March 16, 2023 Board of Education Business Meeting

001I hereby call the meeting to order now what we have to do is say the Pledge of Allegiance Kathleen I don't know how you did this every time I always get nervous and and forget the words is there anyone here who can help me with the Pledge of Allegiance how great okay come on up please of the United States of America and to the Republic for Richard Stan under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all those are our children from the Old Greenwich School now are you guys is there something else you guys might know what to do for us right now oh cool let's go go ahead thank you right good evening chairman Kelly Dr Jones Board of Education members and guests first I'd like to thank each of you for your service

002to all Greenwich public school students second I'd like to thank you for inviting the Old Greenwich School cast of Seussical to your meeting this evening on behalf of our entire cast we'd like to invite you to our performance on May 3rd through 5th at Old Grand in school what is what a treat thanks guys and girls that was great awesome uh now uh to our some of our board business let's go to the consent agenda uh I move that we accept the minutes uh from February 23rd special and business meetings do I have a second uh all in favor please raise your hand okay that passes that's seven zero Karen you'll be doing the counting of that thing perfect 6-0 okay thanks guys thanks for coming all right we'll see you good job excellent okay

003now we have the students and staff recognition uh first of all will be the Scholastic art Awards recipients Miss Nixon foreign teachers of Greenwich high school and Eastern Middle School are very proud to recognize our eight Connecticut State Scholastic Art Award recipients from the high school and three award recipients from Eastern Middle School at Eastern Middle School three students earned an honorable mention two silver key Awards and a gold key and the caea arnene best in mixed media award from the high school two received honorable mentions three received silver Awards one of which was also awarded a gold key and a Hartford art school scholarship and three received gold key Awards one of which also was awarded at Hartford a Hartford art school scholarship gold key works automatically advance to National judging in New York

004City renowned creative professionals review gold key works from across the country and jurors select work for National recognition based on three criteria originality skill and emergence of a personal Vision or voice national awards will be announced on March 22nd now in their 100th year the Scholastic art and writing Awards is the largest longest running and most prestigious recognition program for Creative young people in the United States the awards have an impressive Legacy dating back to 1923 and a noteworthy roster of past winners including Andy Warhol Ken Burns Phillip pearlstein red Grooms Truman Capote Richard Avedon Robert Redford and two many more to mention this year alone nearly 2 800 students entered original works from about 145 schools in Connecticut I would like to recognize the art teachers summer Merit from Eastern Middle School and from

005Greenwich High School Lisa skaragne Jamie Charles Cheryl iozo shakiba Bennett Ben kisnell and Liz Vasquez for their teaching and encouragement of all of our students and especially tonight our Scholastic winners I would also like to thank Michael antonuccio wherever you are in the stratosphere for helping with this presentation Jason Goldstein the principal of Eastern Middle School and Ralph Mayo the principal of Greenwich high school for their constant support for the Arts Laura Newell our Arts coordinator Tony Jones and the board of education for their ongoing dedication to providing the very best art education possible for our students in the Greenwich Public Schools as I call your name please come to the front to be congratulated by Dr Tony Jones our superintendent and Joe Kelly our board chair and remain here until everyone has been called

006up and please hold your applause until I have called everyone up Caitlin Quinn EMS honorable mention Isabel dang EMS silver key Lulu Wang EMS silver key gold key and caea armini best in mixed media stay up here Lulu foreign Smith the rest of Greenwich High School honorable mention digital art Nicholas O'Brien ghs honorable mention drawing and illustration Julian Lujan ghs silver key and scholarship and art portfolio Lucia Rosetto ghs silver key photography Matteo zatella silver key drawing and illustration lujen Julian also received a gold key in scholarship Casey Tierney gold key photography Amanda Wong gold key Ceramics and glass and Joshua day gold key and scholarship art portfolio okay now you can clap oh yeah all right here okay now the Scholastic writing award recipients Miss Barry I don't think he needs it thank you

007very much and good evening all uh as Ms Nixon said the Scholastic writing Awards is the nation's longest running competitive uh um competitive event for Creative teens and from our region which is Hudson to Housatonic very competitive we have 15 winners in the writing category uh as Miss Nixon said these Scholastic Awards began in 1923 and just as you heard familiar names for art winners over the years many notable writers including Sylvia Plath John Updike Jose Carroll Oates Stephen King many other winners I think you'll be reading some of our writers in the future many of our writers are home writing even as we speak if you are here I haven't seen any of the writers but if you are back there please stand so you can enjoy some of the Limelight and I will

008deliver I'll hand deliver all of the certificates tomorrow so um strap strap yourselves in because we have a lot of winners we have Miller fish Bank honorable mention for journalism Alexandra gazinski a silver key for flash fiction Chloe Henske honorable mention for critical essay Kristen Jacks a silver key for a short story Hannah klingbell honorable mention journalism Alexa Laura silver key poetry Ashley Malkin honorable mentioned for three poems and a gold key for flash fiction Ashley Malkin is a this is not her first time winning Bell Nichols silver key for a dramatic script Aubry niederhoffer gold key for a personal essay Shreya Prabhu silver key for journalism and a gold key for journalism treya also won a silver key for a personal essay Ainsley sarback silver key for a short story Natasha samont silver key

009for poetry as Elizabeth Wallace gold key for poetry critical essay honorable mention and Yan winner for the third year ready six honorable mentions for poetry 10 Silver Keys for poetry one so one silver key for where is it oh one I will mention for personal essay and four gold keys for poetry Plus Z One a gold key and the American voices nominee for poetry which means for our region she is one of five students for the region to be considered they will choose one hasn't yet to be named to be the um the poet for the region pretty nice thank you a lot to be proud of there Greenwich school systems are is awesome next is the regeneron science Talent search uh my friend Andy could come up here and talk a little of that

010hi everyone how are you Boyd Joe Dr Jones um I'm Andy bermonte I'm the science research teacher at Branch High School now I could say I'm the research teacher for the junior innovators for the middle schoolers and that has been an awesome awesome experience um those are a tough acts to follow yeah I mean I was looking at the little kids and I you know I get to know these I've gotten to know these two young ladies quite well and I was looking at the little kids and I remembered those pictures that you showed me of when you guys were that age I'm thinking wow look at what you've done in so little time um anyway to the regeneron business um so in late February uh regeneron announced their 40 high top students or finalists

011for the regeneron talent search from the 300 Scholars that were picked a week prior um amongst those 40 finalists were two of our ghs research students Angelina Fogerty or Angie as I know her and ambika Grover Angie was selected for her work entitled rapid visual detection of illicit substances in a variety of environments via competitive amine responsive fluorophores and ambica was selected for work entitled design of a novel dual functioning tissue plasminogen activator and Factor 11 inhibiting anticoagulant therapeutic for Rapid ischemic stroke treatment I'm out of breath just on those right for a change these young ladies are going to tell you what they did which really takes the pressure off for me but before they do Angie nambika represent the 8th and the ninth High School School finalists in the last 15 years from

012the nearly 50 Scholars that we've had at the same time this place is ghs science research the program alongside the most prestigious Science High School specialized schools public schools you name it um being selected as a as a finalist in regeneron places these two young ladies into company with so many talented young scientists that have gone on to become leaders including 13 Nobel Prize winners 22 MacArthur Foundation fellows and more so with these Visionaries Angie and ambika share their love for scientific discovery for the most profound reason and that's their desire to apply their innate Gifts of technological imagination creativity and persistence to help others I'm so incredibly proud of these two young ladies so for their further troubles as finalists they won 27 thousand dollars something like that and I am proud to tell

013you I mean the cat's kind of the bag because it was in the paper today but ambika was only was that two days ago right two days ago was selected as sixth place in that competition and her her winnings total 82 000 she promised me lunch so I'm I'm waiting for that anyway so ladies come on up and uh I think they maybe they queued up your little poster and you could talk about what you've done so uh Angie you want to go first all right I hope you like white I think oh my gosh what an introduction I feel so special so I'll try to keep this short and as easy to understand as possible um I essentially created a color changing sensor that's responsive to amines which is a class of macromolecules and

014my vision with with this region was to apply it as a sensor for the detection of diphenahydramine which we commonly know as Benadryl this can be used for users who are at a party or a bar to allow them to rapidly test their drink to test if it's been spiked with any drugs that could help an assaulter to engage in drug facilitated sexual assault so in short I use two fluorescent dyes a green fluorescent dye and a red fluorescent dye this green fluorescent dye is specifically reactive to the amine compounds in those drugs and that leads to the quieting of the dye whereas the red fluorescent dye is unaffected by this and that allows it to continue to fluoresce even in the presence of those drugs and that creates the visual red to green color

015shift I also had to test this with a variety of different additives because um if you were to test this impractical usage with a different cocktails it had to be pH and color stable so I've added mechanisms to ensure that it's able to continue to fluoresce properly in a variety of different environments and lastly to extend This research because it's not specific to just diphenylhydramine applicable to a variety of other elements I've tested it with pyrol this is an amine found in the breath of marijuana smokers but absent from that of cigarette smokers and this allows it to be put into practice for use as a marijuana breathalyzer similar to current alcohol breathalyzer tests for those driving under the influence of illicit substances that is my very short summary because I have a week's worth

016of makeup work to do thank you thank you foreign hello everyone my name is invica so I want to start by before I get into the exactly what I did in terms of my research I just want to start with a really quick introduction of what Strokes are and specifically what an ischemic stroke is so many of you may have heard heard of the term Strokes you may know someone who's been affected by a stroke and an ischemic stroke is a type of stroke in which an artery becomes partially or completely blocked due to the presence of a blood clot or a thrombus and this basically restricts the movement of oxygen glucose and other valuable nutrients we need from reaching our brain and so as a result within a few minutes a patient can have

017life endangering lack of oxygen reaching their brain this can lead to disability and is oftentimes in nearly half the case is fatal to the patient so our existing medicine to treat this disease was approved by the FDA in 1996 and it's known as tissue plasminogen activator or TPA but there's a few shortcomings that I found when I started my research Journey which is that it doesn't localize to the site of the blood clot which means when a patient gets this intravenously it freely circulates throughout the bloodstream and I also realize that we don't stop something known as the coagulation Cascade which is the mechanism by which a clot is actively rebuilt in in real time so in essence there are two problems in treating Strokes the first is that our Therapeutics don't localize to the

018clot site but we also don't stop the mechanism by which that Claw is rebuilt and those are the challenges I wanted to resolve in my research so to do this I engineered this nanoparticle microbubble-like structure which basically has peptides that are able to localize to the site of a blood clot break it down using TPA and then use a factor in 11 inhibiting anticoagulant which basically means we're stopping this Cascade by which the clots are actively rebuilt and so to verify that this micro bubble structure I engineered had worked I created in vitro vertical Channel gel systems which mimic what a clot would look like in the lab and I also Drew my own blood to generate blood clots and to simulate that in real human blood conditions so in essence This research holds promise

019for breaking up blood clots in the case of ischemic strokes but can also be applied to other diseases like heart attacks deep Venous Thrombosis and any conditions in which blood clots are quite prominent thank you so much thank you very much appreciate it I don't know about you guys but the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck about being proud of the little bit of contribution we do up here on the board to the school systems and the products we put out so I just uh wow Andy that's great I got a really good feeling about what just happened so thank you very much for that okay is Lil here and it's now time for the Gea to to speak sorry that's right you guys Student Government we have a student body

020vice president Mitch Goldstein Mitch it's your turn to speak oh it's it's jaw-dropping work that they're doing there it's really impressive actually so good evening everyone board members and meeting attendees like uh chairman Kelly said my name is Mitch Goldstein I'm the student body vice president this year I want to start by addressing several of the items on the action agenda for tonight firstly as I've repeatedly said I cannot express students excitement about adding a linear algebra course the official class will allow students to advance their knowledge and Niche areas of mathematics and help prepare them for more advanced courses that students will take in college all while keeping them in the classroom setting rather than having them take the course online secondly I want to thank I want excuse me secondly I want to

021say that the ghs student government supports the approval of the new entrance May plans although these plans are less extravagant than the original ones it's imperative that something is done to the entrance way to ensure student safety at ghs next on behalf of all the seniors I want to thank Dr Jones for recommending June 15 as a graduation date I know many seniors and especially senior parents are eager to learn the official date for graduation however regardless of the date I know that this day will be extraordinary back at ghs the student government has been working closely with the food services staff and I want to applaud Mr nanarello as Chef Nico and food production coordinator Jessica capozza for their dedication to serving the students I truly cannot express how fantastic working with them has

022been they are incredibly receptive to student feedback and I've done an incredible job of improving food quality in the Cardinal Cafe some highlights of the cafeteria include adding cultural foods which have helped diversify the menu additionally they plan on replacing one of the school's sandwich bars with a salad bar which I expect to be widely popular with the ghs student body on a different note with Black History Month coming to a close at the end of February I want to shed light on a specific on a significant student concern the ghs Diversity Awareness club and its advisor typically organized an energetic week in the middle of February to celebrate the diversity of our community daily announcements are made and optional assemblies are held each day for students however due to Staffing challenges this year only

023a handful of events occurred and announcements were rarely made speaking of Staffing challenges it's interesting to think that the district has not considered hiring a diversity equity and inclusion officer to handle matters like these in future years I hope that Diversity Awareness Week during Black History Month will be as significant as it once was on behalf of the student body thank you all for your time I look forward to continuing to work with the board throughout our final four months of the school year I now pass the microphone over to student body president Isabella gega thank you Isabella straight from rugby practice I hope it didn't weigh you out today I actually got hit in the face today so a little sore um good evening chairman Kelly Dr Jones members of the board and meeting

