001Good afternoon. Thank you for making time to gather yet again uh to get the latest updates on our middle schools in our central office. Um I want to thank our panelists again. We have Felicia Strippling the business office. We have Mr. Carol, director of facilities who actually has came to me with bad news. Right. I'm going to stop stop working for a woman and find problems at my house and not middle [Music] school board chair for superintendent Smith. So, thanks so much. We just wanted to kind of give you some large overviews of what's going on this week and then in coming weeks. We have two parallel things happening uh right now in the district. The most important is the one that is concerning the shortterm and medium-term uh goals of Stone Strington Middle School
002and that is the status of the bond. as you know after the referendum the budget passed and bond passed and we want to thank you very much for making that happen because we know we had a huge turnout 11% and I think it was a lot of our parents and faculty that made that happen so we appreciate that um but the the process of getting that bond actually the money where we need it to be is not over yet and so if you notice there was some very general language in that bond as it was um passed on April 29th And now the board of education has parsed out three specific requests um that has gone to the board of select and it has been approved. So it's the money that's associated with affordables. It's
003the money that's associated with associated with renovating one of the rooms by not just really dividing the large classroom at Stony Middle School into two smaller classrooms and then repairing the third the second floor of this building. um that the engineers tell us, you know, it's it's not only a ceiling and a floor and people are occupying this building, um there's a misunderstanding that just because kids aren't going to be back here in full force that that's that floor doesn't need to be repaired. It does um need to be repaired and this building is going to continue to be um populated with adults and with certain um programs for children as well. So, uh, Steve, is there anything that you wanted to state about that? That vote now, the vote is in the hands of
004the board of finance this coming Wednesday. So, at 7:00 at Stony Police Department, if you'd like to pop an email to them in support of that, the board has requested that formally. Um, and the board of selectment has approved that. So, it really now is in um the hands of the board of finance. I think they have some concerns about uh our use of this building versus the pocket site. Um but this is our premise is that we believe that there's no that children are not going to be coming back to this building. Um and I'm going to let um both Mr. Parkinson and um Mr. Carol speak a little bit more to that. Does anybody have any questions about that component of this? I guess I do. Sure. So the vote is whether like
005yes to funding all of that or is there a conversation about portions of that funding? So the question is is is it an all or nothing? They take our proposal with the three components in it or can the board of finance approve one versus the other? Yes. So they may for instance approve the portable and not the floor here. Yes. That's a great question. question. So the question So the question is you're saying we have no intention of returning the children here. Is that in your hands or the board of finance? That's in the board of education hands. Would you like to say that? We do. We do. And um we don't have we don't have the intention now. Right. We don't have the attention now because we understand the severity of where the building
006is. I was right when Mr. Smith sat next to me. I I leaned over and I showed him uh my youngest child picture because he talked and and he's 21 years old now, right? But if my child comes back to school, I wouldn't hear this today, right? and and unless number one we do the repairs that we asked for on the slab which is critical in my opinion and in the engineers's opinion that it is critical to be done and and then I would see that you know the vision of bringing some programming back to school here but not the full middle school as it was unless you know we invest them billions of dollars in the Yes. Now, uh also in those three items on the third one, the repair for the second floor,
007is there a dollar amount associated with that? Ask because I we saw sort of a range for the bedrock. That was that was $1 amount, right? What is the what are we asking? So the work so the question um for those who are watching the recording is what is the cost associated with repairing the second floor slab here on the missed site is approximately $300,000 300 so the estimated construction cost is the the estimated construction cost the 100,000 engineering and drawings is about 17,000 so it is an estimated cost um and it looks like we have roughly about 14 a week start to finish from drawings to bed to construction That's important to know because it probably isn't going to happen much before the holidays. Any questions about that component? The other thing that's happening
008in the background is um the the K12 building committee uh the board of education asked me to ask the um board of selectmen to create a um uh a movement to to actually the formalized motion to actually create that committee. of that committee has to go to a town meeting which is Monday, June 16th, the last day of school at the high school at 7:00 and it's the oldfashioned town vote with the paper ballots and that is one of the items that is on the ballot. So that's critically important that that passes because we need to start planning for the long range plans of the middle school wherever that may be in whatever configuration that might look like. We're doing our part. We're going out again this week to another middle school and looking at
009the good, the bad, features of schools so that we can make the best education and the specifications of possible to make that recommendation should the the the committee be formed. But we need the votes and I know it's a really tough night for folks to get out to vote on that. But again, it won't take much to tip it one way or the other. So, we really need your support on that. So before you leave for the beach, stop by Stone Ice World on the 16th at 7 o'clock. Um yes, ma'am. Maybe you're about to to discuss this, but I think one of the things the board of ed board of finance said was that they were waiting for the final results of engineering survey for this year. Do you have those? Correct. So one
010of the comments is I believe that the board of finance was waiting for the final um remaining useful life study before they were ready to commit one way or the other. That has been they was sent to them and it's also posted on our website on the middle school website with all of the different reports in an effort to keep everybody informed. We also are in preparing the board of selectment passed um our requests the board's request for how to expend the bond money contingent on us sending a memorandum to the board of finance that is under construction. Basically, it's going to just say, you know, the cost associated with keeping the building here as district office versus the cost of repairing it if you thought it was going to be ever a school again.
