group instructions generally would be used for? I know, obviously, it was requested that it would be reimbursable, and MSB said not necessarily for this. Can you just add a little bit more clarity about what they would actually be used for?
[Matt Rice]: Sure, yeah, just to clarify that note, and we can clarify it if it's not coming across in the note right now, but MSB has not gotten back to us yet as to whether or not it is reimbursable. So that's something that we'll be talking about then as we move forward. Really, the large group instruction spaces are intended to really be as flexible as possible in terms of how they can get used during the course of both the school day and after school as well. So some of the use cases that are viewed there certainly is the language lab, which we removed in the last go-round, the potential of using the flat four configuration for that. They're also intended to have some flexible stadium seating at the back so that they can be used also as that black box theater environment, whether it's for classes that want to hold small performances during the course, of normal curriculum during the year. But those are those stadium seats are not fixed. So we don't have a tiered floor space but can be opened up into flat floor areas. So they can also be used for having guest speakers to come in and talk to multiple classes at the same time. They will be outfitted with EV capabilities so that it can be used for remote conversations with speakers from other countries, even the different languages to try to interact. So there's a lot of sort of richness built into the technology as well as sort of the flexibility of the space to allow for a lot of different functionality. After hours, we've been talking about it even as like an environment for an e-sports competition or for Model UN, just a lot of different potentials for it in terms of how it can actually layout.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I'm going to just add to that too to say. After hours, I mean Albert can talk about the professional development use and the fact that we do get feedback from teachers, even most recently August 31st about how we don't have enough space district wide and holds like professional development for teachers in larger spaces that are comfortable and not sitting on seats in the cafeteria without backs on them for like all day training.
[SPEAKER_16]: And I would also say it allows the principal the flexibility to hold like grade level assemblies, and also a space for honestly, like not the glamorous part of like covering classes when teachers are absent, and you may have to pool
[Jenny Graham]: multiple classrooms in one space because we don't have substitutes to cover in all of the spaces where there is a teacher absent. So having a space like that that's flexible enough for that wide range of use is not only really the critical component of it, but also why we feel it should be reimbursable. Other questions, Paul?
[John Falco]: Healthy, you know, I've seen our current rooms we use when we don't have subs, we never have enough subs, but so we file a bunch of kids in, right now it at least is like their seats and chairs, whether they're comfortable is another conversation. But in this kind of a space, I mean, is it wide open and we'd have to like, every day we'd have to have custodial take care of setting it up to be a room to hold students this day. And then another day it's going to be professional development. And I have to do all that set up. I'm just trying to think about the transitions between the uses. And what I'm worried about is it's just going to become another one of lecture halls where we put all the kids because we can't get subs. And that's its entire purpose, year after year, day after day. And if that's the case, I'd rather us design them a comfortable space to pose our students when the teachers are out, rather than, you know, have custodians just throw a bunch of chairs in. Good luck to the teacher that's going to cover that space. So I'm just wondering if you have thoughts on that. That's really for the Supreme Court.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: I just want to add to the point. Sure, Maria. Adding to your question, are all three spaces going to be designed exactly the same, or will they be
[Maria D'Orsi]: customized so that one would be more comfortable for student use with, you know, stadium seating and the other may be easier to set up for a black box theater.
[Matt Rice]: So to just answer that specific question, so there are the two spaces will be separated by an operable partition that allows it to be combined into one larger space or have the two spaces function independently, but because We're trying to create some more flexibility to it. We want to provide the same opportunity and resources in both spaces. So they would both have the opportunity to pull out tables and chairs in that could also be used for PD or other sort of flat floor activities. But they would also both have sort of an area of operable seating as well, just to provide a little bit of more of a have a small auditorium, sort of that black box theater type of field that would also be good for smaller presentations.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Pelosi? I would say, well, Principal Cabral is on the call, so I would want her to chime in.
[SPEAKER_16]: But we do get subs.
[Jenny Graham]: It's true that there's never enough, but we have been quite grateful about the amount of subs that we are getting. But I would say just to probably extend what Matt was saying, we haven't totally gotten into that part of the conversation in terms of what the furniture layout could be. Could there possibly be some sort of adjacent or built-in storage that you can easily roll things in and out of if we do have the stadium seating in there? And maybe one gets used more frequently for that purpose and has the furniture out more frequently than the other one, because they will be, I know they will be located next to one another. So we have that flexibility for larger groups. But I don't know if Marta wants to extend at all anything in this conversation or if you feel that captured it.
[Marta Cabral]: I think you captured it, Dr. Lucey. I mean, we do have substitutes that come in daily and we have gotten more, but we do have, depending on the season and the month, several teachers that are out where we do need a space. I would like to not use the large group instructional spaces as holding rooms for students that don't have a teacher. I'm hoping with more spaces in the building, such as the cafeteria and different landing spots that we could use it and really open this up for teachers to be able to use for seminars. We've had a lot of AP classes that, you know, are more seminar-based and more discussion-based. So the flexibility to me is really important. The seating, I don't think we've gotten too much into, but now my head's spinning a little bit as to how we can outfit it to accommodate both when we need it for students to be in there for a class period, but also to be able to use it for instructional spaces is really important, I know, to me and the administration.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I would just make a motion. I would make a motion to make half the spaces 850 square feet and half 900. I think that during the design phase we can flesh out and develop that and I'm sure we can handle it. And I know that Arlington also did half and half, so it's something that has been designed before.
[Jenny Graham]: The motion is to accept this recommendation, but also make half of the general classrooms 850 square feet. Is that the motion?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Well, the recommendation is to make them all 900. So I'm just amending the recommendation to make half 900 and half 850.
[Jenny Graham]: There's a motion by Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Is there a second? I am not hearing a second. Is there another motion?
[Aaron Olapade]: I'll motion to approve the recommendations as listed.
[Jenny Graham]: Motion to approve the recommendations as written by Aaron. Seconded. Seconded by Brian. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lundo Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Malone. Yes. Aaron Olapade. Yes. Luke Preissner. 13 affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent. The motion is approved. Next up, I think we have our Medford Academy space.
[Matt Rice]: So this was positioned just after the core academic classrooms. And it may be the result of why things got adjusted. But just this is sort of a logical follow on. The Medford Academy classrooms were previously sized at the 950. So they would also be reduced to the 900. And the one workspace that's dedicated for Medford Academy was previously at the 475. So again, the half-size module from the full-size classroom. So these adjustments would just follow in line with those general classroom modifications. There's only two classrooms for Medford Academy. There's that one workspace, and then there's also one office for the Dean of Student Success.
[Jenny Graham]: Any questions on this section? Matt, I did have a question. I thought that MSPA came back and said that this is reimbursable space for Medford Academy.
[Matt Rice]: I can go back and look again. I don't believe it was. I think just because it was over the threshold of the guideline in the core academics, generally what they had looked at was things that were allowable, not reimbursable, but we can go back and just double check that.
[Jenny Graham]: If we could just clarify that before we post, because I thought I remembered being like, surprised, actually, that they did deem this reimbursable. So if we could just clarify that before we post. So we'll check that. That'd be great.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Maria, does Medford Academy currently have two classrooms?
[Maria D'Orsi]: They do. Yes. There's a humanities classroom and a STEM classroom. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Liz? How many students attend Medford Academy? Right. Martha right now it's 19.
[Marta Cabral]: So right now we're at about 18. It is fluid. We started with 16 and we're up to 18 in January after the first semester. We'll look at enrolling more students but really our core max is 18 students based off of the size of the spaces that we currently have. They're in two office spaces as classrooms. But we do want to, obviously, with more space, increase that. And we do have a waiting list for Medford Academy students.
[Unidentified]: Will? Marta, can you just explain kind of what Medford Academy is and maybe why a student would go there?
[Marta Cabral]: Sure. Primarily, it is for overage, undercredited students, so students that haven't found success in the traditional general education classrooms. Most likely they've been retained for a year, meaning that they've had to repeat a grade. Medford Academy provides a more flexible pathway for students, so it's competency-based rather than, you know, checking all the boxes off for like homework completion and tests and quizzes and so forth, where they're really looking at big picture conceptual thinking. project-based learning to ensure that they've met the standards for Medford High School graduation requirement. There's also pathways where students can get credit recovery. That's where the workspace really comes in play in this, where if a student is in there and not taken elective, let's say, or they have a space in their schedule because they're an upperclassman, they can do credit recovery to earn credits that they haven't been able to earn in the past. Students right now are not on IEPs, it's not for a special education program that we have the TLP program for, so these are just students that are not finding success in the general classroom, we've really exhausted all of the options of tier one, tier two interventions. And we're really at that tier three intervention for them to successfully graduate within the four years is our goal to get students to and through Medford Academy.