024attendees I am Isabella gega the student body president at Greenwich High School in the long month of March students have found themselves pondering on the following school year considering this ghs student government has set out the election package for the 2023-2024 school year we have decided to move forth with our newly organized structure given its efficiency and we look forward to new leadership in addition to elected positions this spring we have students applying for an opportunity to become class reps in the fall Beyond this seniors have applied for their senior options on School links are Beyond excited for the May 15th internship and projects are an excellent way for students to get real world experience and pursue their interests Beyond School those signups were low before the March 15 deadline students turned a corner and

025submitted them on time since the end of the school year is coming fast the senior class has begun prom planning reaching out to commencement speakers to prepare for graduation furthermore the senior class officers have planned activities to excite students for the remaining dates together we appreciate the collaborative efforts between XCOM and ghs administration to ensure that there are feminine products in the girls bathroom we begin with bathroom baskets of products glued to chairs but we have started transitioning to permanent dispensers that we are very excited about providing access to feminine hygiene products is essential for promoting menstrual hygiene management and supporting the needs of girls and women therefore we thank you moreover the ghs therapy dog has been a topic of Interest recently our student gov our student resource officers and the PTA have shown

026unwavering support and recognize the therapy dogs can positively impact the overall well-being and academic performance of our school they can help creative supportive and nurturing environment that promotes learning growth and emotional well-being we hope the correct steps are taken to soon welcome to soon welcome home a new furry friend at ghs finally our school partnered with the Anti-Defamation League to facilitate namesake for our freshman class they engage in insightful presentations participate in meaningful conversations and reevaluated our efforts to be an ally we as a school are doing our best to combat bullion and discrimination but we can always do better bless you as always thank you for this opportunity and for your time here tonight I look forward to speaking to you all again in a month's time before we lose some of our students

027uh do we have an update on the hockey game that's going on right now anyone know what's happening no okay maybe if you can find out that would be great we could bring everyone up to date the boys hockey team is in the semi-finals of the state championship this evening Joe it's Karen I do have an update they unfortunately uh we're not uh we're not successful in their their uh their game I think they're down they lost five now yeah five nil well okay well thank you for the news you're welcome okay now well Lil how do you follow the announcement of the loss of the hockey team I'd like to see you do that and please uh the floor is yours bill you can talk now okay I was waiting to get unmuted not

028something that I'm used to all right so chairman Kelly uh Board of Ed members Dr Jones um first of all uh I want to say people know me if I have something important to say I like to be in person unfortunately I could not be in three places um this evening um but my first place the rugby team from Texas that's playing Greenwich today was in the room next door to me and I went in the room and uh spoke with them so Joe do you have an update for me do I have an update for you you spoke to them and unfortunately the Greenwich high school rugby team lost yesterday they did not Prevail it was a uh the team from Texas was very uh confused that that white stuff falling from the sky

029they were unaware of what it was yeah the parents told me so thank you um I will continue now so uh back when I was hired in 1983. uh Ernie Flashman was our superintendent I often heard him say if it's good for students then it's good for Greenwich also when I first became president 2003 my mentor was Joanne salmon a distinguished teacher at Greenwich she also used to say to me that which we tolerate we accept and that what we accept becomes the practice I say this because I know there's lots of construction projects going on in in the town and I'm not going to be to death dead horse here I'm just going to be brief on this but why is it that every budget that comes the way of the Town whether it's

030the Boe or School construction is always cut to Bare Bones we need to do better our students deserve the best in our community does can we please end this madness please support all the budgets that come through next I was very excited um yesterday um uh I spent 12 hours up at the Capitol was there for the news conference where over 600 teachers provided written testimony to the legislatures urging them to pass the comprehensive Bill containing key recommendations there were 167 speakers who presented in person to the legislature um I was one of them among with the other teachers um the education committee is considering two um significant house bills six eight eight four and six eight eight one that would increase Educators salaries and dress other critical barriers to teacher recruitment intentions this Landmark

031legislation would reverse Decades of policy that have led to teacher attrition shrinking teacher pipeline or working conditions and listening to the speeches it's not just about teachers it it's about Paris it's about special education there are a lot of good things that will help not only teachers but Boards of Ed some of the examples are um the which I think this is a big one um the State Board of Education Department is uh one of the legislative laws is that they're gonna have to advisory members for the State Department of Ed 10 of those members totaled five will be distinguished teachers past distinguished teachers and five will be teachers appointed this is important to districts and teachers having teacher representation on the State Board of Education is so important because you will have people with

032real world implications who are in the classroom and have classroom practice with new initiatives that are that are um I'm sorry I just lost my page here so I um it's important because the people up at the State Department of Ed aren't current in the real world what's happening in in the schools the Hands-On practice with technology and having a teacher advisory when they consider new initiatives and having the discussion before they're implemented will save districts lots of money frustration on teachers part for example the CT said's onboarding was a disaster technical glitches and um initiating the pro and initiating certain programs like the the reading program or other programs uh put uh unburdened Financial uh distress on districts that don't need to have that program and it just us doesn't fit so I thought

033that was a big um positive uh thing uh for that um there were laws to help with it's all through this the state of Connecticut and the country um plans to help with um financing and helping teachers stay in the program new teachers have all graduates have all these extra test costs um trying to find a way to help support districts to pay Powers more we have we have a sub shortage so a lot of good things are in that bill um and uh I I'm honored to try and uh work on a lot of those committees and give testimonies um because this is this is a collaboration that that the the state and the teachers union can help you know districts and teachers lastly I did notice uh for tonight on talking about um

034our budget on uh when Blaze does his uh presentation I'm going to say this again in the in the presentation I noticed there's 1.6 million of available Grand dollars that will expire on 6 30 23. now if you don't have a place to spend that money and I hope you don't give it back I am going to say again uh that it would be nice to give teachers and pairs that worked during the covid because there is a legislation bill that will be moving forward um but it will not uh deal with the people that currently work during the covid uh over these last two years so think about it show teachers they are valued and they work as they do respected uh our parents too thank you very much thank you will okay now

035it's uh Francis nobody's turn for PTAC Francis is working together with us to try to uh organize people to march on the St Patrick's Day Parade on Sunday down Greenwich Avenue so far we have about 200 people uh from the school systems who have signed up so uh more the merrier Francis welcome hello this is Francisco nobe mom of three GPS kids and the 2022-2023 president of the Greenwich parent teacher advisory Council as the 15 ptas who make up the Greenwich PTA Council head into nominating season I want to share my PTA journey and why you should consider a PTA role at your school or at the district level my first roles were helping to promote summer reading and stapling International night passports I then moved up to handle handing out ice cream tickets to

036co-representing remote School families I absolutely love working hand in hand with my fellow parents for the benefit of our kids I'm delighted to share my time and talents to making our schools the best they can be I have met so many incredible super volunteers moms dads working commuting doing similar at your schools please join your local PTA today and thank you so much for volunteering turning to Hot Topics in tonight's consent agenda PTEC continues to stand with our Greenwich Public School families and advocate for full funding of our school buildings we will continue to press for full funding until the capital budget is passed we appreciate everything the board of education has done to do the absolute to advance the capital projects at Central Middle School Old Greenwich School Julian Curtis and we call on

037the board to remain unanimous in continuing to represent the best interests of our Public School families and the Greenwich Community it was all of you who had already spent months of thoughtful deliberation determine what's best for our kids there is no reason to reopen the debate on the specifications or the building project Scopes and put the state reimbursement deadline at risk more importantly it puts our kids at risk now as Joe said let's March proudly hand in hand at Sunday St Patrick's Day Parade I'll be there with my kids knowing that we each did our part together to support our kids in closing please join p-tag virtually on March 31 in honor of Earth Day to hear Julie deschamps share all the great progress the Green Schools team has made details and recordings of Prior

038meetings are posted on the PTAC website and see you on Sunday okay thank you Francis it's now time for Community comments I didn't skip anything did I Kathleen oh good all right uh Dina Orso is first is she online oh they are Catalina Mora is next good evening Mr Kelly Dr Jones the members of the Board of Education my name is Dina urso and I'm one of the co-presidents of the CMS PTA and speaking on its behalf my co-president Jen behet and I have been attending the building committee meetings virtually and have followed the conversations concerning the appropriate size of the new building regardless of how many square feet it ends up being the CMS PTA strongly advocates in favor of three things one that the quality of the educational programming must not be compromised

039two that the administrators and teachers must be prominent participants in the conversation this is the group of people who know more than anyone else went a middle school the 21st century needs for this town please continue to hear them as their input is integral especially during these formative stages and three the building committee the Boe and the bet must work together and proactively to keep this project on track June 30th is approaching at warp speed with each week that passes it is not assigned a weakness to be the first to open the lines of communication please do not let egos or red tape cause any unnecessary delay our children in our community need all groups involved to work together as quickly and as efficiently as possible in closing the PTA is very appreciative of all

040the volunteers involved in the process we are more than willing to help by educating and advocating in any way that may be helpful in seeing this process through to the end thank you for your time Katarina next is Courtney Murphy okay good evening chair Kelly Dr Jones members of the board and meeting attendees my name is Katarina Mora I'm an Old Greenwich resident and mother of two children at ogs one in preschool one in fourth grade which is probably the youngest person in the room right now so thank you to my son for handling this I'm here today to speak in support of a much needed much overdue project the ogs renovation project first and foremost I'd like to share my surprise and in fact how appalled I was as a newcomer last year to

041discover that ogs lacked ADA Compliant accessible entrances ramps or an elevator violating not only the law but also compromising the fundamental values of equity and inclusion in public education as a foreigner doing my PhD some time ago here in the US I remember vividly remembering how accessible things were Schools public buildings even national parks and that was amazing and really one of the marble aspect of the this country in my opinion to find out that our neighborhood School must turn away children with Mobility limitations for lack of appropriate access was mind-blowing to say the least secondly and something that troubles me very much is the lack of a recommended secure interest allowing direct visibility of visitors from the main office I confess this might not have ranked high in my radar while living abroad but

042it does rank very high here and it needs to be done now here and it's urgent next where should we go next are the basement where my daughter spends her school day can flood can be encroached by raw sewage and poor air quality during previous pandemic measures and still now when there's covet positive basis cases classroom Windows must be open even when it's really freezing outside for lack of an appropriate HVAC system how in very hot days children and teachers must endure high temperatures and potential High ozone levels for lack of such a system how should kids and adults with asthma cope with this and how can all our children focus learn and Thrive under search circumstances what are we asking of them that we would not tolerate in our work environment or our homes

043how much must teachers and other staff still overcome to do their job properly lastly as a scientist familiar with climate research and projections I cannot avoid thinking what lies ahead sooner than later we will have more floods more frequent and more intense storms heat waves among among other events bringing this building up to standard farcode regulations protecting it against Storm surges and flooding installing a proper HVAC system that can maintain safe healthy and comfortable environment to our students and staff is not a luxury it's a basic requirement furthermore is also an investment in a local community not only in their school and in the value of their properties but as a safety aspect think for instance in the case of very likely blackouts or shelter shelter emergency needs during this potentially extreme events I mentioned

044for these and many other reasons I wholeheartedly support the ogs renovation as well as the socially and fiscally responsible decision decision to move ahead as swiftly as possible that means now with this and on behalf of my children as well I would like to thank the board of education for its previous unanimous support of this project and I would really encourage you all members to continue to do so it's really important I'd also like to thank our principal Jan bansivengo for the wonderful job at keeping this school running as efficiently and as smoothly as possible under these circumstances and to thank the ogs building committee for their tireless efforts and informative actions they are ready and I hope the bet is ready as well thank you all have a very good evening Courtney your turn

045Roger rosendal's next good evening chair Kelly Dr Jones members of the Boe I'm speaking tonight at the concerned parent asking the Board of Ed to can reconfirm its support for the updated funding of the Old Greenwich School renovation and to ask you to advocate for the BET to support this necessary project my son's in fifth grade at ogs and was part of the Seussical performance tonight I also have a daughter in second and another who will be in K at ODS next year when we were moving out of the City eight years ago we looked for a community that among other factors was walkable diverse and had good Public Schools we've been incredibly happy with the decision to date thanks to the heroic leadership of Jen Ben savingo and all the teachers who make the

046magic happen every day as well as the leadership of Tony Jones and the Boe during the challenging coveted years in particular thank you for all that you do I know I'm speaking to the choir and the many critical needs of ogs are well known at this point but I'd be remiss in not mentioning that in first grade the teacher for my daughter had to create a diaper in the door frame to avoid sewage from coming into the classroom and the lack of accessibility is not just about an elevator it prohibits students with disability or injury from attending it makes assemblies with grandparents or other guests impossible related to security with mass shootings at schools across the country our children are accustomed to lockdown drills we no longer allow our children to enter the door closer

047to their classroom instead having the central door open to avoid potential security breaches however with our school right off I-95 we still do not have a secure entrance with sight lines to the office and the new plans would remedy this and other critical issues including air quality so my requests are as follows the ogs building committee is ready to start construction in Spring 2024 if construction funding is provided by the bet if the BET does not provide construction funding please support the request for incremental pre-construction funding so they can keep moving forward I've heard that the BET and Boe are asking the building committee to explore the cost of new construction while they're creating the schematic design for the ogs renovation I'm a bit concerned that this ask from the bet is coming so late

048in the game over two years after a feasibility study was conducted and a year and a half after the Boe approved the ogs Ed specs construction costs have gone up significantly and we need to face reality it's unrealistic to think that a new construction school would cost the same as a renovation it's important that the Boe and bet move forward on this quickly keeping up with the building committee and support the ogs community our school has a strong consistent enrollment of 400 plus students and ogs residents are tired of this project getting kicked on the road I hope you'll support the ogs project tonight and the Boe will do whatever it can to advocate for the project and keep it on track it's time to make the facility of ogs match the quality of the

049education not only for our children but for generations to come thank you okay Roger I saw him earlier Steve Walker did you see Roger okay well we can always invite him to speak at another interval of the evening okay now we're off to the superintendence report that's you Tony oh yes fantastic um just a couple of items tonight I want to start out um and first of all say so I don't forget a very special thank you to the board of education and this is Board of Education Month and so where we honor and thank you for everything that you do and I mean you are paid just so well for all of your service zero um and the amount of time that you spend in meetings but I don't even think necessarily the public