011And that should make it very, very clear on what the decision should be to support moving forward for it. No, no, no. The board of fin the board of finance is considering the bond request on this Wednesday and that is for the portables for the second floor here and for the expansion or the collapse of the two classrooms at the middle school. That is what they're considering. The 16th is just to form the building committee for the future to to either renovate one of the schools, build a new school, whatever. Two different conversations. So think shortterm is this week long term is the last day of school. Great questions. Anything else? I have a question. Yes. So could I'm just thinking could the board of finance like force your hand given the results that in
012the engineering study about this building and tell you okay we'll fix this and you know not give you portables for construction at 40 street and say the students back here. They can do those things but they can't just students back. Do you want to stay with your building? Sure. I actually love the building. Yeah, good bump. Good bones. And it's again, it's a wonderful home place. I love it, but a little smaller than one, right? Like the family is out growing their starter. Like it's just a little too tiny for what we have now. We love it. Um so with our plan for next year, we already have some plans to open up some spaces. We received the space that the learning is using upstairs is now our space. Um we unfortunately have lost some
013of teaching positions. The silver lining of that is a loss of teaching positions leading up to some spaces. So you know we do have some plans already in place that will be there regardless of portals. But we will not be able to fully open up and get back to everything we would want to have in a middle school with the space we need without these four portable classrooms. The four portable classrooms are kind of connected to that dividing up of the room in the middle. If we don't get the port holes, we don't want to divide that room. Those those are connected to each other. Divide the room would not make sense if we didn't have the portals because that would mean that bigger room for a full core teacher rather than the plan was
014being divided into smaller rooms for interventionist to work with small groups. So those are those are kind of connected to each other. I know somebody kind of asked that. Um our desire as a board of education would be not to do just one not to do just a wall in the middle of that room. We don't have the portals and that kind of doesn't make sense. Um, so with the portable classrooms, we would be able to open up enough spaces where we would have little to no sharing of rooms for teachers. I'm not going to say there'll be none, but there'll be little to none. We should be able to open up the full library to be a library, media center, whatever 2025 name you want to decide to call it, but we will open
015it up to be available for that. Again, um we'll move away from the core area teachers, team teaching, so that like two math teachers with a big class and two science teachers with big classroom. We won't have to do that anymore. We still will have many co-ch classrooms with the regular special ed cuz that's that just makes sense educationally. That's not a space concern. Um and so those portals will allow us to do that. Those four classrooms outside where we can move. We're essentially going to move two seventh grade and two eighth grade teachers out there is what the plan is. We're going to keep our six our little sixth graders close to us to start um move two seventh grade to eighth grade out there. That's going to open up some classrooms, allow us
016to spread out, open up other spaces within the building to utilize. Our foreign language teachers will actually get space that they will have to share. They'll be able to teach in like one room for a large portion of the day as opposed to a different block, which they currently are. We will no longer have to have a library closet. It cannot be an actual room. So, there's a variety of different things that we want to do to really give our kids the conventional needed middle school experience that these four extra classrooms are really important for. Um, in addition to that, as you guys know, when teaching cuts, we're we're working on getting very schedule and and what teachers are teaching where and the class sizes and all those things. Classroom availability is a part, right?