[Jenny Graham]: There are other questions about Medford Academy or the proposal. Is there any overlap between Medford Academy
[Maria D'Orsi]: and Curtis Tufts, is there any potential there? I guess I'm just not sure. I know currently they're two very separate programs, but if everybody's in the same building, do we still need both programs? Is there any collaboration or kind of efficiency in having them work closely? I'm not familiar with those programs, but it just, it jumps out to me that there seems to be some overlap. Dr. Belusy or Kamsky? So, Medford Academy doesn't require students to be identified as having a disability, whereas Curtis Tufts is a public therapeutic day school that requires an IUC for students to attend. Dr. Belusy?
[Jenny Graham]: But to also kind of extend that, and we haven't totally gotten into this, but there has been some discussion over, and we said this in the last meeting, over like thoughtful adjacency of these two programs, because as we all know, our goal here is to make this possible, because we don't know what the needs are going to be of either program necessarily in five, 10, 15, 50 years from now. So I think with the adjacency of these programs being right near each other will allow for some of that if we find that
[Maria D'Orsi]: one program needs more space or less space, I think we will have the ability to flex between those two spaces, depending on the needs of the students.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Other questions?
[Jenny Graham]: Is there a motion?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I motion to approve Medford Academy
[Jenny Graham]: efficiencies in space. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion to approve the recommendation by Dr. Galusi, seconded by Liz Mullane. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo, current.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Liz Mullane? Yes. Erin Olapade? Yes. Luke Preissner? 13 affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent. Medford Academy recommendations are approved. Moving on to special education. So this is, as you recall, at the last meeting, we talked about the MEET programming, which is also part of special education. So tonight, we are talking about everything but me. I will turn it over to Matt.
[Matt Rice]: We don't have a plan necessarily to illustrate where all these spaces are, and that's mostly because they're pervasively located throughout the entirety of the high school. There are a lot of different spaces, so we have a couple slides to run through all of them. We'll also talk about the size of the Curtis Tufts classrooms within this sphere, because as Kim mentioned, it is technically part of a special education program, and they will adjust along with the sizes of the general academic classrooms. It's generally the reductions and the efficiencies that we found here are either tied to that general classroom size reduction or they were identified by the educators as we were going through the detailed discussions of what is required and what is not required or what could be adjusted as we went through the discussions. So I'll just work my way through the list here. And certainly if Maybe if there's any questions as I go through the individual items, we can talk about them rather than waiting all the way to the end. Cause again, there's another slide that comes through here. So just starting up at the top, the resource rooms were intended to be half size classroom spaces. And so they are reducing from 475 square feet to 450 square feet. There were five of those rooms. There were two small group rooms at 250 square feet. That would remain constant. There were 10 150 square foot breakout rooms intended for a smaller number of students and potentially a teacher in those spaces as well. Those are more for pullout services versus push in one sensory room at 300 square feet. One OT space that is an office space where students would also be seen, houses both the occupational therapist and an assistant. One office at 160 square feet. Evaluation space for occupational therapy at 150 square feet. Two speech rooms at 200 square feet, where up to five students would be seen in groups in that environment. For physical therapy, which was also an alternative PE space that was sized at the typical classroom space. So it would be reduced from the 950 square feet down to 900. There was an office for the physical therapist as well at 150 square feet. We did have one special education reading small group room. It would drop from the 475 to 450. The, within the office suite that supports the special education program as well, a dedicated staff. So one reception waiting area at 150 square feet, which is also housing an administrative assistant within that space, a dedicated office for the special education coordinator, three offices for the evaluation team leaders, each at 200 square feet. Those offices are a little bit bigger because they do allow for smaller IEP meetings to happen, um, within the footprint of the office space itself. Um, one conference room, um, again, a little bit larger to handle larger IEP meetings, um, that have a frequency enough to drive that need for a dedicated conference room. Um, one records room at a hundred square feet. Um, and then it was also identified that, um, there was a dedicated office needed for the BCBA. So that was added back in. And so when we get to the next slide and look at the overall total net savings when we put all this up, that would actually be in addition to versus an efficiency that was found. So let me pause there for a second, because that's a lot of lines, and see if there's questions on any of these items before I jump to the next slide.
[Jenny Graham]: Questions on any of these spaces? Darren?
[Aaron Olapade]: Just to clarify, the speech rooms, is that primarily for SLP work. Yes, yeah.
[Matt Rice]: I'm going to look at Kim also for all these.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm just curious what BCBA stands for. Are there any other questions on this page before I move on?
[Matt Rice]: Worth noting, I think also just All the special education space is reimbursable by MSBA. It does all get reviewed as a collection in a separate submittal to DESE at the end of the schematic design phase, just to make sure that each of the spaces is justified and tied to a particular function within the special education department. But all this is reimbursable space.
[SPEAKER_16]: All right, next page.
[Matt Rice]: All right, so now we're getting into some of the more sub-separate specialized special education programs. So the access classroom, which is a medically fragile student program that has one classroom at 1200 square feet, as well as a dedicated toilet, which is sort of, it has an instructional connection to it. And that's generally when the toilet rooms have been called out as individual program items here, net usable square footage versus That may be accessible off the hallway. It is are usable by some of the students programs if they're physically capable of being able to access those toilet facilities. So, down below that, we have. Living labs, so the living lab are mock apartments where life skills are taught. And so there is one of those spaces for the access program for the higher level students. And then there is one for the project transition program as well. And then as we get down below, so the project transition is for 18 to 22-year-old students. It's sort of a general grouping. The LGP our Learning Group Program classrooms are again sub-separate rooms that are going to be reduced from the 950 down to the 900 square foot typical classroom sizing so that's the efficiency there. There is a reset room associated both with the Learning Group as well as the Therapeutic Learning Group programs. 200 square feet. There are also four classrooms for the TLP spaces. Those are typically at, they were previously at 950, they're dropped to 900. One of them is intended to be a science lab, but the reason that these don't have to be 1,440 square feet is that their size down to 15 students, which we multiply it out by the 60 square feet per student, still gets you to the 900 square feet. So we're still in an acceptable range from that functionality. So we had previously identified having two TLP offices or small group rooms, sort of combination spaces, and those were identified as not being needed. for the program moving forward. So those are suggested to be removed from the program entirely, each of those at 200 square feet. The connection classrooms are spaces that are being introduced to the high school to really build upon the spaces, the ASD spaces that are present at the elementary and middle school. Those students are matriculating up into the high school So we have two of those classrooms planned, again, dropping from 950 to 900 to align with typical classroom sizing. Similar as well for the project transition classrooms that we talked about earlier. With project transition, there was a workspace in the sensory room included with that, that was previously sized at a half classroom size. Through discussions, it was really understood that a smaller space could be completely adequate for that functionality. So that dropped from 475 to 150 square feet. And then down below that, we haven't relisted all the Curtis tough spaces. We talked about those at the last building committee meeting, but we have listed those spaces that are connected again to that typical classroom size space. And so we're dropping from 950 to 900. And that includes the community lunchroom as well as the classrooms. So we do have the total production and net square footage down at the bottom as well, just in terms of the sum total of all those adjustments throughout. That's $1,625 net square foot savings.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there any questions about the special education spaces? Maria?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: I just have a question about the rooms themselves, the small rooms. Are they in the interior? Do they have windows? Because I know you had said before, you're trying to have every room have natural light. So these rooms, even those small rooms, will have natural light?
[Matt Rice]: That is the goal. And we have to get into the layout and make sure that we can achieve that goal. But certainly, the larger classroom sizes, wherever they would, in a general academic setting, have a window, we will be aiming to make sure that the special education spaces match that entirely. I can't say for 100% that every single space right now in the entire building, both general academic and special education will all have windows. But when they don't have a direct exterior window, we'll have some borrowed light opportunities, some opportunity for vision of daylight or sort of other activity through the spaces. And if there are any, it would be a very sort of vast small proportion in terms of compared to the rest of the spaces. Some of the spaces specifically like a small sensory room may not even want to have windows for it. It may just want to feel more sort of just enclosed and separated with sort of modulated lighting, that type of thing.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there questions about special education spaces?