050understands how much you do outside of these meetings just to get prepared for tonight um so thank you so much and this is on behalf of everybody in Greenwich public schools there is a chocolate bar to help you get through the evening and another little small token of our appreciation um I also want to say congratulations to all of our students who have their work in the district art show that's at 299 Greenwich Avenue it is still up and you can still stop by so if you're down there this weekend for the parade you know you might be able to stop in um also a special thank you to Mike antonaccio who was very Swift and had been working on updating our strategic plan a website and so I know there was a wonderful letter

051thank you to Dr McKenzie Anthony in the paper and the website is up for the community so people can see see the important work that we're doing um we all we did submit our waiver um to the Connecticut State Department of Education and when I was meeting with our state representatives at Western uh it was shared with me that they thought they were going to get 40 waivers from across the state they got well over a hundred so we don't know what the timeline will be because it's going to take a lot longer for them to actually review the waivers and we will be having that on our agenda for next month as requested so they're working on that presentation for you right now and last but not least I do just want to say

052we did have representative Fazio we had Kana our Zinio and then representative Curry who is chair of the education committee all were on site spent several hours at Western touring the school they were got to see classrooms and probably one of the best things was there was a panel of four of the Avid students and just listening to How Avid is impacting our students at that age was phenomenal there was one young lady and I'll just briefly share um she was talking about you know just she didn't know anything about going to college and these are middle schoolers and she didn't know that you had to pay to go to college she didn't know that you really should look at colleges she didn't know what was available and she was actually saying she came from

053a family where she will be the first you know to ever go to college and so she just around the dinner table didn't have anybody to help her have those conversations and now not only with her but her family they're able to do that so I know the alliance has been an enormous partner for us but the work that we are doing our representatives were just so impressed and a special thanks to representative Curry who does not represent us but as chair of the education committee wanted to see the great work going on in Greenwich so we've had a wonderful couple of weeks showcasing just so many wonderful things that you saw tonight as well thank you thank you Tony any questions yes Michael Tony I don't know if you can clarify this or not

054there was a a comment made uh during by the DEA president about an enormous sum of unspent money and things like that is there any Clarity you could provide on that it could be two things I'll have to follow up but we don't have an enormous of unspent money and we're watching every every penny but there is a different grant that actually uh was flowing through for um but it wasn't for like ARP funding it was more for our new special education program so I don't know if that's showing up anywhere but it's not that sum of money so I think it's just the way the report looks right now probably what we can see is encumbered and what is maybe not spent yet but we're still waiting on items no we we're we're going

055to spend that money I was worried about that I was going to ask later on thank you Mike for bringing that up anyone else with a question to the superintendent going once going twice okay we'll move on to our individual reports uh our officers committees and Liaisons who now most of us or all of us who work on building committees will have a time to speak so we don't speak now any other uh uh things that anyone's working on they'd like to update us on Kathleen hi okay Greenwich Alliance uh Julie was good enough to send me some updates so let me just read it here reaching out Grant applications are due on March 24th applications must first be approved by Dr Carabella dare to care a longtime Alliance Grant was featured on the front

056page of the Greenwich time on Tuesday March 14th Dr Alina and Fabian sorry I'm not going to say that right wah hosted a parent-child retreat at North Street school calling glowing and growing to teach mindfulness yoga and craft making centered around making things to calm oneself down Patrick Briggs Avid Eastern director's book at PTAC public session it also LED two professional development sessions at ghs on Monday Avid is much more than executive functioning skills Patrick will be at Western middle school on March 28th and all board members are welcome to attend and learn trivia challenge thanks to everyone who played and our bid on auction items the event raised 30 000 for Greenwich Public Schools thank you that's great anybody else Michael so the Strategic plan committee met a few weeks ago as Dr Jones

057mentioned the um and the websites updated and um you'll please everybody saw um the message from the Board of Ed as a whole in the in the local paper the I know it was at least in one I don't know if it's been the others yet but we sent it to all the local media around just advertising the plan as was adopted last month by us um the other thing that the Strategic plan committee talked about was maybe called the board as a whole charged us with revising or taking a look at the board goals we're continuing to work on that we're hoping to bring that back next month after another strategic plan meeting to to for the board's consideration we also talked a little bit about the opportunity I mentioned last month to host

058a uh research Ed conference at some point uh next year this would be an exciting professional development opportunity to host an international speakers a non-profit type setting really put Greenwich on the map I'll continue to have conversations Dr Jones and then is working on possibly an alliance Grant to help fund that the um and I have meetings I'm meeting with research Ed on Friday what we're going to get some more details we should have some more details to bring to the board around those efforts next month and if we move forward then maybe form a Community Committee to to Champion the effort Michael you've been busy thank you excellent anybody else I will jump in with a quick Laura Justin just a short update from the distinguished teacher uh award committee we have to pick

059up our packets from Jonathan over there at have a Meyer uh so that's where we stand we'll be looking at some hopefully great um great nominations for our educators great um I will update myself now I've been working uh a little bit with the United Way and finding out the great work they do uh and uh the important work they do before they kind of reach our schools has been amazing me I didn't realize how much they actually do I know that Tony Works closely with them and uh Dave Raven had explained all the stuff they do and it's just very exciting and I'm learning more and more I went on a the radio radio program just recently with David talking about how we can work together and uh how uh uh how he can

060or help or I can help him help raise private funds to invest in our children so I think it's it's a great project and we'll certainly have to uh support them as best we can uh also we I'm working I'm I'm on a committee uh with uh Ralph Mayo uh with uh Fred Camillo and our athletic director uh for the parade of Champions which we are going to be having in June 11th on Greenwich Avenue Ralph Mayo is trying to decide what level of success of teams will be Marching In This parade certainly the state champions will have that opportunity it's up to Ralph to decide whether it's a it's going to be other awards that have been achieved but we have a lot of great teams in the the athletic program certainly everybody knows

061that I've uh I was very involved in the athletic program for years so I'm very happy to uh to support such a parade of our kids down Greenwich Avenue and honor them we uh uh we hope to make this on Ralph's suggestion we hope to make this an annual thing uh we're speaking to the old-timers Athletic Association to possibly work as our partner to help us run this every year so there's lots of good things to uh uh to bring people out and celebrate our good stuff at our schools uh also as Francis already mentioned that I'm very excited about the uh the massive number of people that would be marching with us uh under the Board of Ed Banner all these different schools will be marching in the St Patrick's Day Parade we will

062be meeting at 1 30 on the side of have a Meyer building on the upper parking lot at 1 30 and then we'll march across uh or across to the town hall where we begin the marching of the parade all children with parents teachers everybody uh uh Board of Ed members we certainly uh Laura had made up our Board of Ed sign last year our marching sign which we'll be carrying again proudly down Greenwich Avenue for the St Patrick's Day Parade anybody else oh Karen I just have a comment regarding the parade of Champions um I think it's a fabulous idea but I would I'd highly stress that it not be just athletic teams but as your point in talking with Ralph we have such great Champions around the on in all levels whether it's

063in the Arts and Music and um as we saw tonight with respect to all of our wonderful scientists Etc and I think it would be exclusionary just to have it directed at sports but rather have find a way to incorporate for all of the champions in all of the disciplines throughout the high school if that's what we're looking at it's a great suggestion our first committee meeting is on Tuesday I will bring it up in the committee meeting and if you're available we might take other members of the committee and maybe you can uh participate and maybe bring that as far as later on as it's received in the committee uh is that okay yeah happy to help fantastic thank you anybody else okay we will then move off to action items all right we're

064going to start with the JC uh building committee I believe I've got to make a motion to bring this to the floor for discussion is that correct okay good but I make a motion to approve the retention of Anton Nazi Associates as The Architects for the Julian Curtis school project uh may I ask first let me introduce uh Bill Kelly hold on I've got to get a second okay thank you for the second good thing she's here otherwise I'd mess everything up bill has been the uh a board of ed member for eight years uh he was a bet member for four years uh he has served on multiple building committees he has been the chair of many building committees uh he is uh he's kind of a good guy too I've been working with

065him so he's all right so Bill I'll turn it over to you thanks Dr Jones I can answer one of your questions for you uh the amount of time that a board of ed member dedicates uh to the school system was actually Quantified when I was on the board in about the year 2000 2001. and we calculated 600 hours a year is what a board of ed member does contributes to the community the chair does a bit more just so you know um it's my pleasure to be here um my name is Bill Kelly I'm the chair of the Julian Curtis building committee and I've gotten to know Julian Curtis uh the school system uh the school and Trish McGuire the principal who is fabulous and um so we're seeing what we can do for

066Julian Curtis we um we had about five or six Architects coming for the walk around but they were scared off a little bit by the phasing of the project because it was kind of convoluted for them we ended up however with Anthony Associates who um chairman Kelly and myself and the entire committee is very fortunate to have uh they're they're very good they've got strong recommendations and we would like to meet with them tomorrow and get started um so we have a meeting at 7 45 a.m tomorrow and um I would seek the approval of the Board of Ed in order to enter into negotiations with them so that we can get a contract done and get rolling on Julius and Curtis and as I said in my notes to you we would start off

067with uh one and one a which is the elevator in the Ada and then hopefully if the security and the front entrance was approved for 800 000 in may we would then supplement and the contract and get that rolling and we also have enough funds in our architectural design funds to start to look at the cafeteria and then we could come back to you with uh real plans real ideas um and then our job is to you know work with bet and the Board of Ed and the community and see what we can do so that's it thanks Bill uh any questions for Bill thank you Karen oh this one almost you almost got away no no no that's fine that was a great idea by the way I wanted to tell you oh braided

068Champions when you see the two oh me Jesus ischemic strokes and I'm like I'm sitting here going oh my God but it was always it was always whenever I was on the board of it it was the same thing these kids would get up and they'd just blow you away that was probably the best part of being on the board it was really the communication with them and the fun absolutely I appreciate that no no it's fine um my microphone and I just go trust me Joe has the same problem it's a it's a Kelly thing you know we're working on so my my question to you is um was this the only firm that didn't shy away from the fact of the phasing or did we have other options now this was the only

069firm who put in a bid and so we were gonna we were thinking about coming back and rebidding but they were so good and they were so knowledgeable um we decided to go with them we think they're we we strongly recommend them to you have they done any other working for Greenwich Public Schools yeah they have oh they have yeah they have okay so they know they know the system which is if you don't know the system of the town of Greenwich and how to get things passed and stamped you're you're done for and they do okay no those were that was my my two questions I noticed the other references here for the other districts that they'd worked on yeah Dan Watson has worked with them and he likes them okay all right he

070put his stamp of approval really if he had said no or he had wavered in any way you know Dan Dan Joe and I are tight we working together so now I'm worried it should be it was sort of like I'm an area right there right sort of like that I think it was right right right St Patrick's Day tomorrow guys not yet okay anybody else for a question about the JC project okay let's take it to a vote thanks [Music] no oh Karen oh yeah yes so I just had a one quick question because in the document that you provided to us uh the phase uh phase one through four uh you said was a total of um 250 000 and then uh the bid was 416 800 can you just explain to us

071what the difference between the you know what else was included after the 411 no we're just we're just dealing with the number 411 that's all we're going to deal with and they know that okay I don't know I don't have any more I don't have any more money for them so I go okay so right so they submitted a bid for 416 but we're going to be looking towards the contract before 11. yeah we're not going to do a contract for 411. we're gonna do a contract for the phase one and one a which is only going to be about 99 000 and then we'll supplement it with phase two which will be about another sixty thousand so we'll go with that we'll go incrementally until we have buy-in from the bet on Board of

072Ed as to what we can do and we will certainly come with you with to you with a plan so okay thank you for that clarification good favor that's right that's right okay let's call the question all in favor uh raise your hand and Cody and uh Karen how do you know in favor Karen yes I vote in favor thank you and Bill thank you all very much I appreciate it thanks okay see you tomorrow morning Bill thank you okay next for efficiency's sake I have been try I tried it out once on on Michael and it worked very well I am going to transfer my superpowers as a board chair uh to Christina to run the uh uh the entryway discussion so so transferred thank you Joe um I'm gonna put we have two

073motions on the table um slightly revised ordering on one of them so and Mike antonacio I'll send it to you um the first motion is that we approved the Greenwich High School secure entryway project final plans and specifications dated February 27 2023 as corrected for scribner's errors and the addition of an ad alternate for glass at the security desk and professional cost estimate dated March 15 2023 to be submitted to the office of school Construction Grants and review for approval to advertise to bid may I have a second Mr Kelly I'll give it to him and I'm going to make the other motion just because they're all kind of linked together um the second motion is that we approve the educational specifications for the Greenwich High School entryway project originally dated March 27 2020 approved

074by the board April 24 2020 as revised March 15 2022 approved by the board on March 14 22 2022 and is further revised March 16 2023. may I have a second um I know these are very wordy and lengthy but as we've learned um through the high school entryway process you have to be very technical when you're dealing with the state in terms of the things that are said um so I'm going to turn over the microphone um so to speak to our building chair Mr Steve Walco just um since we're recognizing our building chairs this evening I just want to Steve's an amazing building chair he should share all building committees I could say that he would not agree um he served on the air on the RTM for many years he said a

075long service at the town on the RTM he chaired the boc he served on the bet for a decade including was a chair he's been our state representative and this is not his first not his second but his third building committee he served on him and Fulton him out were you the chair of that no okay but he did share a New Lebanon and he's the chair of the high school entryway so and he runs a great meeting so so if anybody's really excited on a Wednesday morning they can listen in um so Stevo fill in on the project thank you good evening everyone uh we are here to hopefully finalize uh the process before we head to the state and then hit the ground running uh to go out to bid for a GC