017In in a given block of the day, we can only offer as many classes as we have spaces to offer, right? So those four classrooms obviously impact that. So we kind of have a draft out of what it would look like on a board in my room that looks like a mess. But that may have to change if we don't have portable classrooms because I might have to look at a block and say I don't have enough spaces for this many classes. Now I have to and then everything is like a domino. So if I were to fix that block, it might create a problem in another block and then fix that block and then and then we go back and port that block. So um we have a great plan if we get these
018portals. we have a not quite as great plan as we don't. So, I don't like to say bad. I don't want you thinking your kids going into a bad place. We'll do our best that we did it this year. But, um, just remember those portables won't be delivered correctly for until November time, right? All time, but we get ahead. Have you looked at adjusting the scheduling at all to have like period? So, we have not gone there yet. Um, and I don't think we're going to need to. I think the longer periods what we run into is not being able to offer all the different things we want, whether that be the same amount of contact minutes in a particular content area. Um, a structured EL to TLT blocking right now. There is going to
019be some changing DT blocks to make it more structured next year is our plan. Um, and then also obviously offering teachers prep time during the day as well, enough time for our survey classes. So, without cutting back contact minutes in some of our disciplines, that would be hard to do. I guess you do say passport is whatever that that's the that's the expectation. Um so right now with the type of funding that was approved it was kind of like do what you can with what you have. So basically I got pricing based on sourceable contracts contracts that the town acknowledged. Um but if after the approve the money and the town is not going to approve the acceptance of contracted pricing then I have to go out and bid all over again like go out
020and get pricing and go out to bit. So basically that would restart part of that process. It shouldn't take too long, but hopefully would it would be in the November time range cuz the the times that I've got for getting portables to the the site were was early in the year. The closer we get to the summer, more companies, more schools going to work portable is more. So it may not be exactly the same amount of time, but like they were saying 46 weeks from order to delivery, but the site logistics is almost a month and a half, which is like foundation easy. [Music] Sorry, but so we we are required over a certain dollar threshold to go out to bid. That requires posting the newspaper and having it open for 10 days. We would
021have to source well is on the state approved um bid list which means that we should be able to just go with them if the board of finance approves that but we would have to go to the board of finance for a bid otherwise we would have to go to the report is immediate like they tell you that it has to be the the second floor has to be repaired now. It does. There was a I and I think this is just a misunderstanding again because the urgency again when we found out there was concern was are the kids going to be able to stay there even in April May last year right it's like oh my gosh is it safe and and at that time they said we can't bring the kids back in
022the fall and so I think everybody interpreted that as like well it's honking forever and ever as long as we don't have 400 children running around the building um but that's not the case the latest email that Steve got was if there's going to if you're going to continue to occupy that building, you have to repair that that floor, which makes sense. So, it's not getting any better. Um, and and certainly if you want to expand the use of building, we're sitting here without space, it would be nice to be able to use the building and program as such. Um, so the question was like what's meaningful with this building, right? That is um just to show off hand for my uh preference like who who read the and applied for a board to religious
023group. So most of you did um so the that that issue becomes beyond the slam like I don't want the impression that we have an asset here in town and the board of education doesn't want to bring the kids back into a bigger space the shift the move was expensive to take the kids from here and put them into middle school. for you probably bought it field 40th school um it wasn't uh it wasn't cheap right so every time you do this move it's costing you millions it's costing you 100 hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring the kids here bring it back there um for them for their you know for their educational progress we think they should have that stability of where their school is right um So the end of life report
024also says that this building has less than 10 years and unless we invest like $34 million with no AC with no cooling it's about between 1.5 and 2.5 million just the foundation just the foundation you What do you think with it lasting 10 years? What the the actual structure and the actual code of occur? Uh 10 years is when the cost to maintain the building is greater than the cost to repair the building. 2035. Uh yes. So the cost to maintain the building becomes greater than the cost to repair the building. Um and that's to occupy as a school, right? Just to keep that in perspective. So, so you know to bring them back here that's why I'm getting stuck on bringing any kids back here. That's why we're stuck with a smaller school. That's
025why we want affordables. And that still is not the answer in my opinion. Like the answer is to develop that school, you know, like future committee to say what's the student needs because we have to think not just about our kids, about the future of the town, about the future of of of good school system makes a great town. So if we want to do that, we have to establish that committee that we talked about on the 16th is the seven. But like the idea really is to tell it we have collectively as stone kills to think about what the future is. Now I know we're mandating this whole thing with portals. I know we're mandating this whole thing here with changing this lab from us. They put it in paper. They handed it immediately.