[Maria D'Orsi]: We thought the elimination of the TLP office Is there space for staff to have office space? I forget everything we went on the previous slide. Will there be places where they can do their planning, prep, report writing? I know that says Councilors can use breakout or reset room, but I'm assuming those are used by students at times. So if a teacher needs a workspace, will there still be room?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so they would have, special educators would have the same access to the shared teacher planning spaces that general educators would throughout the building. So it's meant to, again, integrate and sort of bring different staff members together in that environment.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Okay, and the staff in the special education program don't feel like they need special offices?
[Matt Rice]: I think where there were needs for special offices, they have been preserved, but in that particular instance, it was not identified as.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Dr. Galusi, and I do think it's important that for this meeting, they were all at the table.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there questions about special education spaces? Is there a motion?
[Unidentified]: Motion approved.
[Jenny Graham]: Motion approved by Brian. Is there a second? Second. Libby? Paul Malone? Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galuzzi? Yes. Marta Cabral?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord? Yes. Jen Belanger? Yes. Libby Brown? Yes. Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard? Yes. Tracy Keene? Paul Malone?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Mullane. Yes. Erin Olapade. Yes. Luke Preissner. 13 affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent. The motion is approved. Okay. Moving on to our next section, which is chapter 74 CTE spaces.
[Matt Rice]: So this is another long set of categories. We have plans here as well either just because there are a good number of programs and again CTE spaces are located throughout the entirety of the building. I will also caveat by saying we haven't gotten through 100% of the 17 CTE programs that we have instructors for today that are currently here. Um, just because we haven't been able to get through. I think the rest of them may be scheduled for a combination of tomorrow and Thursday of this week. Um, so when we come back on October 6th, um, we'll potentially have some additional discussions. I know we haven't got the opportunity to release that for instance, um, and a few others. Um, so what we'll see is a good percentage. It's probably roughly 75%, um, of the programs, sort of 19 that are there. Um, And we're just going to run through them. These are not unfortunately in alphabetical order. They're in the order that we actually met with everybody. And so it's just sort of recounting history in that way. So let's start off with early childhood education. So the efficiency that was identified there was that we previously had dedicated student toilet rooms there, some combination of toilet rooms for both early education students that may be visiting the high school space or for high school students or faculty associated with that. And through discussions, it was confirmed that we don't necessarily need to plan for that. If early education students are visiting, there would be in the general vicinity of Kids Corner or Meat their students would have the ability to interact with and they could be brought back to sort of a nearby classroom or a general use toilet within the hallways. So we didn't need to dedicate space within the shop for that. The rest of the spaces within, so their primary shop space is sized at 1,500 square feet. There is a related room that was confirmed as being needed at 850 square feet. Just as a reminder previously as some of the efficiencies that were identified before we issued the preferred schematic report we did reduce the related classroom sizes from the 950 at that time to 850 because of the less frequent need for the co-teaching model within those classrooms and the fact that their project-based activities are happening in their adjacent shop spaces. So it's a little bit more of a traditional classroom format that still will serve the need of what they have for enrollment within those classes. And then there is a dedicated storage room as well for manipulatives, mats, things that are basically being stored to simulate early education instruction within the high school space. So the toilet room was the one efficiency from early childhood education. Business marketing we did meet with as well. There we we confirmed that the 2200 square foot shop space was efficient. They did not have a related classroom previously identified. That was part of our prior discussions. So we had not included one there and that seems like it's still appropriate. They do have 500 square feet assigned or designated for the Mustang Mall, which is run by the business marketing program, CTE program, and allows them, again, that authentic opportunity to distribute merchandise and retail. And then a storage room as well. They have a tiny little storage closet at the moment. And so this will give them sufficient space to be able to store merchandise that would be sold in the Mustang Mall, as well as instructional material. So no changes to business marketing. Graphic design and visual communication. We did have the shop designated at 2250 for the work footage. We kept that as an appropriate size for the shop. We did identify that the related classroom was not necessary as a space in addition to the primary shop space, because most of the instruction there is handled at sort of the main computer lab, the design lab, where the students are. But we did preserve the storage room at 200 square feet for, again, sort of stock materials. paper primarily within that space. So the reduction of the related classroom was the main change there. Automotive technology, no changes throughout this space. We simply confirmed here that the shop sizing at 8,450 was appropriate. They do have a large enrollment and as part of the chapter 74 viability form that was submitted to DESE and the MSBA, They were planned for an enlarged program with an additional instructor added in as well. And that's what drives the shop sizing. There is a need there for dedicated related room. They have a storage room and a tool room. So storage itself is more for parts rather than the tool room, which is actually for tools. I can't tell tools. And Here, this is one of, again, the prior efficiencies that were identified, where there is a dedicated need for toilet rooms in a changing area, because students, we don't want them, if they're covered with motor oil, wandering out into the hall to use general use toilet rooms. But we are sharing them with an adjacent space. I think previously, it was envisioned to be the engineering program. But as the layout developed, they're going to be adjacent to metal fabrication. And so they'll share those facilities with metal fabrication.
[John Falco]: This is one for toilet rooms. Is that like two bathrooms?
[Matt Rice]: It is, yeah. We could probably, they could each be 65 square feet. That's fine.
[John Falco]: I just wanted to make sure we weren't making any assumptions about it.
[Matt Rice]: No, no, no.
[Unidentified]: We're participating. Thank you. Brian? A quick question. Do you know or remember how the graphic design, if you pull out that related classroom color, that relates to what's the color of the graphics?
[Matt Rice]: Because I know they've got a pretty big space. If you have a big space, the way that the instructor described it in terms of how the space is being used right now, they do have a classroom space within it, but they're using it more for equipment within that space, like some of the large format plotters and that type of thing, but not necessarily the noisy thing. They have another classroom that the ISSN classroom is immediately next door and they were concerned about putting some of the louder equipment potentially in that space. So we did talk about even whether within that 2250, we can section off an area and make sure that we design the walls in a robust way to sort of limit the noisier types of activities. But I think even with the 2250, when you look at their combined space right now between the shop and that sort of classroom space that they had the footprint of, they're relatively similar overall without the addition of the 850.
[Unidentified]: It feels like they're very separate now. make sure they're not on top of each other acoustically.
[Matt Rice]: I think it should still be sufficient, certainly matching what they have right now, growing a little bit with the addition of that storage room. Just pause if there's any other questions.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions about this page before we move on?
[Matt Rice]: So I'll also point out that Director Fallon was also involved with all of the CTE program discussions as well, so. Correct, yes.
[Jenny Graham]: I think you can go to the next page, Sean.
[Matt Rice]: Alright. So we're going to start with construction craft laborers or CCL up at the top. Their shop size at 6,750 square feet. Again, as a result of their fairly strong enrollment in the program, the shop size being driven off of that. Here again, they do have a need for a dedicated related room because their shop environment is a fairly messy one. So it's good to have that separated space for different types of activities, including exploratory. They like, I don't know if I talked about, having a storage room or space available for stock materials that would be used separated from the actual hand tools themselves in that separate storage space. We did already designate both CCL and Carpentry to be sharing toilet rooms and changing spaces as well. So we're tracking those shared toilet rooms here, but not down in the Carpentry space that we get to later. The biotechnology shop is, again, one of those strong enrolled programs. So it has a larger square footage space. This is a pretty significant jump from where they are square footage wise now, but appropriate from the square foot per student and the enrollment that is planned for biotechnology. The related room here was seen as something that does not need to be additive in terms of square footage on top, Um, but for, um, classroom space, we are, we'll be able to fit it within that, that shop square footage allocation. So we're pulling out that direct square footage. Uh, there is a sizable, um, storage space here, um, which is related to, um, consumable goods as well as, um, containers, um, and that type of things, um, for, uh, produced by the program. And they have a dedicated changing area here, but not a toilet room. So really they're just having the ability to add in PPE in terms of the production of materials that they're looking at, biotech health program. So for toilet rooms, they would be accessing general use toilet room immediately outside the space. The health assisting shop, This was a large shop square footage that was reduced a small amount based on understanding of how many students would be in this space at any one given time. They are an AB schedule program. Um, which means that students are weak, um, within the shop space and then they're weak, um, out of the school doing internships, um, elsewhere. Um, so when you look at grades 10 to 12 combined, there was a smaller number of them that would actually be concurrently in the shop at the once, um, which resulted in the reduction from the. 5,625 to the 4,219 square feet. Um, and then the rest of the spaces we're seeing is still being necessary. Um, the related classroom at 850 square feet, um, the storage room at 150 toilet rooms here and changing areas, um, in this case, which would be shared with dental assisting. And so moving down the last one on this slide is the engineering shop, um, which at 4,400 square feet, um, is a small increase above The current shop space, but again, aligns with the number of students that would be concurrently in the space at any one time. The related room was seen as a need in addition to the shop spaces. The storage room was reduced from 300 to 200 square feet to more appropriately tune it to the size of what needed to be stored and recognizing the size of the storage rooms as they exist today. We do have a tool room assigned there as well. And I think at the end of the day, because the way that that shop is used, they may be two separate combination tool and storage rooms, but essentially two 200 square foot spaces. Then the shared toilet rooms that were previously identified here, it was again, decided that students could go outside the shop space to be able to access nearby toilet rooms. So we pulled out the dedicated toilet room, but left the locker area, the changing area within the space.