076and an owner's rep uh there was some commentary tonight about you know sort of town of Greenwich and lack of funding this is not the case for this project we certainly thank the Board of Ed the bet the RTM for their support of this project both initially and also when we came back for additional funding uh some months ago as you all know this is a smaller project but still one that is going to meet the uh the desire and the Ed specs it is a security vestibule we have given you renderings as we have right now as to what it will look like both outside and inside certainly if you look at those renderings there is a pop and there is a pride in the front office now if you've been there recently you

077can I think you can agree with me that there is no Pride or pop at our front main office at Greenwich High School um I call your attention though to the very last rendering and that is uh the security desk there is a little bit difference of an opinion uh not only with the committee but with the Board of Ed professional staff um in the base bid that we're going out with we are not including uh security glass for the security desk that is within the vestibule um there's a difference of opinion whether or not it's too institutional versus the safety factor which is obvious we have uh included it as an ad alternate and so if there is money uh and if you all tell us that that's a good idea and give us

078some direction uh we would certainly include it I think it's it doesn't need to be decided today it's certainly down the road uh but something that that you all should consider and if you have an opinion let us know if you don't have an opinion we'll make the decision as the time comes uh the other AD alternates uh is to glaze the front side of the glass quarter if you're facing this new vestibule to the right um and the other at alternate the third one is additional benches and additional Hardscape to the Landscaping so it is not for landscaping it's for hardscaping that would make the the front Circle a little bit nicer we already have 30 000 from the PTA so we'd like to thank them for that but but there's still some work

079to be done we're fairly confident that we're going to be able to hit this budget because we used the budget of the estimates that were provided in terms of round numbers uh the total construction estimate that we have just from our architect not from an estimator is about 2.5 engineering and Architectural costs about 275 owners rep to to reimburse for the state of 40 owners rep for the project 137 we have included a contingency of about 10 percent and so you're looking at a budget of rough numbers of about 3.28 and our total allocation is 3.5 so notwithstanding the fact that we have a 10 contingency we still feel like we're we're in a good place we would go out we would we were supposed to meet with the state on the 22nd of March

080if we do that and we are approved within let's say two weeks of that crossing our fingers uh then we would be able to go out to bid in beginning of April get back bids award a contract by mid-may and then have shovel in the ground as soon as the students leave the building uh in June and do most of the heavy construction as much as we can through the summer months uh with that uh uh I'll entertain any questions if that's okay yes are there any questions from Mr Walco Mr Kelly oh thank you thank you Steve that was very nice I just want to make something very clear because I didn't participate in any of the meetings and had Noah uh major discussions but we reduced the scope of this project correct okay

081have we changed the level of security that this project will provide to the school by going from one presentation to now this reduced scope is the security uh the same the security has not been compromised by this as I said uh previously though this is the main security issue at Greenwich High School it does not solve all of the security issues at Greenwich high school but this project adheres to the ad specs and addresses the security concern as as equally to what was in the prior project thank you that's it yeah if I might add to that Joe it really it's not a reduced scope it's a reduced size scope is the same so the only item in the Ed specs that changes um from the last version to this is purely going from 2200

082to 1100 square feet because the state's going to want that to match up thank you anybody else with any questions Karen or Cody no questions for me I don't have a I don't necessarily have a question but to your point um I do think that it would make sense um at a later Board of Ed meeting to put the question of of security glass as an agenda item because the um I think it's I think it's a valuable discussion to have it's not cheap I'll tell you that um all right um so I'm gonna call the question I'm gonna I think I'm gonna do it as two motions since I made it as two motions so on the first motion which is the drawings and specifications and cost estimates Motion One can I all in

083favor raise your hand Cody and Karen all right you can put me down as abstaining Cody's I'm saying Karen this is Karen worship yes yes so that's 701 thank you and on the second motion which is just the revised Ed specs where the one changes the square footage all in favor raise your hand um Cody and Karen good for me I'm sorry what Oh there's uh abstain again abstain again and Karen uh I'm voting yes okay so seven zero one thank you everyone thank you Steve thank you thank you Steve and you could when we giving those superpowers you could pass them past me and off to Michael our next agenda item is the Old Greenwich update which will go to Mr mercanti and Dr mercanti Anthony thank you thank you thank you counselor um

084so I want to make a motion and again this is uh much like uh Christina's is slightly amended from in the agenda um there's an extra sentence here so the the first motion um to get this on the table the board reaffirms its commitment to move forward on the Old Greenwich School renovation project understanding the updated estimate project costs that the building committee provided last week of or last month excuse me of 39.35.9 million if in fiscal year 24 and 38 million if in fiscal year 25 and recognizing that the building committee will provide updated cost estimates based on a schematic design for renovation as well as the cost for possible new construction the new addition not on the previous agenda should funding be postponed the bog requests 1.08 million in fiscal year 24 to

085complete the pre-construction work of the Old Greenwich building committee like just a point where everyone just like be postponed or anything you want to be specific about what year when you say postponed in fiscal year 24. thank you um then the second motion a motion to direct and authorize the OLG building committee to start the municipal improvement process okay so those two motions and I see Mr Kelly seconding those motions okay thank you Mr Kelly okay so motion is seconded um so with that um let me introduce uh bring the invite back um the Old Greenwich building committee chair James Waters no stranger to the board event he was just here last month's the um but um you recall last month we had a conversation about the different funding structures and obviously there's been some

086conversations since then since then about old goodness we wanted to bring him back to answer any questions before entertaining this motion James all right good evening everybody uh it's nice to see you I think this is actually the third meeting in a row um and hopefully I can give you a break uh for a couple months we'll see if we can get you a candy bar except you uh but I was just gonna say but don't hold your breath because we're moving forward diligently but quickly um I'll be brief the purpose of the Motions before you tonight are straightforward first we're asking you to confirm that we updated the project estimates for you last month you'll recall this update is solely related to incorporating realistic cost escalations from 2020 to present and a more standard

08720 contingency for renovation second we're asking for your support removing the ogs project forward as quickly as possible even if the BET will only provide incremental A and E funding in the coming budget the building committee has concluded that we need an incremental 1.1 million 1.085 million you've seen the number before an a e funding to complete the pre-construction process third we're asking for your support for moving the ogs renovation into the municipal improvement process we're starting the schematic design process aiming to complete it by June at that point we'll have professional cost estimates on our chosen design and we'll share the design in those estimates with you I'm hopeful we'll find savings from the estimates discussed last month in parallel the ogs building committee will be putting together a rough estimate on a new

088construction ogs I've talked with our architect and owners are up about it and we'll get our engineers and construction manager involved this will be additional work that I guess will come out of our current a e funds but we'll give you a picture at the relative cost of new construction versus the cost of renovation as as per schematic design when we provide these numbers to you this summer I hope we can make a good and expedited decision on which path to take it's clear to me sitting in my seat at the Old Greenwich community and the building committee do not want us to slow down I can talk more but I'll reserve it for questions thanks for listening uh and thanks for having me uh so a couple questions so I saw the flow of

089emails this week and maybe even last regarding this cost of a new school versus Renovations so what do we have an estimate of what it would cost for the current crew to put together what the cost of a new school would be and what are they going to base it on simply a rebuild of the news of the current school and its formation because it'd be a little hard I guess to say what something would cost when you don't have Ed specs for the entire school so I'm just curious as to how they're going to be out to create that yeah um so this is going to be a moving Target for us um I think the big one of the big things from my perspective that we need to um have a look at

090is um uh you know just a rough ballpark of school size right I think that's going to be an important driver of this um uh you know we have some comparative examples that we can use we certainly know um how many students and classrooms are at the current ogs and I think it's kind of why I call it a rough estimate we're not going to have Ed specs but our Architects have done this kind of project before um where you know it's sort of uh conceptual in nature um so it's a great question um the other the other thing that's on my mind is if we were to head in that direction how does um uh how do we how do we do that in a flood zone because we're going to have to raise

091uh it's going to be significant amount of site work uh we are in a FEMA AE flood zone um so yeah that's going to be I I think we shouldn't underestimate what that is and the the other thing we have we have we do have I think you probably did see in that flow of traffic we we do have like I mean we have the cost of new construction in the state of Connecticut uh on a dollar per square foot basis you know it's something like over the last few years it's something like 734 dollars a square foot so I know that's being discussed in other projects um we did we did the homework we did the research we did the math we know those are the numbers um so you know we'll we'll see

092we'll get it we'll get uh um construction manager involved to talk about look at constructability um we will get people to sort of Leverage their professional hats to give us real numbers so that's kind of how I'm thinking about it I don't have it exactly all mapped out because obviously you know my top priority here is what you guys have authorized us to do which is the Ed specs and to get our schematic design done we will get that done yes thanks um I think it's much of what I said at the last meeting right and I was a little bit surprised to see this back here because I feel like we all sort of showed our support at the last meeting um and my only concern with this motion is that I don't like

093the option of the one million um I think that this has been I mean I know I've now been on the board the longest we've been talking about this for a very long time the OG Community uh deserves this building as fast as possible and to me it's just flat out wrong to delayed another year um I'm not sure I have any other options in front of me but I just wanted to express that um that's my issue with this motion I think it should be 30 you know 5.9 million now in fiscal year 24. thanks thank you foreign Kathleen that I think you know we talked we talked about it a lot the last meeting that this project is ready it's ripe um it's moving on a very quick path because um its scope

094is very defined and we've got a great building committee and it's it's very clear this is what the community wants um I think I don't know if infeasibility a new building was ever discussed I don't think there's an appetite for it in the community not even getting into the a dollar if dollars were Awash the community doesn't necessarily want it so um but I think to satisfy the bet I understand their concerns so I think um James I applaud your willingness to work with them but I'm with Kathleen I I'm okay I'm okay I you know no okay I think this project should move forward in fiscal year 24. I don't I can't say it any clearer than that however I can make that request but I don't control the purse strings and I don't

095want this project to be left without the architecture and engineering money that is necessary and if the motion is the way to get the BET to focus on both the project and its preparation and its Readiness and with the understanding that we've communicated very clearly to them that we want this project to move forward with all due speed um and but we understand that if you're if the BET makes a choice not to go ahead to fund the project next year we do need money to keep it moving in 1.1 million can I just chime in one thing um so you know uh We've we've had some discussion about this about this um um I I look I I share a sentiment I just wanna I wanna move it move this forward as quickly as

096we can we are ready um uh one thing that I I do want to say and just make sure I think you guys are all tracking on it but it's probably appropriate to say it in in a sort of this forum is you know if there is there's some some decision to be made in June or in the summer time frame and and we decide to shift course um um the building committee would certainly urge the Board of Ed to proceed with haste and and to proactively manage the potential for controversy about this um and be prepared for it and and with historic building Advocates uh it's a 121 year old building um so um my view would be if we do get to a point where we shift Focus um and um had already

097been anticipating construction funds in next year's budget I would encourage this board um to move forward with haste in next year's budget as well uh there's no no you know no reason that we need to wait on Ed specs um you know we can we can move forward we can help you with that um and and I think we will have this a year from now we will have this knock on wood ready to go so so I I did want to address a couple of points one being on the the feasibility study because I was part of that committee um with respect to the feasibility no we did not find determine or want to look at what a new school would cost because the overwhelming support from the community was to keep that school

098that school is Iconic it has a lot of stories it has and it serves the purpose for that Community but it needs some Renovations it needs some additions it needs some issues to be addressed and I think that you would have all of the Old Greenwich community and probably the likes of many other communities who walk down that sound Beach Avenue and look at that school and say are you kidding why would you ever get rid of something that is just so darn beautiful and something that is such a piece of our community and defines what Old Greenwich is about so the short answer to the question is we didn't entertain it anything beyond um well do we need a new school and the answer was no we just need to fix the one that's

099here because that's what they want and so while the BET has requested this information and I think it comes along the lines of other schools New Lebanon was built for something a little bit more I get it but I just think it's the wrong choice I personally think it's a waste of time and money uh and I would I strongly support the Ed specks that we had approved what a year and a half ago now and we worked really hard to get them I like them I hope to formulate them so I think that they they are they are what we need on the second point I strongly encourage and think that Old Greenwich is ready to go and I would be sad to see it fall in the next year but I do think

100that we are at a point for this board to really consider what not only what our priorities are but what message that we want to send in October or was it sorry maybe it was December we voted on this is it December October so sorry October you know we we knew at that time and had conversations we put both schools in our Capital plan and what I'm referring to is Oak Greenwich and CMS because we didn't have enough information at the time to understand where we would be and we didn't want to put one in versus another because we didn't want to lose the opportunity for one of those schools to go forward particularly if the one we chose wasn't ready and we knew that two schools wasn't going to get done and we took

101us on to the meeting that night realizing that we needed to reevaluate and make a decision as a board as to what our priorities were with respect to what our priorities were going to be with respect to schools once we had more information now do we have perfect information at the point at this point in time no we don't but we do have more information and I think we're coming to a point where we as a board need to make a decision and do our job we know both schools aren't going to get built and I don't feel that we as a an elected board are doing our job by simply saying well we want both so we'll pass it to somebody else we know it's not going to happen we need to make a

102decision and I think we're at a point in time where we need to do this make that decision do our job and send a clear message CMS whether it's gets done this year or the following year we'll have to decide right now if I look at all the facts before us and I know Ms costen's going to speak soon about where we're at but we've heard what's going on and we know what's going on um in my opinion Old Greenwich is probably in a much better position to move forward and get done then CMS is at this point in time we're going to talk about CMS coming forward but I do think that CMS is a huge project and we need to do it right and I'm really afraid that pushing forward on CMS because

103we have so many issues to deal with there is going to be rushed and it's not going to be done right and the problem we'll run into is the fact that it may not it most likely won't be ready maybe it will maybe it won't this costume will say it will be and I know that I hear you Laura I'm very concerned it won't but I don't have that much of a concern as it relates to Old Greenwich and it's not because of the failings of one Ward versus the other those building committees have worked very hard and I respect them they are volunteers they get paid 0-2 and I they meet more now than these this board does I get that but I do think we have you know a Day of Reckoning is