026I'm going to do it. Right. When when we move the kids out of here out of the caution, they told us it's okay. You got you have a few months. And we're like, well, I got to get out get out of the building because I don't want that on our watch. Nobody wants that on their watch. Everybody should their priority number one product is our students. That's priority number one for all of us. So to bring us back here is not the right answer, especially that you only have 10 years. So spend another million dollars to come back and then spend. So that's where we're getting stuck as a board of education. and and then the future is not in our hand in the hand of that committee that you have to establish as as
027physicists. Just two things before you um two things I just want to mention um that struck me when the during the last conversation engineer for customer who has been most interesting person with us on the planet I think and given us a lot of time. He said just because you can repair that floor if you bring the children back and and the report says the school life report says up to 10 years. He said with the the reoccurring patterns of brain that we're experiencing and we've had a lot of it. He said we could get those kids back. You know, you fix everything that you need to fix and you could have to move those kids out in two years. It says up to 10 years. That is not a guarantee. And the last thing
028I want to do is play ping pong with those children. And remember, this building was cannibalized when we we moved everything over to the field street site. We took out all of the technology. You just don't want moving that thing that stuff back and forth, back and forth. Um the building is set up for teaching and learning right now and it is to remain that way. The other piece that has come my way over and over again is like, well, the kids were here before. Kids were here before and everything was fine, but we have the new facilities director and as much as I bust his chops all the time, he is an amazing amazing craftsman. And thank God because we never would have known about that slab on the second floor if he hadn't
029been with us. And so, and he even uncovered something this past week about this building that I'm going to let him share. But I want people to know that we were here, but when we know something, when we're on notice, we have to do something about it, right? And um I'm very thankful for having somebody who has this expertise to tell us what we need to address. So, do you want to give the latest? So I mean I I and one other thing I'd like to say when we brought up air conditioning it it's the HVAC system just even the point of providing clean fresh air to the school that committing to the school with not revamping the fresh air system whether it's got AC or not just so the kids get fresh air in
030the classrooms that has to be done cuz you're committing the kids back there's an expected amount of time they're going to be in this building the ventilation system was assessed in 2015 15 and it was reviewed then it be replaced. Now we're in 2025. So it it is up to it's passed it life. Important distinction. I think people just we don't want to be hot. Right. Right. That's right. Right. And and and when I came in this the school system the the tarps on the units for about 3 four years there was blue tarps on the roof cuz the units leak water internally into the units and into the school. And that moisture in the duck work excluding some duck work there is moving through the school. It just is not acceptable. You know it
031needs to be done right. So if the kids come back it needs ventilation. You know that's about where we're at. Can I add something? It is okay that we have people in the building despite that because and you can say this much more than me. Um you have to have certain amount certain amounts of the air ventilation based based on the number of people. The expected amount of air pressure in the building is 25 square ft per minute um cubic feet per minute. So right now in a modified capacity we manage well because the units are actually for the size of the space we we run the unit units in moderation. So as we go back to high capacity and that then demands that every kid who walks through the building is getting 25 cubic
032square feet 25 cubic feet per minute of fresh air pumped into the school and it becomes a huge demand on the system it's failing. So um as of right now the ventilation system we'll just update on that right now. Yeah. So um part of the ventilation system is the part of the reason is we what's called a plenum and it's a nonducted system which is not great. So there's fire dampers in every single classroom to stop flames and smoke spreading from the classroom if there was a fire into the hallway. In every single classroom in the 1961 part of the building there has to stop. So I was doing a review of the units. I contacted my maintenance people going back over problems with units to report it to the board selectman and one mentioned