[Jenny Graham]: Any questions about these spaces?
[John Falco]: Paul? The biotech shop, my daughter went through the program and said it was an understatement. How big is the current one? And I know it could take forever.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so the existing program, it took over two of the science labs, which are each about 1,200 square feet. So thank you. I'm not sure it was a doubling of the space.
[John Falco]: But yeah, it's like almost, I don't want to say it's unsafe, but it's like, you're on top of each other. Correct. These equipment is literally hovering over you. It's, it's not great. The tilapia has quite the footprint.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Other questions about CTE spaces? Libby, this is a tiny, picky question. The changing area numbers that are 140, 170, is that just because there's more students in one area, or is that this was just a space tied to something specific? It's 30 square feet.
[Matt Rice]: Oh, in the changing areas themselves.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Matt Rice]: That is interesting. I hadn't noticed that. I'm not sure if that was a typo as I was putting it, but I can go back and check that.
[Unidentified]: I think they would probably make or break anything.
[Matt Rice]: they generally want to be more on the consistent side. But I think the intent was that if it was just like a locker alcove off of the main shop, that it was a little bit smaller as a space versus like two enclosed locker rooms, if there was like full changing that was going on.
[Unidentified]: It was like a room with like stoves to change or how this design, but I figure that's something we'll look at eventually. We can definitely look at that and confirm it moving forward.
[Jenny Graham]: And so if something needs to change- Questions for the chair.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I believe we voted to move all the toilets to the gross square footage or am I not remembering correctly?
[Jenny Graham]: We did not do that. There are toilet rooms that we, there were changes to offices that were previously made for CTE and there was maybe one or two toilet rooms in that initial grouping that were eliminated, but we did not make Uh, that motion, if that motion was made, it did not succeed.
[SPEAKER_02]: The motion was to have the project team do some research and evaluate for us around the changing rooms, the toilet rooms and the offices.
[Jenny Graham]: And that's what part of this process has been. Great. Um, Matt, if there are, if there is a clarification on the, um, changing rooms, can you plan to bring that forward with the rest of the CTE changes? That's a great next at our next meeting. Yeah, happy to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Liz? In terms of the storage room spaces, I see that there are obviously some are different sizes. Is for all of them kind of on par with the currently look like right now? Did you make some adjustments? Can you share any of those spaces or how exactly does that kind of play out in the design?
[Matt Rice]: I would say generally we were looking at what the existing square footage that was allocated for storage was. And we had discussions as to whether or not those spaces were used efficiently. Like in engineering, for instance, one of the rooms is actually like an old electric room and there's an electric panel in there that has to be worked around. And so we took some credit with the overall size of that space, reducing it, assuming that some of it could come out. So we were trying to tailor it to the specific needs of the particular program and really working off of the existing storage room size. If it was either too large, which is not generally the case, they were either sort of being well utilized or they were much smaller than what the need was. And then we sort of agreed on sort of a rough doubling or one and a half times of the space.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions about these CTE spaces? Is there like a summary?
[Matt Rice]: It's one more. It's the vast majority of them. That's OK. And I think, Liz, when we get down to the carpentry shop as well, there's a sort of interesting nuance or take on it as well from a historic perspective. But just to start off with metal fabrication. So this program, there was no efficiencies identified there. Again, the 4,000 square feet as a primary shop space, again, a messier program, so a dedicated related room included as part of that, a dedicated storage room for materials, and then a tool room as well. When we got to the carpentry, so a couple of nuances here. This is, again, similar to, go back, the health assisting shop. When we look at Carpentry is even a little bit more complicated. It's apparently not just an AB program and a C program. It is both. So grade 10 is a C schedule program and then the seniors are a week on week off and the juniors are as well. So it's sort of a mix. That being said, we did still take a reduction given the number of students that would potentially be in the space at one time from the 6,750 square feet down to 5,063 square feet for the primary shop space, still an increase over where they are right now. And you can see there it's 1,600 square feet more than their current shop. The related classroom, again, is a dedicated space for this program. The storage room here, rather than, because they have large pieces of stock, both sheet goods as well as like two-by's and lumber, stock lumber, rather than putting that into a dedicated room that would need like clearances around it and large doors to be able to get it in and out, we agreed that it would be set on lumber racks within the shop space proper. And that would just have a more efficient footprint in terms of the square footage. So we sized that out at 150 square feet versus the 300 square feet for the room. Um, Desi does, does say that we need to make sure that the shop space does not account for, um, storage space, material stock storage space on top of it. So that's why the storage space is still on top of the primary shop. Um, and then dedicated tool room, um, that was identified, um, and necessary at the 200 square feet. Um, so you don't see the changing or the toilet room here, cause it was shared, um, with, it will be shared with, um, the CCL program. The cosmetology shop was set at 3,000 square feet. Just the one unique nuance about cosmetology is they are not governed by DESE. They are governed by the Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, which have their own space requirements, which they updated last year. So we ran through those updated requirements with the instructor, Director Fallon, and superintendent as well. Um, and just, uh, made sure that each of these individual spaces, um, is still necessary to meet those requirements from the board. Um, and they were all found. So the 3000 square foot, um, salon or shop space, um, the aesthetics room, dedicated aesthetics room, um, the related classroom, a storage space at 200 square feet. Toilet rooms here a combination both for students and for patrons as well. The patron toilet is required by the Board of Cosmetology. And again dedicated changing area. And then the last one is one of the two programs that is not yet here at the high school because we don't have the space and there's no instructor yet. But the public safety shop. This is one that we discussed with Director Fallon. And noted that for other programs that have been seen around the Commonwealth that they typically do not have a related classroom associated with them. So here will be the primary 2200 square foot shop space, as well as an associated storage space. So the related room was pulled out. And again, right underneath that little pencil is the actual total square footage that was saved here. So that's a 6, so 6,153 net square feet is some total reductions here. And again, all of the Chapter 74 programs where footage similar to special education is all reimbursable pending its review by DESE at the completion of the schematic design phase.
[Jenny Graham]: about any of these programs?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I just want to clarify that for all of the programs, sophomores are in the shop every day, period six and seven, sort of the C schedule. So just making sure that in the shop sizes that the maximum number of students will always be all of the sophomores plus the A week or B week upperclassmen.
[Jenny Graham]: I just wanted to make sure that was clear in the sizing of Carpentry.
[Matt Rice]: It should be fine. It should be fine, but thank you for pointing out, Lisa, because it only came from Carpentry as we were talking through. We can certainly check back with Director Fallon as well. And similarly, if there's any modification, we can bring that back as part of the next meeting.
[Chad Fallon]: Thank you, if I may. Yes, yes, I I believe what I as I was part of that meeting with Carpentry. Carpentry is no different than the other programs when he said see schedule. I think he was just trying to relay the fact that sophomores were in there, so carpentry would be no different than the other programs, although they have some kids that come on a half day schedule that Lisa you're right and we did account for all of that 10 through 12 in the space. So we did account for all that. I just wanted to make sure that the board knew that.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you Chad. Other questions about any of these spaces? Is there a motion to accept this recommendation? So moved. By Nicole, is there a second? Second. By Dr. Olusi. I will call the roll. Let's see. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lundo Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. DeLucie. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Malate. Yes. Aaron Lopate. Yes. Luke Prisner. 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative. 2 absent, the motion is approved. Alright, moving right along folks. The next the next section is lab spaces that are not associated with RCTE programs. So these are. This is a completely separate category of. Project based learning spaces, so I'll turn it over Matt.