104coming and we need to make a decision I fully support Old Greenwich going forward and I see that as the more viable option at this point in time okay um I see I I see Karen online and then we'll go to um hi thanks I just wanted to say you know I think we we have had a discussion in the past and saying how much we fully support uh the needs of the Old Greenwich school and Community um and uh you know I I fully support this going ahead as it is um I recognize uh what Karen is saying in in some regards but we are doing what we are being what we have been tasked to do as a board uh we've been tasked to support our schools our students who provide them with

105appropriate learning spaces um that's what we're doing we're putting those forward we've been putting them forward for quite some time um we're at the point where we really are are ready ready to go with this school um and it's not really it's it's unclear to me why we're being put in a position yet again and being asked to place one school's needs ahead of another uh we made it clear they're both in need um it's and it is for us to be able to put those things forward um you know to to you know to be funded and to be supported by uh you know members of our community and so I think that's what we need to do um it's not it's not about one school versus another it's about both schools uh that

106need to to get this work done and we need to start moving forward we can't keep pushing this off any longer yeah just just to clarify I don't think there's anything I certainly am reading anything in the in the wording of the current motion that is putting uh one school in in front of the other so I just want to clarify no I I was just simply referring to you know um Ms Kowalski's comments about you know a one project versus another and so that's why I didn't say the same I didn't say that well you were just I know I'm just saying in in reference to I you know I don't have the exact words but I just wanted to say I just don't want to be putting this comparing one versus the other

107that's all I think it's important we support both Laura so uh I just want to say that our vote for our Capital request was our voice it was my vote of support then it is still my vote unchanged in support now I think we have the means in this town to do both and you know with approximately 93 million at last glance in our rainy day fund let the BET look the Old Greenwich community in the eye and try to justify a vote against funding for this school I think I am all in on CMS JC and Old Greenwich so that's my vote of support go ahead Christina no no I just I think we many I think we all feel the same way I think um to Karen Hirsch's Point our role um is

108to advocate for what we believe our students need and we all I think we all agree that our students need both facilities um I don't think it's our job to tell the BET um which should go first because I think we do want both um and it's incumbent upon them to find a way to pay for it I think they've created a construct of a capital ceiling I know this is the biggest capital budget in the history of the town but these are exceptional circumstances and I think there's years of deferred projects not not a single one of our Master facilities plan projects has been done so that's six years um that we've been waiting and so maybe when after you wait six years you have to kind of ante up so my view would

109be I think it's fully appropriate for us to ask for both um and that's what I I believe we should do and I think the one thing that's good about this motion is it confirms to the bet that we accept the new figures on Old Greenwich now that more vetting has been done by the committee and a more realistic number has been put out there so that should it come back down the road we can say that we acknowledge that that's the cost of a renovation um based on our building committee so I think that's helpful Kelly thank you I said this last meeting I'll say it again I love all our building committee children all the same uh I would like to call the question fair enough the um I have some comments um

110on CMS but I don't want to but that's the next agenda item so I'm going to hold my my comments there because I do think there are some some questions there but as far as this motion let me just reiterate what I think I'm hearing everybody saying and I certainly agree with like the wording of this motion is designed just that to try to move this project forward as quickly as possible but I think there is um I'm hearing pretty much unanimity on the board that we all are believers in this project um so the question has been called so all in favor of Motion One excuse me one two three four five Cody yep Karen yes okay so I think that is seven oh a post right so seven zero one and then all

111in favor of motion two we're on the initiating the municipal improvement process oh uh in favor thank you Cody is a yes it looks like in Karen yes okay that passes 8-0 thank you gents thank you thank you James Michael could you pass those magical superpowers over to Laura I yield to the uh the The Honorable gender woman from uh Michael build interspective I want the opportunity to be chair oh there we are uh well before I say anything I would like to turn the floor over to uh The Marvelous Tony Turner our building committee chair who is a fantastic public servant uh we always give their bio right he's got a long bio but I will say he has been a distinguished member of the board of estimate and Taxation so he knows the

112shoes in which the financial board sits and also a serving on the energy Manor management advisory committee as well as our building committee so I'm going to turn it over to him and we do have some Architects ready to uh present as well I I think um I think I have to say thank you madam chairman uh I was gonna I was prepared to say Mr chairman but now that you're uh chair in the committee is madam chairman um if we could um have Amy Samuelson unmuted uh she's going to be she's part of the architectural team and she's going to be um presenting just a few slides uh with a view of giving uh giving everyone on the board and Dr Jones uh an update on on our project as you all know we

113have been meeting in the building committee since July of last year we've made a tremendous tremendous amount of of progress in a variety of areas uh sometimes we meet once a week sometimes we meet four times a week uh just depending on what we uh on what we need to get done um so with that I want to be sure to thank my fellow committee members for all their work we have an upcoming evening meeting and it just it just continues to go on and we're trying to get a lot of things done within a certain amount of time because the the clock is is running as someone has already alluded to um alluded to earlier so with if Amy could put up the first slide what we're going to do is just recap for

114you and I'm going to hold for 30 seconds well here we go what we're going to do is recap for you the community engagement Forum uh slide program that we presented to the community last Wednesday I think it was um and just give you a a sample of some of the of some of the slides and some of the work that we've uh that we've done up to this point if we can go to the next slide as you probably know we've hired three organizations to help us in this effort uh the construction solutions group which is our owner's rep um the slam collaborative is our architect better known as slam and Turner Construction no relation uh as our as our construction manager CSG has been in place since October of last year slam was

115hired as our architect only uh 10 weeks ago now nine weeks ago sorry in Turner construction has been on the job now as the construction manager only only for two weeks and if we could go to the next slide and then I'm going to turn it over to Amy to give you some examples of of the work that's been done by slam and where we are right now um one of the things I want to be very sure to point out to the committee is our is our timeline and if I could go to the middle of the slide you can see that construction is is slated to begin in the summer of next year excuse me with approximately 20 to 21 months of construction which will bring us to February of 26 and you

116can see in the spring of 26 the intent is to have the Building completed with move-in um so we will be fully set to go again in the fall of 26 with a view of uh doing demolition for for the current building over the summer and into early fall again not to spend more time on the slide but you can get a sense as to uh as to the timeline uh with the Highlight around around construction with that I'm going to turn it over to Amy Samuelson uh Amy is the Project Director on behalf of Slam for the project she has I think four slides to uh to show you to bring you up to date with the idea at least currently of where the building is being envisioned on the property and what we

117have in mind from a traffic management standpoint and then after that it will of course take any questions so Amy it's all yours you might be muted you might be muted uh Tony this is Cap I think um her phone needs to be unmuted okay calling it through her phone she's a panelist but she has to get in using her uh using her phone is there what is the last three digits of her number foreign thank you sorry for that confusion everyone thank you Tony um slam collaborative is proud to be working on this uh important project for the town of Greenwich uh we've been looking very closely at the site parameters so far uh the early in the design phases um primarily that's what we've been working on in addition to the verification of

118the Ed spec which is an ongoing process in terms of the site we are if someone can advance please we are looking at all of the neighborhoods in the surrounding area and all of the potential and existing uh locations to bring traffic in and out of the site um so that was a quick overview this slide is showing our traffic study which was approved uh Tuesday at the latest building committee meeting we are anticipating that that traffic study will take place between March 27th and April 6th uh the subcommittee for communications for Central Middle School we'll be sending out detailed information about that that they're after their meetings I believe tomorrow so the traffic study though will take place looking at all of the circled intersections that you see here which are the two existing

119curb cuts for the existing School and the intersections at the at both ends of Indian Rock Lane we will also be looking at the intersection of Orchard Street and and sandwich Road at Orchard Street and Coach Lamp Lane at Orchard Street and sine away and also at Sandwich Road and Fairfield Road uh realizing that this site and in particular Indian Rock Lane where the entrance and exits are today are highly impacted not only by CMS traffic but by traffic for the high school and for some uh of the private schools nearby we're timing the traffic study to make sure that all of those schools are in session during those traffic counts there will also be three I believe um traffic counters across the road those will be in place for 48 hours during that same

120time frame so those will be at Indian Rock Lane at stanwich 900 feet north of Indian Rock and at Orchard um just south of Coach Lamp so we'll be taking a look at at all of the information and data that comes from that traffic study as we move forward with the site plans we also have been studying those site plans for a potential location of the new building next slide please um we have a couple of different options on the boards with more to come um certainly these options will be changing based on the traffic study analysis um or I should say we'll be um will be supplemented by that traffic study the building footprint that you see represented on this site plan is one potential option of many um it is just to show

121a scale and location we are looking at putting the school on the existing Fields tucked close to the Hillside and potentially even built into the hill to take advantage of some of that slope and allow for the majority of the site which is very flat to be the the location for the fields so really trying to maximize the opportunities for fields and for parking as we tuck the building in under the hill so you can see in this option we would be utilizing one of the existing curb cuts that enters the lower parking lot of the existing Central Middle School um the the intention of the very long driveway that you see from that entrance point up through to the new two separate parking areas is really to give a long length for cueing for

122that parent drop-off that we know right now takes place by queuing right along Indian Rock Lane and then even turning up Orchard so we want to get rid of all of that traffic on the road and make sure that all parents are providing enough space for parents to queue on the site instead so that's the intention for the long driveway and you'll see that then at midpoint the driveway splits in this case to the left the Bus Loop and to the right the parent drop-off and some additional parking in both of those areas both would drop students off along the center spine that is pedestrian only and all students would have the same entrance point to the school in this case it's at the knuckle between the two Wings the L shape um in and

123it would be centrally located in any building scheme that we come up with we have a very minor entrance off of Sandwich which we are showing now as service and emergency personnel only um and that would serve the kitchen cafeteria and also allow fire and emergency vehicles to come up and around to the back of the school in order to be within the required 150 foot lengths of any point from the building for their hoses site plan is approximate is a very similar I thank you there's a very similar plan at this time but it is showing an additional separate uh access point this time along Orchard Street where we would be recommending bus entrance only with a gated entrance and that gated entrance would be controlled with electronics and automatic readers like a barcode

124readers on the buses that would open and close the gates and some access would be given as well to faculty for parking since they arrive before the buses um but in this case the Bus Loop would come around and drop off along that same pedestrian spine that I described earlier and parent Vehicles would continue to to come off of Indian Rock Lane utilizing that that long driveway again for queuing of parents cars and to make sure that we're keeping all of that queuing off of the streets you can see that in both of these options we're trying to maximize the distance between the existing building which is dashed in here and any potential new building will work very closely with the CM to make sure that there's a safe definition between the existing uh School

125in session during construction to make sure that there's a separation that is clear and distinct and and we feel that the addition of that driveway cut along Orchard would also allow for a safe passage of construction vehicles coming in and how separate from the location of the two existing parking lot entrances for CMS if there are any questions we'll be happy to take those um I believe that's the end of the slideshow okay let's go to the next slide and look at next steps I want to be sure that the uh the board is fully aware of uh of uh next steps uh react to the traffic study as Amy mentioned earlier uh the traffic study has now been planned uh and the option one and option two uh driveway plans that you just saw

126will be heavily influenced and driven by the outcome of the traffic study so again we're approximately two weeks away from commencing that study developing building plan options and exterior character and building elevations the uh the design Review Committee has met now three times our next meeting is March 22nd and we continue to meet every two weeks noting that these two items will be front and center for the design Review Committee next week for March 22nd again developing building plan options and exterior uh uh exterior character we will not finish these two items next Wednesday but we will begin to make a lot of Headway uh with a view to moving to a project uh plan estimate which is the last item construction cost estimate we are keenly aware that we need to produce a project

127cost estimate as soon as possible it looks as though we're roughly 30 days away from being able to do that when we've coordinated with or are coordinating with the with the bet in letting them know of that timeline at the same time the the RTM moderator is keenly aware of of that timeline so we're doing everything we can to uh to go as quickly as possible but we're also working under the principle that we'd rather be right and late than on time and not right so that is uh that's a very Key Driving principle for what we're working on right now so Madam chairman will entertain any questions and do our best to answer them you liked that didn't you I loved it I don't have any questions because I'm there all the time uh

128Miss Kowalski thanks Laura um with respect to the timeline on it doesn't include does this include putting back the fields because what would that be that seems to be a bullet point that would come after the demolition of the existing building and site where completion does that mean site work completion meaning adding the fields or would that come after it would come after okay and is there any concerns with respect to putting the the building on the now current fields and putting the fields here just because when you take a look at it the delay of the land is obviously not flat already so is there any concern regarding how we're going to flatten this out for field purposes Amy or Kemp you guys want to try that one that sounds like more of a

129landscape architect uh question it does but I think I can give a brief response we are placing the building into the most dramatic portion of the Hillside and allowing for uh the use of the flat area for Fields again once the building comes down uh we'll be assessing that area but we anticipate that there's going to have to be some leveling of the existing field area where we're showing parking lots now and Fields right now that existing field gets a little wet it doesn't drain properly so we'll be looking to list that and provide the right drainage underneath anyway and that will probably allow for the remaining section of the new fields to be raised to about the same level yeah I'm not sure that address the question that I have but I I think

130what you're saying is that assessing and putting in the fields is an after project to the 2026 time frame and or September 2026 and it's unclear as to the timing of when the fields would be completed because we'd have to assess the land that those fields would currently go on which is what this building is sitting sorry the fields would be designed during the same timeline as the project we will have the information that we need to design the fields appropriately and yes they will be installed immediately after the demolition of the existing building but luckily the way that the timeline is working that will be during The Fall season and that is an appropriate time for planting planting athletic fields unless you're doing Turf then it really doesn't matter when you do it right