033that they had problems with the dampers and they didn't have a problem for years. So I reported it to the fire marshall and um to George Brandon um that I got a report that was fire der issues that morning um I had my staff take the ceiling out of work did not work. So if there was any kind of fire in that side of the school, we're actually at a point where it would not be controlled. Um so at this point, George Brennan's actually closed the is closing the school down to students as of June 16th until we get a repair and it is a sizable repair. Um right now we've actually started to force the diapers closed. So there is an issue then they won't actually they wouldn't move through the school just to
034keep us occupied. We firewatch 20 that we're occupied in the school right now. Um I'm not sure exactly how how long it's going to take to repair but it just shows the continuing flaws in the school that every time they think we're moving forward we move back instead. And it's actually it's hard to deal with is a maintenance department, you know, and and administration and parents. It's very selfish there. I'm sorry. Um, so I just it's when I was thinking about all this and and I personally prefer the location of the school. It's closer to my house. So like, well, what you know, what is it? you know, it's a bigger school, but the amount that would need to be invested into a middle school to make it a middle school that our students should
035have, investing that kind of money here would not longterm be feasible. Like, it's just it would be stupid to do that. As a taxpayer, I don't want to do something like that. So, I think you kind of have to say, okay, to even come back here, like, we have to do the the the HVAC systems. We have to repair the building. Um, and there's just a lot of other than moving all the stuff back, getting all the technology and the smartboards back here. It's a huge chunk of money. The portable is a huge chunk of money, but I think comparatively we're going to get a lot more bang for our buck by putting the portables in 40 field street and then saying now let's take this money and invest it with the K12 committee for
036the future of Stson Middle School, right? And I think that that that's a step that wasn't done when we consolidated it. And unfortunately, our kids are paying price for that now because we were put here being told things would be updated and things would be upgraded because we're going to be saving money by putting the two middle schools together and that didn't happen. So, I just fear like we don't want that mistake to be made again because we go investing in school that had 10 years left in it. It's a really stupid business decision. So, it's kind of like I I would prefer to be here, but that's not the smart decision to make. So we kind of have to say and it's every time we open up something there's some another issue and things
037that were like put off and now we got to say okay well we're going to make a portfol I I had to break it down and I was sitting there saying like why can't why can't we just come back here and do the thing that we've been fighting for money so you put into this building which Now, yes, thankfully we didn't, but it wasn't because we got the money here. So, um, it's just going to be pulling too. We got to make sure we get as much as we can% agree. I mean, I think the the overall investment I mean, the useful life study is a competitive study and it gives us a life of the building, but it doesn't give us a life of everything else in the building. taking the bigger picture with
038100% and that's what we're trying to do is the total investment in the building to keep it open for 10 years or maybe questions back to the uh conversation Tuesday night wait Wednesday are all um you described sort of what would happen if uh the corals didn't get fun you It was sort of parsed up into things. What would happen if that third part of comparing this building didn't happen? What happens to the administration team? What does that look like? Do you want to take this one, Steve? I mean, is are we going to get the building partially shut down thing or Oh, sorry. The question is like they decide to fund the portables and the divided classroom but not right. So the question is what if we get two out of three of the
039bond requests meaning we get funding for the portables we get funding to uh divide the classroom but we don't get funding for the repairs the second floor here obviously there'll be a reaction there'll be there'll be a reaction at that point hasn't come yet so obviously then I we think for us we would be looking for temporary shorting on that for and the minute we put any shorting in that whole hallway, the building's going to get shut down. You can't block an eress on a hallway and expect occupants still to be in the building. So, so the whole building is shut down. Yeah. Well, for occupancy for any like we use it, it's not just us. It's the town use it at night and we can't control the occupancy, but they use it for basketball.