[Matt Rice]: So these spaces, I think, are inherently a little tough for everyone to understand and wrap their minds around, especially because we do have CTE programs, Chapter 74 programs, but the MSBA specifically identifies square footage for every high school that has non-Chapter 74 technical education programs. So it's just we have to sort of do a mindset shift away now from Chapter 74. So these are hands-on learning spaces, technology-rich learning spaces that are meant to enrich sort of just traditional academic classroom instruction, either from dedicated classes that happen within these spaces or setting these spaces up as resources for other educators to use outside of their typical learning environment spaces on sort of a sign out or sort of a project-based need basis. So I'll run through the spaces themselves and talk about the efficiencies. And I also do have a couple of precedent photos just to give people an idea of what these spaces may look like. It may be helpful just to sort of calibrate ourselves in terms of what these individual spaces are. So just to run through the list of them, So there's the digital art and photography lab at 1,200 square feet. One of the prior efficiencies that we made here was actually to remove the darkroom component, the traditional darkroom component. So it's now crude or digital photography. There's no film developing associated with it. There is a media and tech lab at 1,200 square feet. There's two of those, and those are specifically dedicated to technology classes, coding classes that are happening today. So these will be primarily used by those classes during the course. One of them is, both of them are actually right behind us right now, right outside the media center. We have two innovation labs. One of them set up for more computers, sort of a digital innovation lab. And then one that is focused more on incorporating cooking into it and potentially computers as well, a bit more flexible, but to meet some of the requests for facilities that we heard from educators going through the course of the programming meetings. And then lastly, we have a scene shop at 800 square feet, which is uh, tied directly to, um, creating additional opportunities around drama program, um, um, teaching stagecraft, um, as part of, um, sort of the auditorium resource. Um, and sorry, I will mention that, uh, there on the innovation labs, the digital lab itself was sized at 1200 square feet, um, which is a good size for allowing for flexibility in terms of, um, more digital, um, focused, um, activities. The one that is intended more for cooking and sort of that flexible use is a little bit bigger at 1440, sized really at that same module as the science labs. Just given the fact that there's a little bit more casework, there's heat in those spaces, potentially flame and that type of thing. So we're just trying to prioritize safety in terms of the sizing of that space. Then again here, oops. So these are some of the precedent images just to give some of the variety of different spaces, right? Because we're not creating a one-size-fits-all type of space here. In the top left-hand corner is more of the digital, either the media tech classrooms that would have a perimeter computer lab set up, and then tables towards the center of the space with casters potentially, but allow students to get together and critique work together or work on projects as a group. The one in the center top is a little bit more hands-on. It's very analogous to the engineering CTE program that has sort of a dirty, sort of heavier equipment side on one portion of the room and then a glass partition with a more hands-on workbench set up in the foreground there. The right-hand side image in the top is more of a fab lab. So again, having some amount of open program area surrounded by 3D printers and laser cutters. And then again, work area with cord reels, retractable cord reels from the ceiling to allow for flexibility of the space. You'll see that cord reels from the ceiling are a feature in most of these images. And then the two images on the bottom left are from a space in Cambridge. It's called the Foundry, which is really just an overall sort of flexible community-based interactive set of spaces. And the bottom left is sort of a flexible culinary lab that doesn't have like traditional family consumer science, like cooking stations with stoves in it. But there is sort of a stove around the perimeter dishwasher and fridge, but then the rest of the cooking is done with like populated induction units that can be moved around the kitchen space a little less intensive and more flexible. Um, and then the bottom right hand space again is a little bit workshop type activity space, um, cord reels above, um, flexible butcher block stools, um, that type of thing. So there is a range here, um, that goes from a little bit dirtier of a space and sort of hands on messy, um, to something that's a little bit cleaner and more technology, um, based as a, as a resource. I don't know if Dr. Galussi or, um, Principal Kapral, want to say anything more about these spaces or the planned usage of them?
[Jenny Graham]: I'm happy to. Is that all right with you, Marta?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_16]: Well chime in, Dr. Talbot as well too.
[Jenny Graham]: One of the things that we were talking about as you know, is the thread to all these conversations, these around flexibility. of the space and making sure that we're meeting like the growing needs and part of what we were talking about are the growing needs in a lot of these areas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Director Layton was also an integral part of these conversations as even when we were looking at like this digital lab space, knowing that it's pretty inevitable that we'll be needing to add like some
[Jenny Graham]: potential teaching positions, as we see enrollment increase in some of these areas. And just this year alone, in the elective realm, but still has been a lot of really great participation. The high school brought on a robotics 360 class. So that started at the middle school.
[SPEAKER_16]: That's expanded up here this year. And there's two sections of that.
[Jenny Graham]: There's three sections of an aviation class. And so that's been really popular. And so I'm like learning all of the things about these classes too.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that also requires almost like a gaming setup because there's simulators that are needed for those courses.
[Jenny Graham]: There also is an AP cybersecurity class that started this year with the anticipated next year bringing on an AP networking class. And this year also brought in AI foundations course.
[SPEAKER_16]: And for after school hours, which I definitely want to learn a little bit more about, but there's a cybersecurity club. And so. But I would say there is a lot of expansion and potential need for sure for one of these spaces.
[Jenny Graham]: And also with the sharing of labs and classrooms, I think it also provides us the flexibility to make sure we can account for the expansion in some of these ways. And then I would say for that messier lab, We did hear a lot in the visioning sessions around both through the health department and the world language department about having a flexible space to be able to bring classes to a space that has like some cooking components for both of those classes.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have heard from students as well as the community about offering more CTE-like classes, like culinary being one of them,
[Jenny Graham]: And so this space would also allow us to be able to do that. It would also allow us to be able to offer electives that are aligned to other CTE. Shops potentially that like don't have us taking over classroom time and account for like that hands on kind of like maker space, you know, engineering or STEM work. which is really a lot of where our conversation was. So yes, we are on the quest for efficiencies, but we don't want that to be at the expense of innovation and expansion in what we're doing educationally for our students. So that's what the conversation was. Happy to have Dr. Talbot and Marta, Principal Cabral chime in here because they were part of these conversations. Dr. Gellert?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I just have two additional pieces to support what Dr. Galussi was saying. The first is, in the state's newly socialized graduation requirements, AI literacy is a component for graduation that they're proposing. And so it is likely that the technology class is only going to grow, and this gives us a space for that. I also want to say that these labs, especially the cooking, the innovation of the cooking component does actually represent efficiencies that we discussed earlier. You might remember that we've already reduced requests from some of these departments to have their own special dedicated space to serve some of these functions. So we've pooled our resources and we're gonna count on our staff to do some good sharing. So these do actually represent the efficiencies that we had discussed earlier. Thank you. So many.
[Jenny Graham]: Questions, comments? Eric?
[Aaron Olapade]: It's just a question. The last little portion of your recommendation that you wrote out about moving a large group instruction spaces to this non-chapter, is that just for the reimbursability component of it?
[Matt Rice]: It is, yeah. It's a good point to clarify as well. So the The space allocation that the MSBA guidelines give us, we were underneath the sum total of that. And I think that actually came up from a community member at one of our past meetings as well, trying to maximize that square footage. So the idea was to really acknowledge the fact that the large group instruction spaces are seen as flexible, sort of media-rich, technology-rich spaces, not too dissimilar from some of the other spaces that are included here already. and have them considered for reimbursement. So again, we haven't heard back from the MSBA, we're hopeful, but until we do, we can't necessarily say it will be, but I would think in hopefully the next couple of weeks, we may get some read from them. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions, Brian?
[Unidentified]: Quick question, Matt. I know like just comparing some of these numbers to the existing square footages, volumes, like there's obviously the CTE, the Chapter 74, some of the non-74 stuff isn't required to be 18 feet tall, but just making sure that some of these other places, particularly Chapter 74, doesn't get sandwiched in the, you know, some of the smaller board boards. Yeah, it's a metric we can use to make sure that it's carrying over.
[Matt Rice]: So the The non-Chapter 74 spaces, they don't, you're correct, they don't have a specific height requirement to them. Whether or not we give them like a traditional ceiling height, which might be like 10 feet in terms of what's there, it may have exposed structure depending on sort of the design of those space to try to maximize it. We want to make sure that there is that flexibility so that if there was something large going on in one of those spaces, that it wouldn't be interfering with lights or building structure or something like that. The digital spaces, I think, are a little bit more forgiving in that regard. Like, we don't need a tremendous amount of height there. But certainly when we do get to the Chapter 74 spaces, Jesse does give us some guidelines in terms of what we try to hit from a clearance. And generally, it's either an 18-foot clearance for some of the heavier shops, like auto technology, where you're going to have lifts and things. Or 12 feet is for some of the less sort of equipment-intensive shops on a relative scale. There is a little bit of flexibility to that. I think one of the ones I refer to is the culinary arts, which they say that they want a 12-foot high ceiling, but really that's too high for a kitchen space because you have hoods and things and you want to be able to access all that equipment that's above the ceiling. So if your ceiling's at 12 feet, you're getting on a ladder or a lift to service that. So DESE does generally acknowledge that that is realistic and we're trying to design to all those good rule of thumbs.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions about the non-Chapter 74 lab spaces? Is there a motion to accept this recommendation, which is that there's no square footage change? There's a second. Seconded by Maria. I would call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Wendell Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I abstain.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galuzzi. Yes. Merdeka Brown.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Jen Moore. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Malone. Yes. Erin Olapade. Yes. Luke Preissner. 12 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one abstain, two absent. Motion is approved. Okay, one more. We have our media center.