131anyway ah okay other question I think I think this goes more towards you Tony um we got an email earlier this week I believe that's when it was sent regarding things that were being proposed to adding into the ad specs and other aspects of the Ed specs that the board needed to continue needed to consider for one of those was um a vegetable which wasn't included apparently in our original it's back says to how that would work but then there were additional ads that slam was suggesting to add to the Edge specs how is that going to be addressed in the timeline for the overall approval of the project um well um I would answer that in a couple of ways one we have the view in the building committee that we are strictly to

132build the building according to the edspecs and the requirements from the Board of Education um and we are currently working under the Edge specs uh from August 22nd of last year um the architectural firm uh was asked to look at a couple of different variations that was directed by either members of the board or the GPS Administration as just additional information so we do not anticipate uh deviating from the Ed specs now if the board changes the head specs we'll we'll change accordingly but our mandate is to follow the ad specs so in the current drafting in the process the things they were proposing and adding we've told them don't add them correct and then with respect to the square footage on the entry and vestibule when will proposals come to the board as to

133how to address those issues good um we are beginning a process Monday evening of reviewing what we're calling some ideas from slam as to their best thinking based on experiences uh in in being the architect for K-12 schools in the in the state of Connecticut um your example is a perfect one one of the things they recognize is that the current set of Ed specs doesn't have a Lobby and they're proposing a Lobby of 800 square feet the current Edge specs also have bathrooms of 50 you know I think maybe 70 square feet that are impossible to build to that size because they're not 88 compliant so what we hope to do in the building committee is to formally come to the or proposed to the Board of Education as early as late next week

134a specific list of things that we would like for you to consider given the rationale that I just described and we're going to start that process on Monday if we don't finish that on Monday that will spill over into our regular meeting on Tuesday but we recognize again that time is of the essence but we do need to give you those that type of feedback from the architect and then I just have one last question and I'll give someone else the floor the I know that there was some debate going back and forth between um square footage and you know doing our Ed specs and what that meant for square footage purposes and I know that there was some difference between what CSG had suggested needed to be a ratio from I guess the hallway

135space right traveling corridors versus student space except and um slam has one opinion and I think CSG obviously gave us a different opinion when we approve the Edge specs as to how much space needed to be added is there a way to resolve that difference in what um how we view these ad specs to be drawn up given the ratio between I guess classroom Space versus traveling space within the school you're you're talking about the the building efficiency Ratio or the building efficiency percentage um slam does have a very strong opinion about that and that's one of the topics that we're going to be looking at as a building committee on Monday as part of this review and and tapping into the best uh thinking of Slam is or is there any way to increase

136the building efficiency north of 62 to 65 percent we don't know the answer to that yet because we haven't gone through the process but we are going to do that Monday okay and I assume that CSG is a large part in that conversation since they originally suggested that we could get this done for roughly the square footage that they had suggested okay they will be at the table yes Madam chairman um so I just want to make the slight correction the building committee is going to be letting the board know um the results of our meetings with and consultations with the architect about some of the areas of resistance we are hitting um I will say as far as the circulation and building core Services um equation that our Ed specs um may not have

137explicitly said but I will direct everyone's attention to the August 5th Memo from uh Dr Jones which does prescribe a range of building core services and combined circulation in the range of 30 to 35 percent and it does have our grid with all of those factors laid out so it was a conscious decision where our head was at that time wait uh can I ask you a question yes Cody Laura I'm not sure I fully followed that is was the point you just made that there there isn't actually a discrepancy because we've known all along that that the whatever the efficiency rate or something was actually going to be different than what was in the final version of the Ed specs no that's not the point okay yeah I I think I misunderstood Aaron also

138has her hand up on mine Karen's the only Karen online Karen oh no well I just didn't know if you were calling me um so I had a quick question as I was looking at the um presentation um and was at the community meeting and I know there was just one of the main differences between uh site plan option one and site plan option two is having a secondary egress uh which would be used I think for buses I know currently Center Middle School has uh two different parking lots with you know entrances um separate entrances and so was there any thought process to how that would if we remove one of those entrances as in site plan one no we're doing a traffic study I know that there's much longer driveways for a longer

139queue but you'll also be having the buses in that same view which I think takes up a lot of the spaces for having parents because they'll be mixed in with the buses um so you know was there any thought process as to how you know why there's a recommendation for one versus two um Amy you want to take that one you seem to be our our traffic management Guru sure so I just want to be clear that my recommendation yet until we have the traffic study uh and a traffic report to fully um analyze all of the intersections um there are sight line issues at at these roads as well that we want to take into consideration um we do feel like breaking separating apparent traffic and bus traffic is always a great idea at

140any school but we'll have to wait to see what the traffic report says as to whether or not that's feasible to come off of Sandwich Orchard and that being said whatever whatever site plan we end up with we will be doing a stacking diagram uh and and calculating the number of cars and buses that will fit in both of those driveways there is a longer or a greater need for a longer route for the cars there are less buses that come and also buses their time is more controlled because of your scheduling so the the ideas to even if they use the same entrance to get the buses and cars separated into two separate loops and that way the buses will be all in one Loop all fitting in that Loop and not in the

141way of the cars that are stacked perfect thank you I just didn't want any safety issues if we have things mixed but I know that traffic in the area is one of our bigger concerns for our neighbors we want to be respectful which is what I was asking uh because they know they currently have the two different spaces and so um I guess you answered my question thank you there's the uh Ms Stowe and Dr mercanti Anthony I'm going to call on Miss Stoke because I saw her first well I'm hovering over her so it helps um first of all I'm happy I asked Laura off this um on the side here I'm happy to hear that they're holding off on the traffic study until the kids are back from private school that's smart because

142I can tell you sandwich is moving a lot more quickly coming to Central right now so um in fact I got behind a bus today and still rolled in at 7 58 so um so it's it's a big change so that's yeah it's really it's not good so that's number one um but number two um Laura I'm happy you sort of directed us to this memo because I think it's important to remember that we spent like eight or nine meetings on this over the summer and I just went back through all the board minutes and we put a lot of time into these ad specs and um there was a specific and actually Mr Healy wrote this memo with Dr Jones that I'm looking at here um so I know he spent a lot of

143time on this and that's also really important to note and the circulatory percentage I assume is an industry standard it's a range I mean these are you know this isn't the first time people are building a school so we came up with a range we applied a percentage and I'm a little bit disappointed to hear that that's changing because that is seemingly moving the numbers a lot and I don't think we should be taking away from our academic space in any way at the same time we need to of course have always to get the children there um I think that that was very much considered in this and so I would very much look forward to that discussion on Monday night to understand um why this architect seems to have different numbers but to

144me I'm a little bit skeptical I must admit we will be addressing that very thoroughly Dr mercanty Anthony kind of I'm kind of adding on I guess but being on the point but yeah because there was a I mean as we all saw there was a particularly unflattering newspaper story last week that basically you know um called our current uh aspects unachievable saying we didn't have room for stairs and bathrooms mechanical closets didn't make us sound very good at all um um and obviously we spent uh we the the newspaper article also you know kept referring to the board of education at specs as if it was the eight of us in a room writing them ourselves obviously we hired um professional Consultants to um to to draft these and based on numbers and we

145do have bathrooms and stairwells yeah sure yeah I I know the um so so I am kind of at a loss as to what happened it sounds like we have if I'm wrong it sounds like currently we have one set of professionals who develop the Ed specks that came in and said you could build this building at a certain square footage at 115 and now we have an architectural firm that's saying something very different the um and I guess I don't know if that is based on different formulas that they apply or if it's based on now Rigs and examination of the um site and going in more depth the um it just it it's it's it's and have these professionals talk to each other the um was was there an error the um in

146the the previous in the who when we hired the Ed spec Consultants the um did they make a mistake I guess I don't know it seems like a very big discrepancy and I don't know if we can get what would say a 20 000 square foot discrepancy we're working to narrow the uh spread on Monday that is the number one uh concern of hours that we're working to narrow the spread as a unified team architect and building committee so that we can communicate that work to the board when it's complete and that's Monday what time 6 30 p.m okay till nine gotta stay up late if you want to keep up with this yeah yeah uh I'm sorry I said yes it's hybrid both in person and virtual yeah uh Cody and Karen have their

147hands up as well as Ms Downey I'm really beating a dead horse here but oh he's not done I'm sorry Dr Mark Anthony is not done oh sorry while I'm haranguing um the the other when we um I remember at the board meeting uh when we hired um The Architects I I raised a caution around um um talking about things outside of the Edge specs and educational gimmicks for things like that not this is the things that might not be necessarily rooted in educational research and I just want to raise that caution again because like I said I I I I I I get very concerned when when I read about whisper rooms and pods and small group rooms that were not under approved aspects the um and I just want to make sure obviously

148um Kathleen said there was a lot of conversation about the inspects and there was a lot of community engagement before we adopted them that went into the Ed specs so I worry about and I'm concerned when we have additional conversations and get additional ideas that go into the inspects after we've already approved them and that that is that is obviously a big concern yeah you make a great point I would remind you though that the Edge specs haven't been changed we have very proactively said to slam because of their K2 K-12 architectural experience in Connecticut um they've they've been the architect for more K through 12 schools in our state than anyone we have very proactively pursued with them give us your best thinking why you're at it if you have any suggestions let us

149know what they are and if the building committee agrees with the suggestion then we'll make a formal recommendation to the board of education so that's what's that's what's coming yep Point well taken though absolutely so I will call Cody and then Karen yeah just my question was that that square footage difference was so big that is this a matter of like someone making them or maybe we don't have an answer this but is this a matter of someone making a mistake or some like um you know reasonable people can disagree or something and if so like how is that I'm just maybe this isn't the right place to drill into this yet but like I think it's relevant for us when we think about who we rely like when we hire an ad spec firm

150or an architecture firm in the future like if it is a mistake that's something we should be aware of and I guess what does it take to figure out if uh why the square footage is so off I do think there are some competing ideologies around this um particular issue of a net to gross square foot calculation I think that's where we have traced this differential yeah I also think it's noteworthy to uh to say that when we question slam about their proposed percentage of building of the building efficiency ratio they showed us documentation of six additional middle schools where the building efficiency ratio was between 62 and 65 percent with an average of 64 percent um and I mean the documentation is the documentation when we've asked other professionals can you give us one

151example of any school between 70 and 75 percent we've we've gotten no answer no reply back from that um so I think it's a great question from Cody as to is it a mistake or whatever we really don't know the answer to that um except one give I share with you the information that I just shared but secondly uh we're going to do a very deep dive on on this very topic on Monday uh and slam is going to be prepared to show how the um how the percentage is calculated the drivers of the percentage so that everyone can come away with a leveling if you will of understanding what is the right building efficiency percentage for this school what is csg's today when we say what's the I know Laura said there's some competing

152theories but like is what's the counter or do they can they point to an example where a school had that Ratio or is there there anything to substantiate why they gave us the numbers they did no is does that call into question having them hired as our owner's rep like I would that would make me think that like Kathleen has the uh has the calculation in front of her yeah I mean this is in the memo and the prior version 33 was used in the 660 model 35 was used in what was called the 660 hybrid that accounts for the discrepancy in terms of the ratio that circulation space between the two models and the last version this is when we were going between the 660 flex and the 660 revised the 35 was chosen

153to address the potential need for more room in common areas with an increase in student population to around 700 remember we went down from there however it was determined that 33 is sufficient to meet the needs of the population in both updated options so we went through all this analysis guys we spent a lot of time now I know we retired through the summer but I am going to send this information to the building committee and slam this is a memo that Tom and Tony wrote but this was based on all the information of Cs you get the time this to me I'm just going to say it to me you know sometimes people come in and they all of a sudden there's budget creep sometimes we all like to have things a little bit

154go up we have different opinions I was using the agenda you know the example the other day that an investment Bank tells you one price the other Investment Bank tells you the other price and you know you go with the one that brings you to Market it a little bit higher so um I think it's a little bit of that I'm just going to say it but um and I am going to um forward you this memo in case yeah please do I I would assure you it is not that which is why we're going to to have slam defend their number Monday night you know Eyes Wide Open Tony it's color me extremely confused oh Karen uh has been waiting a long time Karen Hirsch online oh thank you I I was just going

155to go back to the fact that uh you know we did like uh you know Miss Joe said have a very long discussion on multiple occasions and there was one particular discussion that we had prior to voting and there were I distinctly remember CSG discussing with us there were multiple ways to look at circulation um and we had a discussion about that I can go back and look at the specific dates so it may just be that there's a difference in looking looking at that formula and I would definitely like to hear more information as to how slam calculated uh their circulation space and and other things but um I would leave that to the building committee at this point and that's why I was just going to say I know that a lot of

156things were uh suggested I appreciate from Mr Turner suggesting that they've asked slam for to give some some good ideas and suggestions um unless much like Dr Mark anti-anthony um you know we didn't ask for whisper rooms we didn't ask for additional things so let's look at those I think at this point as a suggestion and I will wait to hear from the building committee who's uh been working their tails off um on having these discussions and presentations um you know nothing's been brought over to us but I know these weren't things we asked for and it's not really uh within the architect's party to change our ad specs without uh without bringing it back to us so I I'm hoping that uh they will be working within the confines that we gave them and

157I look forward to your meeting hearing the results of your meeting and discussion on Monday uh Ms Downey and then miss Kowalski okay um I'm actually going to change gears back to what we were talking about about the traffic and the cars um and then just go back to what we were um anyway I guess Amy is probably the right person just kind of curious about I wasn't able to participate just the the neighborhood response to these different concepts which I assume were shared with them and how a decision gets made once you have your traffic report just to give us some sense because I think we have a lot of views that we were talking about it's good to get the cars off the the advantage of a bus entrance how do you make

158that decision and how was the neighbor response to that so we were really happy to have a about um questions uh sent in Via a QR code that we shared that evening and we have um compiled the responses to all of those a number of them were about the um entrances and exits and we've had uh separate conversations with some of the neighborhood groups who were also invited to our visioning session um each of the neighborhood groups has a different interest of course you can imagine um depending upon what road their neighborhood is connected to but again we're going to use hard data to make those decisions and we'll use the traffic study to do that after all of the traffic counts are in from all of the intersections as well as the sight lines