040So, I don't know the whole building. That would be the fire marshal. He would then review it because he would have to make sure all the egresses are counted and we have enough egresses to get out of it. It didn't happen on this side of the building and go that way. It might be possible to know like what like who who some of the groups are that would be intentionally pushed out or it's it's really a question that doesn't have an answer today to be honest with you. It's a very valid question like what would happen if you get no money, right? Um I don't know the answer. Nobody here to give you the exact answer because this has to involve you know the town building inspector bioche and you know egresses and because that
041whole wing has to be shut down. If you shut it down what does that mean for egresses? What does it mean? So it's a very u it's very involved response then to what we can do. Um I I you know voter of finance have made several commitment to fund whatever we ask for. So we're just waiting for Wednesday to see if they would really fund what we asked for and that not doing that is a problem and I don't nobody knows what can we do because we have more people to be involved in that time. Yes. So, uh, in listening and reading the reports, the three requests make so much sense to me that my follow-up question here is, what, if anything, are we concerned about regarding finance's decision? And what are these three priorities
042up against? What else are they considering funding that this would make total sense? Because to this group, it clearly does. So what else is on the table that they would potentially not fund these three things? Like what's where's the priority conflict? Bridges and sewers. Sorry, bridges and sewers. There you go. So bridges there. There are quite a few bridges. Uh in their bond request, um the the estimate for what we would ask for was $2 million. Uh if we take it under the $2 million, but um you know, the money would not come here. Maybe go towards more sewer repair or bridges repair. Sorry. The transitional control that we're moving out of that big room that we're going to be dividing will be coming here. So if we're not preparing here, we can't move those
043kids out. We don't get the additional space that we'll be putting the wall up in to also have which is also dependent portables. So it's like it it's a package because there's so many parts that are moving to make it a whole piece of music. And if we do invest into this building, I know Alison's been trying to grow her program which would allow a transition students from other school systems to come here which would be an income to the town. So if we could get a very expensive um program and we try to not outsource students because of how expensive it is to send them elsewhere. So keeping it in-house saves us money and if we're able to expand it enough that we could accept out of town students into that program then we
044can be making money makes fiscal sense and it's something we have to grow but again looking longterm we have the space that's not going to be used for something else and we need to repair just to maintain what we have but it also provided the ability to grow and possibly get an income in which would be beneficial overall. You have an engineer saying you must prepare immediately. I only put a lot of finance. So that's where I was like, could you leverage and that's like to me that's the easiest thing. [Music] Yeah. Yeah. I think you're making right now. So I don't know how I can answer that. That's why I'm just what can we do to leverage listen? Well, that's how I'm like could we do it in like 6 months committee commences and
045like talks about plan and pulls off and like $2 million scary. But I also understand that obviously too like I assume the board is going to be apprehensive for the 8 to 12 building because that no matter what they do it's going to be a chunk of money being spent. So when you start one of those committees fiscally and financially it's like whoa whoa what's going on because that committee stuff will get more people to show up on that voting that's really and we were just looking at the future. I mean, each each focus is different and I can, you know, like to me to me not spending the $317,000 to repair that like second staff is foolish because it would cost us a lot more to the administration somewhere else and rent office space
046and take counsel programming out of here and put it here. it will cost us triple that amount not to spend that amount. You know, I don't understand the logic behind it, but you're right. They made that, you know, several people made those comments and nobody can control those things. I hope that you might I might be speaking after so we're just looking at the next 10 years, right? was the light of this building. The portable portables are actually more fiscally responsible than coming back here after after this first initial investment. Steve portables are 75,000 a year something like that to to have them maybe purchasing. So after this initial investment, right, they're not costing anything on a year-to-year basis, but obviously classrooms, electricity, whatever. this building, this building, what it sounds like will likely cost
047much more than that to just have like on a yearto-year basis for the next 10 years and then in 10 years we have to make a decision portals will be done for and so will this building. So I think in the next 10 years more fiscally respons which I'm hoping that's what their concern is excuse me I'm always at 40 field in my head. So um to standard because 10 years we got to make a decision to do something else [Music] there are not temporary brand new platform question. I just want to clarify so on the vote it's board finance and board of the board of selection already. So the question is on on Wednesday night is the vote on behalf of or going before the board of selection and the board of finance. The
048board of selection already approved the board the the whole bond requests for the town side and for the board of ed side. It could have been but they are they decided last week that they were ready to vote. So it's going to vote now the board of finance. I thought the bond specified that it had to be voted on by Yes, it does. It does. They justified by vote. They did it. They did it by no the board of schools. It was on their agenda and it was a public meeting and they they decided that they were ready to vote on the bond moving forward. So it now goes to the same at the same time. But what have counted as a single n people is now with combined is now going to be right.