[Matt Rice]: It may be a simple one as well. The square footage for the media center is tied directly to the MSBA guidelines. We are not exceeding those guidelines. There are breakdowns of the media center square footage, some of which are already represented here. I wouldn't say that necessarily that these are all finalized as well. There may be some additional breakdowns that would happen from this overall square footage, but we will not exceed that square footage moving forward. So currently, the main designation of space is at 7,719, and that would incorporate everything from reading stack area, classrooms that are integral to the media center, the circulation desk, all sort of the general use spaces. We have designated the need for two sort of quiet rooms that would be small group spaces, always visually accessible to staff within the library, but have the ability for students to work on projects collaboratively without necessarily creating a lot of distraction to the rest of the space. One designated office workroom space for bookbinding repairs, as well as sort of private locker room storage. Um, and then the incorporation of a cafe, um, or snack area within, um, a media center as well. We talked about that during the dining and food service, um, discussion that we had, I think at the last meeting. Um, and this is just where that square footage is actually going to get pulled from that sum total. Um, so again, we're not exceeding the MSBA guidelines. All of this is reimbursable square footage. Um, and so there were not additional, um, efficiencies that were identified for the media center.
[Jenny Graham]: Questions about the media center?
[Unidentified]: Just a quick question. Based on what's existing, what's called out as the equipment and book overflow, is that actually adjacent to the space currently or is that off campus? So I believe that, Maria, you would be able to answer that question. I believe it's around the corner, right? Yeah. It's right here. Yeah. Behind that door. Oh, that's what that is. Let me. I'm just going to be Excel police again. I'm just noticing it's media center 7719 at 1 and then 71.
[Jenny Graham]: That is a typo, yes. Yeah, I did. Whichever one it is, we will make it consistent. So we'll correct that before this is listed. Any other questions? Is there a motion to accept this recommendation? Motion to accept. By Maria. Second. Second. Dr. Galusi. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: And Lord? Yes. Jen Blanchard? Yes. Libby Brown? Yes. Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard? Yes. Tracy Keene? Paul Malone?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Liz Mullane? Yes. Erin Olapade? Yes. Luke Preissner? 13 affirmatives are on the negative, two absent. The motion is approved. OK, that wraps up our space efficiencies for this meeting. Thank you all for your work. Matt, do you want to walk us through what we're looking at here?
[Matt Rice]: Yep. So this is an updated version of the similar slide that we looked at at the last two meetings that we've gotten together and talked through space efficiencies. So the numbers that you see in, I think, dark blue down representing the 922 line is where we are currently. at overall gross square footage of the building at 570,286 square feet at this point. And that equates to, again, rough order of magnitude pricing, because we're working off of the numbers that we had from the PSR. But we're now dropped below 750,000, 750 million on the total project cost. It would be nice to be below 750,000. Sorry. Um, so the efficiencies totaled up on the gross square footage side to a little over 15,000 square feet. Um, as part of what we just ran through, um, and that had a rough, um, additional savings of $16.9 million. So that's. Um, really great, um, in terms of the overall project scope. Um, and I think reflective of really the consideration and all the discussions that were had, um, over the course of the past couple of weeks, um, continuing to look for. ways to, again, not compromise the overall functionality of what we have here, but find a way of building it more efficiently.
[Kimberly Talbot]: This is intended to capture tonight. This is says 9-10.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, 9-10 was our last meeting. Right.
[Matt Rice]: So that's why it was in the building as part of the last meeting. I don't think that there's been any change down here in terms of what we just went through. This is just sort of the highlights of what is still included in the project scope.
[Jenny Graham]: Any questions before we move on to the next agenda item? Seeing none. We have a design update and we're going to talk a little bit about the pool specifically. So Matt, do you want to take us through this?
[Matt Rice]: Yes, I'm going to turn it over to Helen because I've been talking about this.
[Kimberly Talbot]: We're going to take a refreshing dip into another topic. So to shift away from square footage conversations, for a while we've had, as you know, I think a big determinant in choosing the option that you all have chosen is being able to retain and renovate your pool, which is an incredible community resource and offers opportunities to students to learn to swim. And so we do want to talk about what is currently in the project, as well as that alternate that we've been carrying along with us as a potential to include with the project. So just a quick update and a refresher, and I won't go through every line here because we are at 8.14. But we did conduct some testing on the 3rd of August when the pool was emptied. And it pretty much confirmed what we had observed without having GPRS or ground penetrating radar, which is what that little vacuum cleaner type guy looks like, would give us a better sense structurally, but also with pool emptied, able to tap tiles and identify hollow spaces, And again, just kind of confirm some assumptions we had made. Once the finishes are removed from the pool, there will be repair work needed to the concrete. It's a vault pool, and it's generally in pretty sound condition. But along with that, replacing the finishes, waterproof, as well as, again, think of the whole space, full MEP system replacement, as well as the specific elements associated with pool itself listed under replaced existing equipment and then of course consideration of the i-chlorine environment and replacement of doors. So all of that is still baked in and considered part of the project and I think what we wanted to talk about this evening was consideration of that alternate associated with the pool. So there's certainly been interest expressed by your recreation director of the city as well as folks here at the high school to, here's a great opportunity. Could we make this resource even better than it is by adding a learn to, a shallow basin, a learn to swim opportunity As part of and connected to this project this pool on, and it would be a separated basin. But just a few things to keep in mind. One is that. it would be an addition. So we relieved a pinch point on the site by removing or planning to remove, it's not gone yet, the mechanical room that's to the north of the pool. So in order to include an addition to the pool space, we would kind of be mostly restoring that pinch point on the site. So it's just something to think about. And then there are obviously costs, soft and hard costs, to consider if we do, if you do want to continue to pursue this option. And back in July of this, this body did approve additional services for our pool consultant aquatic design group for the base services associated with the renovated pool at that point. it was determined not to proceed with until this discussion was had the design for that additional basin. So that would be the soft cost that 9,130 to have them provide scoping services to a schematic design level. And then from the PSR costing, this addition was in the $7.6 million range. So. You will go to the next slide, Matt already previewed the pinch point concern and maybe you want to delve into that a little bit more with respect to, I think someone, someone on this, this committee said we have a very large small site. We definitely have some moments on site where it is, you know, it's getting pretty tight. especially with including the 360 degree around the building request at first responders from safety standpoint.
[Matt Rice]: A lot of folks have talked about sort of that corner, right? As you go around the back door, we made particular note of that in prior discussions. And so while part of demolishing the existing mechanical room and maintenance shop that are back there was intended and would help alleviate that by giving us more turn turning radii as we come through it. It's also going to be a one-way road at this point versus two ways, so we're not going to have people doubling back and trying to not hit each other as we go around the corner. So we wouldn't be coming out quite as far as where that existing building is right now. If we're building that pool, the shower and the swim basin out there, but it would come probably two-thirds of the way back out there. quite as bad but still probably a little bit of a concern. We also would not necessarily have the two-way traffic again so probably is a little bit better from that perspective. The other impact to this particular corner of the site is that we are thinking of locating some of the primary electrical equipment that needs to be out on the site so the generator and the transformers and some of the solar PV batteries because it is not deep restricted land and because it's not overly visible. It's like tucked away. It will be tucked away behind the corner of the building as we go forward. So if we put that pool addition in, it will push the road north that constricts that available area a little bit. We don't have it all the equipment size for that area yet. So we don't know whether it sort of makes it from a viable to non-viable or if we have to shift some portion of those pieces, but that is part of consideration as well in this area where the road is, it's coming through. And then again, it's heading all the way up to Edgerly Field now. So it's going to be increasing as well. So there's a lot of sort of turning and grade change that we have happening in a very small area there. Is it always one way, no matter what, with or without this? Correct, yes. Yeah, that's part of the 360 circulation for emergency vehicles and for vehicles that are accessing up to the field now.
[Jenny Graham]: So, oh, sorry. Libby? You've already switched slides. It's possible you're going to reverse my question here. I just was curious, this new construction for the pool, does it have to be a completely separate project? Is that how it works with MSQA?