159that will really also be taken into consideration with your staff in town in DPW and planning and zoning and the arborist not because sometimes when you put in a new driveway you need to take down some trees in order to provide the right sight lines and we know that we want to be very sensitive to keeping privacy for the neighborhoods and keep as much of the existed wooded edge of the property as possible also I would add Miss Downey and that is we will be having our our second Community engagement Forum in late April or early May to get further neighborhood and Community comment about the very thing right they've been very engaged as Christina said they not only did they come to the visioning meeting which was now uh right after slam was hired

160in January but they've been very proactive in their Communications with us through our Gmail and also by attending the community engagement Forum last week so more of that's coming to keep them involved the actual chair has told me that the pretend share is almost at a time so uh Dr berkanthi Anthony you have one minute I have a different point see um so um um I know in the documents one of the things that is uh possibility is the reduction um um in space of the proposed new Auditorium and I know no decisions have made yet the obviously this that is a this room is a major community space and it's used a lot by a number of things including obviously the RTM I I would suggest that it would be incredibly helpful to hear

161from the RTM um and when we're talking when we're having these phases of design phases if that's something that um um if that's appropriate or not the um in that if they don't speak up I think there's a real possibility that's basically Shrunk the um if we're looking against spaces and things like that and I think it would be incredibly helpful while we're having these conversations now not when it comes time for the final their final approval to hear from um the membership of the RTM of the whether or not they believe a large Auditorium space as proposed in the current Ed specs is valid and appropriate the um because otherwise it's very real possibility they're moving and they they need to know that listen if you weren't if you weren't paying attention because you

162have a job on consolidation day Ms Tarkington said there better be adequate parking here so that she doesn't have to park at the church for the RTM meetings so I I will give you a morning she seems to uh be invested here I'll give you a more formal answer you make a great Point um the the RTM does have a representative on the building committee and also on the building committee are both current and former members of the RTM so we we are thinking that that voice is there um and we'll hear those voices on Monday when we look at the look at the list yeah but you make a great point do you want to give Cody and another chance Joe oh okay Cody you may go ahead hey thanks sorry I know this

163I just want to come back to the point I was making before because I'm sure I got a fully I I understand what our approach is it it just strikes me as really bizarre that something that's basically a math question like the square footage thing could be so far off it's it's and and then it sounds like we've got a view from the committee that the architecture is definitely right we have views on the board that maybe they're wrong I is there's like how are we going to reconcile this and figure out if we were misled on what the numbers are um it's obviously easier to correct if the architect has an error but if we the Ed specs were an error like in terms of the square footage calculation are we do we have

164a definitive way to figure that out like to establish if uh if we were given incorrect information uh and if it is established that we were given incorrect information do we plan to keep The Firm that gave us that information employed on this project well you ask a lot of uh a lot of great questions um maybe I can give you one blue sky answer and that is if you would be patient with us and let us do our work uh Monday and Tuesday um as I said earlier we're going to ask uh slam to defend their calculations down to two uh two digits to the right of the decimal point on building efficiency um I think if you could let us do that work and then make our report to you on our findings

165the answers to your other questions will most likely be be obvious uh and then of course it's a board decision as to where you where you go from there with that information um maybe you'll have a recommendation back back to us but if we if we could do our work and come back to you with our report next week I I think that will shed much more light on the topic okay I understand that but is there well you guys give CSG a chance to I guess be in the room and offer their case or is that is that the right way to do that well CSG will CSG and and Turner and um slam will all be at the table uh in this meeting so absolutely okay cool we'll be sitting tight then get

166out of my superpowers back please happily thank you thank you Tony yeah absolutely thank you okay I noticed the Monsignor out there yawning a little bit so and tomorrow is the uh hi holy day for some of your flock so I know you might have to get going so I make a motion that we move item 10 d and e uh ahead uh to be next in line uh so we can address some of our uh audience participation here uh I do I have a second for that hi second uh can we all uh all in favor please say aye raise your hand online all right I and Karen no we have Administration that has to get to work tomorrow too that are waiting to present for our action so so you say no thank

167you okay so you lose all right we then move ahead uh so let's go with uh item 10d uh the uh Hamilton Avenue field use require request ocean is approved oh that's not the one let's see is motion will be the authorize the chair of the Board of Education to execute the draft partnership agreement regarding the field use permit and the use of the parking garage at Hamilton Avenue School do I have a second Michael Lee II okay uh discussion should we please make the presentation because this is his item now uh well he's gonna be yes of course yeah Blaze you there oh yes yes I am here can you can you hear me we can yes okay yeah so before you is a motion [Music] um this is a request to that that

168the Greenwich Public Schools received to use the Hamilton Avenue School field from the saint Rocks Church they submitted a formal request to use Hamilton Avenue School field in the parking deck um for their annual Saint rocks feast the dates that they are looking to use the field are 2023 through uh August 9th through August 12th um and they would like to have some access to the field beginning August 5th um so there's a draft motion their letter is included uh in their formal request to use the field and before you is also a draft uh agreement for the board to kind of formalize what their what their decision may be on the field use permit I believe we have um the representatives of the church Feast there to make their presentation so this this really

169is not I was an issue of mine this is a community issue being brought to the board I'm facilitating that conversation uh right now because as part of the event permit process as you know the event for our property is typically handled by Parks and Recreation this event uh will still be intended to be permitted by Parks and Recreation but specifically the use of the field which Parks and Recreation um is not permitting is why this is before the board today so I believe that Mr Capelli is there today as well as father McIntosh who made the request and I would like to hand it over to them does that sound good to you looks like it's good that's great Paul go ahead uh Fairman thank you uh board thank you uh I think father's

170request was was pretty well detailed um if everyone had an opportunity to read it we had addressed some things that we thought were important uh to you know make this uh uh safer and better for the community and I'm hoping that everyone agrees and allows us to use the uh the property okay any questions I have a number of questions slash comments um this isn't this isn't going to be partially to blaze partially um you know procedurally and you know you know a procedure matters um first of all one of the things is the Greenwich Public Schools will issue a permit for the use of the field I don't think we have that Authority because those are under Parks and Rec am I right or am I wrong I don't so that's kind of a

171question [Music] I believe that last year we issued a permit permit you permit permit for the parking band I know for the parking deck but I thought we had a whole discussion about the fields when we were talking about it the budget committee the other day like we don't permit the fields we do not typically permit anything on Town property or school property that is correct people by Parks and Recreation right so I don't think we can undertake that we're issuing a permit for the use of the fields if we don't I don't know if we these are just questions I don't know yeah so maybe we have that Authority permit may not be the right word too that could be that's a good point so this is another this is again these are procedural

172things um whether the proper signatory is the chair of the board or the superintendent again that's a question I don't have the answer to it um one thing is and colleagues May chime in once they hear my questions it talks about the community will donate it says another 12-month Landscaping service agreement I don't really remember the first one that was an annual one so I'm not sure we were made aware of that previously and then the issue of well I applaud the desire to give 15 000 to the Hamilton Avenue PTA I think we have to take a look at our gift policy about what is appropriate because then it becomes a gift that we have to accept which then has to go to the RTM it's just a little more complicated because it's not

173a gift from one of our partner organizations again procedurally I'm I'm just you know Mrs Ms Kowalski it's like tag you're it on the gift policy um and we'd had the conversations about donations generally the other day um and then the other thing would be uh I know the letter commits to using a certain vendor um that's not memorialized in the agreement so um well I'm not necessarily against the concept I think we only got these documents yesterday and there's a lot of questions I have a lot of questions that I think need to be satisfied which I'm not sure we can do this evening Mr Kelly so that's just a reaction thank you uh Karen Hirsch has her hand up foreign thanks Joe and uh much like Ms Downey I my concerns are uh

174mostly from a uh you know another I can't even speak I'm so sorry uh from a process point of view this is the first time we've seen this we got these documents barely 24 hours ago um I know I have a lot of questions that we typically have a first read of things like this and have an opportunity to have uh input from the public um on their opinion you know the community that this serves um and so I I think that that it putting this as an action item tonight may not be the uh right option mostly because I think I you know a bunch of us may have some specific questions um much like Ms Downey I did want to point out a few things that I was concerned about um one of

175them was the uh mentioned specifically a donation to the PTA and I think that it's all wonderful and well to donate to the PTA and I applaud um St Rox for doing so I think it'll be uh very appreciated by the PTA but um they are not part of the Greenwich Public Schools it should not be part of our um agreement uh the ptas have their own um uh process for accepting donations they're a separate entity they have their own rules and requirements I'm not sure how this would affect their cap though I'm sure probably won't put them over the limit but um I really think that that's not something that should be part of our agreement I think it's an exceptionally generous offer um from St Rox uh being that it'll go back to

176the kids but I I don't think that that's something that is part of our decision making and much like Ms Downey I see that it knows offering another 12 months of landscaping services um I don't remember seeing that come before us as a gift prior to this so I think that that would be an additional uh gift uh request that we would need to consider and I'd like to be able to sort of see what that that entails um as I think we would need to approve a donation of those Services much like we may we'll have we'll have to approve uh the next next agenda item uh at some point so um I think that's my bigger concern for everything else my last question is for actually Dr Jones um I know we're looking

177to fix the Hamilton Avenue parking structure um and I'm not entirely sure how long that would take or when we think we might uh or when we what time frame we're looking into that I know that uh St Rox is consistently utilize that parking structure over the years uh as part of this you know the surface of and I don't want to hold them up if that's part of this Blaze I think you answered that better today than I did actually on the timing you're just asking yeah so the time frame Dan was working on a assessment um for an RFP should be done within the next two weeks and the goal was to have the preliminary report um hopefully by June okay thank you Kathleen Hey Joe so I have a few questions too

178but I have to tell you and the fact that tomorrow's St Patrick's Day I'm marching in the parade in New York City tomorrow morning so I'm on a very early train um and with the Knights so I do have to say I obviously care very much about this um however I too feel like I'm just kind of getting up to speed and I have a few other questions like is this coming every year are we memorializing this as a partnership or a policy are they becoming a partner and therefore that becomes something around gifting like there's lots of bigger picture things that we should be thinking about and it's the first time we're seeing this so in the interest of moving forward on the agenda I kind of think we should maybe defer this to

179our next meeting especially because thankfully for once we're not like trying to do this in the summer we have you know a few months here before they have to rent the fields so I will make a comment first and then we'll see if that's what everybody wants to do my first comment is that my colleagues are not wrong uh but I do have to apologize profusely that we are resisting not our it's not my colleagues that are doing it it's the procedures we have in place when I joined the board I put it as a high priority for me to make it easy for people to give money to our schools to make sure that money goes to the children and betters our schools so I apologize if you go to a private school and

180you offer to donate money to them they take you to dinner and buy you wine all right and they stick you down to Pat you got it back and say thank you we put paperwork in front of you and scrutinize you and question you as you stand up here before us trying to give us stuff to help the kids so I apologize for that the procedure has to be addressed I was uh uh I feel I didn't do that as I wanted to do that on three years ago when I joined the board none of my colleagues are wrong they are 100 correct correct in analyzing the procedure and needing to hear more information so I'm not saying they're wrong but I'm saying I I think we have to address the system and I think

181we have to say thank you and I apologize for the system being difficult the way it is Karen so I agree that the the system is difficult and so I'm going to say I think you should as your almighty powers as board chair um ask one of us and I'll volunteer to help with the process so that because I think this is one a very gracious offer that should not be denied that would give the Hamilton Avenue School a wonderful upgrade and a wonderful field for kids to play on and for other uses and I know that the festival is a huge hit in the community was last year and everybody was raving about all of the different Carnival Foods unfortunately I missed it so I'm going to try to get it this year so

182in order to get this done and get this done right because I think overall the sentiment of the board as it was last year is to let this go forward but we got to take care of the protocols I'm happy to work with father and Mr caprielli in order to get this done so that when we can bring it to the board we can do that and do some background issues as well Cody Joe Joe I just wanted to just before Cody just for clarity um the donation that the church made is um give it the checks were written out to the Hamilton Avenue PTA and they are donated by them to the community so just as a point of no it's noted on that draft agreement as a point of note but it doesn't

183need to be on that I mean that document is just a draft for the board to do whatever they want with so I think it's a good conversation but Paul you can point out something otherwise but the the church dropped off the fifteen thousand dollar checks for the Hamilton Avenue PTA and those are being uh you know given to the community regardless so you know directly to the PTA that covers that procedure so good so I just want to cover that piece right there for you great thank you Cody you had a comment yeah I was just gonna say I think this one is a an easy one um this event was a big success last year uh it sounds like they're making improvements to it even if they didn't I'd be in favor of

184it but I don't think I think it's like so stereotypical of government agencies to say oh let's spend more time talking about it let's make sure the process is correct but we know that um this is or I think some of us know that this was a successful event I would not be in favor of delaying a vote on it if it doesn't pass in a vote we should definitely bring it up again later but um uh I think Blaze has done a great job getting this set up and obviously is intimately familiar with Parks and Rec and that's helpful um but uh you know I feel like we already went through this once this is getting ahead of it which is nice and I'd be very in favor of voting on this and having

185one less thing on our agenda to worry about in future meetings because Lord knows just was Central we've got a lot to talk about so that's my two cents thank you Cody Karen Hirsch oh I was just going to say this this is not a discussion or you know in my tense and opinion at this moment just as to the use of the field um it is just really a question on process and so uh it's not about saying yes or no and they do have time I think that you know last year we were under a great deal pressure due to time they were we greatly appreciate that this has come to us so early um but I you know I know they're probably not just myself but have some other questions uh other