049So I guess when they they vote in the same session would have been four to four, right? Oh, that's true. It has to states. Okay. The way the bond described that it's very um and then a couple other quick things because I thought the bond very specifically said that 2 million was allocated for public facilities. I believe it said $2 million was um tagged for middle school middle school, right? Well, yeah. So then how would that be? Well, because if you if you if you read it, the language is very general. It doesn't say that it's it's designated for portables and and for it just says generally for the middle, right? Right. You couldn't spend that money. You put it out of that 2 million to think that. My last little bit is other than
050emailing or finance and attending meetings, is there anything else that we can do as parents to advocate that rules are so the question is what else can we do as parents beside besides emailing and attending the meeting on Wednesday? I don't think I think you're doing it. Getting your friends to do it too. I mean, and again, there, you know, to be respectful, they do have a lot of decisions that they have to make about the needs of the town, but our job is to look out for the kids, and this has been a middle school that has been neglected for years and years. People have been I mean, Kevin on the board since my father was talking about this when he was on the board of years and years ago. So, it's time now
051to get that building committee in play and and plan for the future, but it's also time now to invest in in that that site around pot so that we can have some high quality programming that the kids deserve in the meantime when that how that committee is is going to make in the long term. Just wanted to um add a comment for the public watching or youth here of why you're buying a portable not leasing because we just said that, right? Um it's it's important for me that you all know that the we compare right so we look at lease for three year lease for 5 years and purchase price purchase price is less expensive than leasing for 5 years slightly more expensive than leasing for 3 years my concern was like how long this
052is going to take how long we're going to be at portfield I don't think It's I think it's more than more than the the cost of more than the 5 years that the the town has a bonding. I don't think they have the bonding capacity. Even if you have a committee K through 12 today and you say we want to build a middle school today, the town doesn't have the bonding capacity to do this project, right? So we have to look at the future and plan. So that's why we made the decision to buy the portable and not least it because we're trying to look be fiscally responsible and look at the future say how long is this journey this journey is not you know I keep calling it the mandate but it's really this
053journey is is is in the 5 to 10 year so you know keep that in mind when you're thinking of this whole project of the committee you want to serve on the committee we love you know you go to the board like and and be involved. You need to be involved in in our town governance, right? You need to be involved in who sits on a board of education, who sits on the board of finance, who sits on the board of selectment and who sits on committees because if the wrong person on the committee, that's not going to be good for you, for our children, for the future of the town. That leads me to my question of do you have the criteria for this committee? You know, how many educators? So, it isn't you
054know potential. So in the resolution if you go to the board of selection lasting minutes it has in the resolution itself the ideal numbers and I think they came out with seven you know somebody in public safety uh somebody who's got an engineering background definitely a parent that kind of thing. So it's enormously important that it's the right composition of people because uh again they're the ones who's going to be the hands on just as far as a process question because this might be new to some people as well that when that passes and I'm going to say that in a positive way on 16th when it passes then it's the charge of Danielle the first one to actually put out the the ads if you will you know the job description and then the
055interview so people can apply for these positions. And that's really important is if you know somebody who's who's even like what I would call a double dipper like we have so many law enforcement folks who are safety experts who are also parents like that's the kind of person we want on our our committee right because they're the ones who are going to study what our aspects are is what is our vision independent of the location for the ideal middle school and then study all the possibilities and then land on that. So, it's huge, huge important. And I was asked last week, why why in the resolution was there a public safety person, specifically name? And I said, because we're we've been visiting the schools where it was very clear that there was not a public
056safety person on that committee, and you're making decisions that are going to cost a lot of money once you get in that building, but do it right once. Do it right the first time. And so uh and we have such a great way of thinking Brian Steiner if you're listening um we have so many great law enforcement officers who are very well verssed in in the safety aspects of the building that it would be foolish not to have somebody serve in that capacity. question. as well. And I know they're making decisions with other options. So I just wanted to make sure to all listening are they see those same numbers? So the question is have all these facts and figures been provided to the board of finance? Um in various ways they have been but
057we are putting together again this memo that was requested of us by the board of selectman um and it will be hot again tomorrow. I just wanted the board share this on first. Uh but yes so we'll be in a in a chart like form so you know costs will be very easy to understand. Thank you. And just as a followup to that question, when we first learned of the issue that we had here in this building, we we called for a meeting with the select woman and the chairman of the board of finance and the uh uh uh the board of finance layers on to the board of education and representative from the administration. uh you know we were all there in that meeting. We shared all the facts from day one to today.