[Matt Rice]: So yes, if it was a new construction pool, it would have to be a separate project. We did confirm with them, though, if we were adding on to the existing pool, that the addition would sort of fall under the same realm as just a straight renovation to the pool, because we had the same question. We wanted to make sure we didn't go down this path without having some viable... No reimbursement, though, correct?
[SPEAKER_16]: Correct.
[Matt Rice]: Still no reimbursement. There's no reimbursement for the renovation.
[Unidentified]: Right. Okay. Ryan? Matt, on the next slide, where you have that utility yard. Was that always slated to be in that area, or is it getting swished there because of the addition of the pool?
[Matt Rice]: It was always in that area. It's just getting a smaller available footprint because of if the pool addition would happen here, the road pushes to the north. Without it there, we're able to turn a little bit further south to preserve a little bit more space. The one I see under there is after the boiler room. Correct, yeah. It's tough to see in this. There's a dashed line up here. This is the footprint of the addition. And then that dashed line is the location of the existing boiler room and maintenance shop. So it would shrink from that by about 15 feet. So people want to head back there with a tape measure and guesstimate it.
[Unidentified]: The next slide, it does look tight. Has the fire chief weighed in on those?
[Matt Rice]: machinations of getting around through there. So I don't know that we've reviewed that specific layout with them, but I know our civil team is using the turning radii that they provided through there and obviously have to design it so that fire apparatus could get up and through.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole? Two questions. First, is this something that we're trying to decide on tonight, or is this something that needs to be presented the first time tonight that the community can sit with it, get feedback from it kind of thing? Um, I'll stop for the next slide. Do you have another question? Yeah, this one's getting in the weeds, but I understand like the current community access of the pool is limited to like specific hours like 6 to 10 and then back 10 hours. Would this learning pool be limited by the same hours, one would think?
[SPEAKER_16]: That's a good question.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, we're trying to think of a conversation uptake of it, like if it were to be, you know, you're designing for a specific. I mean, I would think demand wise like. There wouldn't be a tremendous amount of like community demand for that programming during school hours because the participants would be in school, but that would what it would do. And what we have talked about is like opening up swimming as a curricular possibility for students, not just in high school. This is like, okay, so maybe I'm misunderstanding, like in my mind, I'm being community, I'm being like, okay, this is like... It could be either. It could be either. And to get back to your next question, I think you have one more slide. So I think what we are wanting to hear from this group about tonight is there's really three possible options. One is this group says this has to be included in the base project scope like it's mission critical. Let's do this. The second is we want to continue to carry it as an add alternate meaning if we like go down the road and we save some money during construction and we can add this on that it's like alive enough that we could exercise that at a future date. And then the third is, we don't want anything to do with this, take it off the table completely, and then they will not design for it as they like pursue schematic design. So that is the question for us tonight to think about. And that is why we've talked about the pool on the agenda specifically to make sure that folks who wanted to win can do so. Yeah, Nicole? And this is like this, I would think, as simple as hardware. Are there configuration options within a pool where you can have the lane line going the opposite way so that you have two, three shallow lanes so that you can have this dedicated shallow area within the existing pool that can be made just by moving around the lane lines as opposed to an entirely separate pool? Shorter lanes? Yeah. Yeah, I think the other variable that was explained in our meetings with the pool consultant and with our rec team is that the way that you target a competition pool is vastly different than the way you target um like the water temperature and all of the climate access in the learn to swim pool. There are a few technical areas that could be used to do swimming. So that's like they were like real like learn to swim programs that are that have this dedicated space have higher uptake because it is easier to learn to swim in those places. And the Kennedy Pool in Somerville, I know, is like an example of a pool that has the two basins like that. The MIT pool has multiple basins too. Yeah. So I'm not a pool expert, but I know that this was discussed in terms of like, why would we even entertain this at all? And so those are a couple of the reasons.
[Matt Rice]: I think it was actually a suggestion from the rec director in terms of trying to replicate that sort of Kennedy pool model here with the separation of the two bases.
[Jenny Graham]: Questions or comments? Libby? I mean, we just saved some money. It's really hard to talk about adding like seven and a half to $8 million to the product. Maybe I was not on my radar. adding to the pool, I had not even thought that was a thing we were looking at until. It's been on the alternates list. Yeah, I just never heard about it. It's about what would we, but. Yeah, and I think that I also am not of the mind that number one is the way that we should go. I think the question for this group is, I mean, number one is an option, but I am sensitive to this being not something that we have today. and not inexpensive in the big scheme of all the things that we're trying to accomplish in this building. And frankly, not in the main line of academics. We're cutting classroom spaces. Adding this feels like a nice to have to me. However, for me personally, I'm interested in hearing from other folks what they're thinking. But for me personally, I like the idea of number two in terms of it being allowed to survive as an idea. As we go down the road, we don't know what is possible as we get through. Actually, what's the final cost? Actually, what does that mean for taxpayers? Actually, are there willing and interested donors out there? There are lots of aquatics organizations that we are going to target. in various ways. So there's just a lot of unknowns, but I think any clarity that we can provide in terms of what we're thinking about here is useful for the project team to know, like, is Medford still interested in this or not? Because if we're not, they can stop, like, designing for it, stop worrying about it. If we are, in some capacity, they just need to know, like, how excited are we about this so that we can sort of plan accordingly, right?
[Unidentified]: Is there a way that we can find a happy medium, and I guess this is to the Sims group, that we accept it now like the number one, and just knowing that it could be an adult later? At what point can we VE it into an adult down the road and just say, we want to carry it as long as we can, but at some point it becomes an adult, and then at least it can be, we have to.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, my only fear there is
[Unidentified]: When you mentioned it, it could be something like a later phase. It should be. It's something that we can be at a later point. Matt, do you want to answer that? So it's sort of the difference between us
[Matt Rice]: advancing it like two different sets of documents for that corner of the building, one that sort of just renovates the existing pool and one that sort of draws the addition on. And we do have to do two separate sets of architectural and structural and plumbing and like all the things. So it's really a question about when it comes into play. But in a scenario where we're just doing it as part of a project, or I think maybe in both scenarios, we actually have to plan for the project budget to Right. So even if it wasn't an ad alternate, right, you would have to still vote, you guys would still have to vote as a building committee to, it would be included in the tax override value as well. So that's just a consideration that it would bump things up. Even in that case, if there was the hope that there would be some alternative funding source to it, it could come down after the fact and maybe that's where the alternative of approach would offer some opportunity and value, right? Because you could then not do it if that funding did not materialize. But early on, we would have to account for it.
[Jenny Graham]: If I could just add on top of that, either route one to leave it in and then move it to an alternate later, or two, like Matt just said, does require two sets of documents, which means the project would pay for the soft costs for that, even if it didn't materialize down the road.
[Unidentified]: Because that's the only way to know.
[Jenny Graham]: Right.
[Unidentified]: You have to know. You have to get there. Right.
[SPEAKER_20]: So I think as long as you're that clear, like we would be adding, it's like a school board and auditory plan, which I mean, you guys will have extra money to design for it.
[Jenny Graham]: The aquatic design group gets an extra $9,000. Not to make it sound like it's a bad thing, but these are costs we would have to add, because this is not the current scope. It's not just like free to design it and then decide if we want to spend money on it. Some money will be spent now just to design it. And Jen just said that, but I want to make sure that it's very clear. Yeah, I would be, and I hear what you're saying, I would be hesitant to include or go with number one at this point. I think just from an optics point of view, like I think we're making a lot of headway, really going with the efficiencies, reducing costs and to introduce a cost, I think, would maybe make people nervous, be like, what are they going to introduce the next meeting? I am a huge proponent of pools, learn to swim. I've spent my entire life in a pool. I think maybe we'll also, and I totally get it, everyone should ask for what they want. I think it was a big win in stating the pool in the first place. And then it's easy to be like, ooh, we got this. Let's add a little bit more. I think just reminding people of we have the pool, we have the community resource, Yes, there's probably a better version for young swimmers, new swimmers, but I think we have the pool period and I don't wanna start adding millions of dollars when we have the pool, which I think is really important. Mayor Londo Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, I just wanna agree with Nicole and some of Libby's comments. I think unless we can fundraise for this at alternate, And I don't know if we can vote for number three unless we raise the funds, although I agree that the design monies will. be lost if we continue on that route. Because I think all of us would love to see a bigger and better pool, especially for our little ones. And I just have to comment from how I see it, like mission critical right now, and what I'm dealing with is people losing SNAP benefits. And those are, of course, mostly our renters, I'm assuming some homeowners too. I see mission critical are three. I've received three emails. I've talked to people over the last week and heating oil is going to go up so high. Our residents are extremely concerned and our oil companies that are delivering to our residents are letting people know they understand it's gonna be an exorbitant increase. And people can decide now if they wanna have a partial fill on a regular basis. And so those things are mission critical. And I think the most important mission critical thing, because I could go on about cost of living and increases, the most mission critical is getting the yes vote in June. And we need to reduce I've said it from the beginning over and over again, in either internal meetings or on this floor, I am truly concerned about our taxpayers' ability to afford this. So I have to vote for number three, unless of course we could get somebody to donate this wonderful, what would be a wonderful addition to the high school and the pool.