058It was always open and transparent. We shared all that information. Um we shared the cost our meetings on the public but we voted on the um the the bond request. We you know we did discuss the cost analysis. Uh I I hope you know they're watching our meetings as well to to learn. We're sending them a memo detailing uh how much it costs to continue to operate this building and how much it costs um in in the next 10 years if we want to continue to occupy this building beyond the 10 years. Um and you know we want it's it's not going to be in the hands of the board of education the minute that committee is establish 12. It's in your hand. Just keep that in mind. We have zero say in what happens
059if you build a school, you don't build the school, you you renovate a school, you fix you fix this the foundation here, that's the committee that's going to see the vision, the vision of the graduate, what what do you want your kids to graduate as? What do you want them to learn? What do you want them to to experience in in a middle school? Right? And that that's the case through the 12th committee that's going to determine those things. And then we take the product that they give us whatever that product is and we we we do policy and budget to it as a comp. Yes ma'am. some questions. First, just because I haven't heard it, how much of a process? And the second question is, does this memo that you're sending the board of
060finance be posted on the website? Tomorrow before the meeting so we can look at it, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, the question was, will the memo that's going to the board of finance be posted with all of our other companions on the uh Stoington Middle School website? Yes, it will. Um, and second question was, oh, how much with the Scottish accent? So we we've actually been uh placed between two vendors. So the the purchase price is 662,000 from one vendor and 562,000 from another another vendor vendor association logistics power is roughly $248,265 for either one. And then there's a $50,000 contingency which takes it to a total of 960,517 for one vendor, $861,541, right? Yeah. My paperworks. Yeah, it looks so the the five lease came in. um1,92,056.301,52,88,06. So for the 5 years, it is way
061less expensive to purchase the the portables in the 3ear lease. invented so much stuff. The new year rental which is because we have um fees of purchase and return in um the tool cost was 600 sorry 761,000 and $45 from one vendor and $770,000 from another vendor. So 180,000 out from a purchase on one and even less on another. So just a question about logistics for Wednesday night. Did you say it's at the police department and is it like I think there have been meetings at the police department where they couldn't perhaps they didn't have space for everybody and then they postponed it because they had to find another place. So like would that be a possibility? Yeah, you would have to check the agenda for public comments and that usually gets close to it
062has to get close to 24 hours ahead of time. Uh I was told that uh via email that Sullivan and I are actually going to be recording the meeting which doesn't happen. So we'll see if that happens. So that might be helpful. I don't know if it's live stream. I think it's just recorded. Um but I would say show up. Yeah, it will be on the gentle though. state public comment on so before we cut the uh the reporting off. I just want to thank all of you for your time. I know it's that time of year where there's end of year athletic events, uh awards ceremonies, etc., etc. Thank you so much. And I would be remiss if I didn't say a special thank you to the administration of Stonyington Middle School and the
063staff, the students, the families, the faculty who have shown such resilience and such flexibility this year to make um a wonderful year. They're going to be receiving a red, white, and blue award uh this Friday for their um unparalleled civics uh on board class. And so despite all of the challenges, there's still amazing teaching and learning that's going on at that school. So, thank you very much. first year principal like I I can't imagine you know high school it's only it's only going to get easier on the agenda public comment is on the agenda so thank you for looking that up and it's posted so that's great thank The face.