[Jenny Graham]: So mayor, I just want to provide a clarification. If, if we vote for number three, and I'm not saying we should, or we shouldn't like, we should not be out asking people for money to support this because it will not be part of the project. It will be like over at that point. So like tacking it on later in that way, like the design documents would not be created. It would not be part of the package. It could not be bid out. All of those things would be not possible at that point. And they'd have to be taken separately, I imagine, as a completely separate project.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I understand that.
[Jenny Graham]: OK, that is limiting. So I just want to make sure people know that if we say do not include this, it's done completely. We can't keep the hope alive in number three.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Agreed, agreed. I either number two, if we can raise the money and we all agree on that now, or I would move to not include it in the scope.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, there's many other people who in the room are trying to watch us speak. So just hold any motions until we hear from folks, please.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Do we know what's included in the new top swim house? Will there be a learn to swim pool as part of that new construction so that there'd be, Because there are going to be new filming resources within our community. I don't know how willing they are to open those, but my kids all took filming lessons through Tufts. And I'm not sure what the scope of that project is. I have not heard that.
[Jenny Graham]: I think it's a competition poll, but we can certainly reach out and ask. Libby, what you said was helpful to hear that this would be a completely separate project. We couldn't add it back to the project later, even if it's with our own money. But if I try to think about a compromise, say there was some donor that had the money, we could do a separate mobilization, different edition later. I'm not sure this is the best idea, but is there a way we could just say, you said there were generators and electrical stuff you were going to put there, but you would move for this. Is there a world where we just don't put that in that location. So let's say if Medford finds a donor, if someone wants to do this, again, certainly it's a separate project. That is not ideal, but it could be done later separately. We haven't put anything in the way that's going to be a problem. The room would have to kink, but it will certainly cost more money and be a separate mobilization, but as a compromise, if we decide we don't want to have it as an ad alternate right now.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I mean, just saying we'll do this so Medford could do it later if he wanted to.
[Matt Rice]: I think that would be a viable option if we want to preserve that footprint on the site for some future construction.
[Jenny Graham]: Obviously, they don't have to get more money because it will cost more, but at least they don't make it harder. Raise your hand up, Aaron.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm right. The mechanics of an ad alternate is that it's included in the project price. It's bid out. After the bids are opening, we decide if we wanted to accept the ad alternate and they have to be accepted if we had multiple ad alternates in the order that we set?
[Matt Rice]: So yes to all of that. The one small nuance is that the ad alternates need to include trade contract scope. So there's the 14 protective trades within Massachusetts public construction with the electrical subcontractor and plumbing and fire protection. Because the pool sort of takes all of those, then it would have to be ordered in the alternates. Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole? Would there be cost impact if we were to table this tonight? You know, take out for two weeks. I'm just, I'm leaning between like two or three. I'm just hesitant to like completely wipe it out. And there's like, you know, some cohort of people are like, please continue exploring this. We can do that. I just will say that there's 1000 things on the agenda and this decision has to be at the next meeting. Like we have to provide clarity at the next meeting and that agenda is more packed than tonight. Okay. I can decide tonight. It's totally, it is also totally an option. Dr. Galussi, I don't hate that option.
[SPEAKER_16]: And I would also ask since number two is contingent upon donations or fundraising, what is the like hard deadline for when we would have to know that information in order to say, you know, that the ad alternate becomes viable or not viable.
[Matt Rice]: I think you need to wait till the bids come in to be able to do that. Like we would have to go down the path of designing it and getting a harder price to it. And I would think in advance of that, there would probably be a level of certainty that there would be a duration associated with that of X value. We would estimate it as we would go forward and estimate it as an ad alternate, but until the bids come in,
[Marta Cabral]: And bids come in.
[SPEAKER_20]: I was just curious if before the next meeting, we could also take a look at what the scheduling for the pool looks like right now throughout the year. I know we have swim team rentals. There are swim lessons that happen. We have the swim team. So when would there be opportunity to do Some of this programming for younger kids, what would realistically look like? And then how would that be managed? If that's managed through Medford REC, then how does that impact? I know there's a lot through community schools that happens here. What would the logistics look like? And I guess how would we handle something like that? Brian?
[Unidentified]: Do we have a sense of the community, I guess, how much they're invested in this? Because when we were looking at the pool, no pool, a lot of people showed up and said, this is really important to the community. But I think as a board, we don't have any sense where this stands in the bigger community. So it's really hard for me to advise on that we have.
[Jenny Graham]: We do have one. resident waiting to speak. So I'm going to let Phil speak and then I'm going to let the residents speak. All right.
[Phil Santos]: On versions one and two, there's additional design costs. Do you know ballpark what that would be? Because then you're paying those costs, right? It'd be like half a million dollars, if you assume 6% of construction.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, it's probably a little higher than 6% of construction, because that new is for renovation. It's probably closer to 10% of it.
[Phil Santos]: So it'd be like $800,000, just to get it to design. And you're fully committed once you select one or two.
[Unidentified]: And the total cost that was shown includes the soft costs. That's correct. Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Yes, yeah, that's in there. No, if the SEBC decides to do one or two, we will put aquatic design groups and services back in front of you, preferably the next meeting so they have time to do the work. So that or maybe you can get it approved some other way. But if you do want to push this decision, it's just a factor.
[Jenny Graham]: And that amount would bring the documents to the SD level. Correct. So there would be additional soft costs on the other side of project approval.
[Matt Rice]: Wrapped in. It would be wrapped into that $7.6 million.
[Jenny Graham]: Right. But I'm just saying it's not just the $9,000.
[Aaron Olapade]: So it may be closer to the $6,000. Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Will, can you unmute Cheryl R?
[Unidentified]: Hello. Can you hear me?
[Jenny Graham]: Hi, Cheryl. Hi. We can hear you. Thank you for your patience. Name and address for the record, please.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: It's Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street, Medford. So did I just hear the design costs are going to be $500,000 to $800,000 for this pool expansion? I must've misheard that, that can't possibly be the cost.
[Jenny Graham]: That is what they just said, yes.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Wow. So we're in dire need of major cost cuts to this record-breaking cost in high school. Since the pool is not reimbursable, it represents adding back in all the costs saved tonight when you include the design costs. We do not have the capacity to do large-scale fundraising as we saw when we employed a consultant to help us raise funds for the library. and any funds raised should be devoted to reducing the cost of the overall project, not adding luxury items. We should not add in luxury items when the cost is already extremely high. This goes against the call for cost reductions from the community who will bear these costs. I don't think that enough consideration is being made to the citizens who will have to pay the tax that will come with this building. And I think that we're getting a little dreamy about this and not really grounding our feelings in reality. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Are there any other questions from the committee, potential motions? Can you just put up the three things? Dr. Galusi, in light of the whole conversation tonight and the fact that we have academic spaces, I motion to approve number three. second, second, second. I'm going to call the roll. So this would be to eliminate this as an alternate. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Mullane. Yes. Erin Olapade. Yes. Luke Pryor. 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent. We are eliminating the learn to swim basin from the project. OK. That brings us to the end of our agenda. I thought this was going to be less than two hours, but here we are. I'm always wrong. It's okay. Our next meeting is on October 6th, and there are a number of programming reviews that are still to come, as well as important conversations about the costing of our mechanical systems after a recommendation comes forward from the advisory committee at next meeting. So it will be a big meeting. We will probably start at 6 p.m. so that we can have just a little bit more time. And yeah, I think that is it. And then we'll also at the next meeting be prepared to ask you all to vote to approve construction manager at risk selection via the subcommittee that has been working to identify that person. Is there a motion to, Cheryl, is your hand up to make an additional comment or did you, is it just stuck?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: No, I just didn't put it down, sorry.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? by Dr. Galusi, is there a second? Second. By Jen Blander. Jenny Grant. Yes. Mayor Ringo Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, please.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord. Yes. Jen Blander. Yes. Libby Brown. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone. Yes.
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