186members might have other questions on on this um you know that just we want to be able to make sure that we're dotting our eyes and crossing our T's um before we you know move forward because there are some a couple of questions but um and I will say thank you in advance on behalf of Hamilton Avenue PTA for already uh supporting their students there and that I think that's great so thank you Karen and I'll conclude this with a suggest so I didn't see it Michael sorry um the um the only Silver Lining I I see in a month delay is this idea that if we can figure out a way of memorializing this annual event in such a way that we do not have to have a annual approval of it they uh

187but something that um some kind of longer term agreement I think that would um that that I see is um being helpful um but I do have a question would a um because everybody says we've got plenty of time but um do you see Paul do you see a month delay hurting you with the vendor negotiations that Monsignor references here I'm afraid of ever using the vendor that we've been forced to use for the last eight or nine years right unfortunately we had such a small space that the more reputable reputable vendors wouldn't consider us so we do have consideration from a a very reputable vendor and unfortunately like a lot of other things Cove had shut down a lot of these Carnival companies so there's very few choices um I I want to give

188you folks whatever you need to make the proper decisions I'm good at selling them I hopefully can hang on to them it's a consideration of mine it is something that that that that could be at risk in a minimal way but that minimal way is super impactful I don't know if that answers it correctly but that's that's the truth Laura so uh because this is such an extenuating circumstance where this keeps coming back to us is and I'll ask the question because I think I know the answer did parks and recs say no already and that's because the board is like the decider of Last Resort so the implication is does parks and recs say no to allowing the field use so I can answer that the last year what I learned from you folks

189um in the meetings you guys actually laid out how the the approval of a field gets used and I think permit um there was a question earlier it was a good question and the word permit may not be the right word the Board of Ed has a scheduling um thing on their computer um and it schedules the properties so I think what we're doing here is looking to schedule the property not permit Parks and Rec would still have to permit it as it relates to the um insurance and all the things that go along with it but Parks and Rec uh ultimately doesn't get to decide who doesn't who does not use uh the the school property and that's what was communicated from this board to me last year um and on top of that

190it was you guys had discussed and I was listening so I wasn't part of it but what I heard was the principal had the first write a refusal and someone because someone had asked they were concerned Why this came to the board and they were yeah we don't need yeah they were talking about the procedure inside this stuff it was supposed to be that the the principal would decide and if the principal either didn't want to decide or turned it down then the um then the entity would have the right to go to the superintendent if the superintendent either turned it down or wanted to throw it to the board then that's what hap that's what would happen I think out of an abundance of respect is why it's at the board um I I

191think that's the best answer I don't think we want to skip any one I think we want uh this input here which is a a very final resolution uh I think that's why please set it up that way I I just followed the instructions as to what um process I should follow and I followed it I this is directly contradictory to what we learned last year we were told we were the deciders of Last Resort because there was a discrepancy between Parks and Rec allowing use of the fields because Parks and Rec decides who and when uses them we we never like no baseball league has ever asked us about you know when they could use our Fields no soccer no football you know this is something that um Parks and Rec does exclusively because

192they have management over our outdoor facilities so I love that you're checking with us but it's I don't believe this is really our job unless there's a unless there's already been a no well I'll just help answer that question because I was also having worked over there but for the field um the permit for this use will not be issued by Parks and Recreation so they said no yes I coordinated to find out what the process would be for the event permit process from Parks and Recreation they will permit the event as normal as all events walk it through the process with insurance um risk management police fire everything like normal but they are looking for the Board of Education to permit uh by permit I mean using the actual definition to allow use of

193the field and we already do parking decks so that's part of a normal process we do parking you know lots but they are looking for uh the Board of Education to allow use of the field they are not permitting use of the field thank you Cody then you're in the right sorry all right Cody God yours is gonna make the point that this is a great opportunity for us is on unpaid citizen volunteers to do the right thing whereas other people if you're you know an employee who to sign off on this it's maybe a lot of downside potential that you may perceive with little upside um so I don't fault anyone for not like there's different incentives and constraints for different people and I'm not faulting any of the folks in the various departments

194for not wanting to just have this on their plate but for us we're in a nice position where we can say this makes sense this has a good track record of being successful let's sign off on it and move on and stop talking about process and a bunch of things that really don't matter for what we know will be a successful event Aaron Hirsch no I was just going to ask make the suggestion that we uh the table the motion for the next meeting and uh like we've done in the past if we have a document where we can post you know specific questions so the same questions not asked over and over uh that way we won't have to uh spend as much time uh going through a lot of the nitty-gritty the next

195at our next meeting and we can be able to try to move forward in a more positive manner uh with this and and just to address one comment um you know we do have policies and procedures and we have them for a reason so uh you know that that's why those of us who are focused on some of that you know do point that out so it's not just about uh making it difficult it's they're there for a reason whether you like it you know or not but Cody yeah I was going to say this is this is already a disproportionate amount of time that's spent not on student achievement or Capital planning or things that actually matter for students I would or strategic plan thanks Mike um I would recommend uh can you I

196don't I always forget the rules is can I make a motion to to vote on this there's a motion on the floor you can call the question but before you do that I'd like to say something okay please I I'm I'm under the impression that this motion won't pass I believe we have a strategy that we could put forward that will get this motion to pass that will bring all members of the board on board with this we have to address a little bit of procedure Karen Kowalski has agreed to work as uh Dr Jones pointed out with staff uh to Salvo tie up to Loose Ends I believe we can get a commitment by all eight board members if we just tied up some of the Loose Ends so we might have to delay

197this so I'm going to withdraw my motion Joe can you help me with does that mean I should make a motion you can make a motion if you like yes can I make the same motion you just made you can yes you have to say it let's see what's the text did I have to say uh let's see a motion to approve the field use request the last motion I made was authorized the chair of the Boe to execute the draft partnership agreement regarding all right I I motion to authorize the chair of the Boe to execute the draft partnership agreement regarding the field use permit and use the parking garage at handmade School before somebody seconds that motion I'd like to ask a question can I do that okay second it now can I

198ask a question now you can speak speak to this speak to the motion if if the motion does not pass um will there be an opportunity to bring this before the board again we could always bring up our promotion fails could be brought to the board again for a vote well if we and if we table it it's you can simply go on to for the next we can ask at the agenda planning to put it back on for the next meeting correct so either way it fail or uh if we uh withdraw the motion again then we could what still can be voted on next meeting and the motion sorry Cody I wasn't listening to you um it authorizes execution of the agreement in the current form so Cody well I completely agree with

199you and I would go ahead and vote Yes I don't think you're going to get it to pass tonight and the question is do we want to go through that process or let take the next month let me work with the staff to get it in a point where we might get convinced some of our colleagues hold on we might we might want to ask for some divine intervention here what do you think no sorry just kidding Mike I think um we're discussing the motion I think in for considering the community conversation I think it's a very different Community conversation to uh convince the board to overturn a uh a vote uh take it to Martha floor that it is to reconsiderate new vote for the first time um at the April meeting if you

200understand what I mean I understand exactly what you mean and I agree that we should table it uh somebody said divine intervention perfect Cody are you interested in withdrawing your motion yeah sure I'll just say that I'm really disappointed because this is a colossal waste of time relative to the other things this board should be working on I don't think anyone disagrees with you well if people did disagree or sorry if people did uh if people actually agreed with me on that we would just vote and get this through because we know where this is going to end up anyways it's just a waste of time but we'll you know do whatever we need to do to distract from the real issues okay thank you we'll move on thin questions okay send any questions to

201this topic to uh Tony she'll answer them for you and uh Christina you've got a motion [Music] um because Joe asked me it isn't that motion to accept the donation of an irrigation system as proposed in the donation form dated 113 2023 conditional upon a fully executed GPS purchasing contract insurance as required by the town risk manager of fully executed 15-year full service maintenance agreement in all relevant Town permits I second it um similar to the last one Joe because if I may because you kind of told me I could yes um I just my question you know I just have some questions about this again we only got this last night and didn't you know in terms of I I see there's a maintenance agreement involved but we really haven't addressed things like increased

202water usage or electricity costs for the district to be paying in connection with the sprinkler system um so I I just think a little more clarity would be for me would be helpful if we could get that provided to us again because we didn't get these documents until last night and we don't have answers to some of these questions unless Blaze has answers up in the zoom sphere I believe that I'm not sure if the donor is there um or there's a representative there but they were planning on coming to speak so Joe I may defer to you to see if the Mr Frank Cortese or his representative is in the room or if they left given the hour Frank's not here okay okay then we'll put it off as the other one do you

203want to withdraw your motion happily thank you okay send questions to Dr Jones please uh now we are uh let's see where are we now uh we are the soil update new courses that's it new courses linear algebra where's our motion for linear algebra oh yeah approve I move to approve edition of linear algebra as GS ghs as presented at the Jan 19 2023 Boe meeting do I have a second I'd happily second that okay Karen second okay discussion is anyone presenting or should we just start asking questions okay Andrew Byrne is online as well it looks like Karen has a question so while I'm preparing mine go ahead just took your parents back Joe go ahead we're asking questions of Anne and uh and Mr Burn Right okay so questions go ahead Karen you'll

204be handed yeah I did to be fair I I don't technically have a question I was just going to make a statement um and I think it's important that people just know you know the reason I'm fully supporting this of course it's the mission of the writers public schools to educate all of our students the highest levels of academic achievement and enable them to reach and expand their potential and I believe offering this course gives our students that opportunity um you know to expand and grow um and I think it's just important to know because I I did uh ask some questions of uh Mr Byrne as well as uh Mr Mayo because uh I just wanted to know but you know there's really no downside to offering the course because if we add it

205to our course catalog it doesn't mean necessarily the course will run because Greenwich High School does require a minimum number of students to enroll in a course for it to run so um we offer plenty of courses that due to low enrollment uh are not always run every single year um and while we may not have enough students to run it in one particular year another year following we might very well do have that enough students to do that and it gives them an opportunity to take a course like this from our excellent uh and incredible teachers as opposed to taking something online which doesn't show up on their transcripts in the same way especially when they're the students at that you know level are looking to make sure it's on their transcript when they're

206applying to colleges and things like that so to me I think this is sort of a no-brainer it's been asked for for many years not necessarily linear algebra but higher level math courses I just don't see a downside to it thank you Karen Kathleen um so Andrew thanks so much um I'm happy you brought this to us but I do have a few questions um so Karen makes a good point we typically don't run courses right when there's a certain not a certain number of students you in this guide suggests that we'd be buying at least something for 12 students so is that in fact your minimum and can you tell me sort of what the matriculation potential is looking like I mean I think that there's you know in the 10th grade I feel

207like there's six but I could be totally wrong about that so could you tell me what the 11th grade is looking like in the 10th grade and maybe what the next few years look like in terms of potential sure um thank you Miss Stowe um obviously I I think the opportunity to offer then your Alger is an exciting one and we heard earlier tonight from the students and um it's important to know that the department and the entire Greenwich High School faculty is behind it so while we only have eight students who would be eligible for uh potentially enrolling for next year we do suspect that more students are in the pipeline especially when we look back to some of our current 8th and ninth graders who have been accelerating or completing honors Algebra 2

208even in the eighth grade so um while I'm not expecting that we'll be able to get it up and running right away but as Ms Hirsch has mentioned it is something that we're striving towards and I think we will be in a better position in future years regarding class size I I would defer to uh principal mayo and vice principal talata on what those thresholds are I know that they try to maximize uh student opportunities across all our course catalog uh using the um teachers that we have on staff can I ask again another question good yeah um so I know that a few years ago for example I remember we approved um was it honors Advanced topics in computer science it was the one class Beyond AP Computer Science so of similar I guess

209stature I want to say has that had an opportunity to run just as a comparison unfortunately we have not been able to realize that course at this point in time we've uh We've certainly have heard as you guys have heard in in the fall our computer science program is blossoming and you know we're really proud of the work that we're doing especially in the two AP courses but we just haven't been able to kind of get even more than nine or ten kids in the last several years to uh pursue that and so then what do they do they kind of take the independent is it also MIT freeware or is it the same concept that they then have to go that way and how does that to Karen Hirsch's Point how does that work

210on the transcript of colleges sort of appreciate that recognize it you know I'm trying to say yeah I don't that's one of the things I've been hearing about this the children taking honors on our algebra online is that it's almost like it's not well explained to the colleges yeah I don't want to speak to the college impact but I will say that you know this the fact that our faculty are so generous across the board especially Math and Science to provide these independent studies for our students is really a a unique quality of Branch High School and one that um you know our students are very fortunate to have and I will say you know um in my interactions with colleges and students you know certainly um they applaud the students and their passion uh

211for wanting to you know pursue these uh various topics at such a high level and again um you know our teachers are there supporting them and and encouraging them a long way thank you I could keep going but it's not fair so I'm gonna no go ahead other people thank you very much Cody jump in jump in these guys hand up there go ahead Cody math topic for you yeah I think this class is great I just want I think I made this point last time and it doesn't look like it's a hard requirement but I would very much encourage you to offer this just good math students who don't want to take calculus because you don't need nothing on the um unit schedule requires calculus and I think it's really nice to have a

212alternative math path for like not everybody who likes math likes calculus I mean included uh but um just I think that's a way to fill out the class because it like treating it as an alternative as opposed to you know just another step because it is totally uh a different type of math okay Cody your point is well made and I certainly agree with you um I think one of the hesitations on our part is that we don't want to unintentionally decimate our our wonderful ad calc program that we've you know been very successful with over the last number of years so I do think you know moving forward maybe that might be something that we would consider um as a school and as a department um to open up the access to a course

213like linear algebra is it going to be a requirement to have a calculus or is that just intended as of right now our current um description in the course of study guide is that they would have completed Advanced calculus we were trying to fill that knit that need inside our community for those students that exhaust all our our courses so um but like I said we may want to come back to you again as we you know do further studies in the future and have more conversations with our students does the does the Boe have to vote on it if you change the course requirements or once the course is approved you can kind of do what you want well every year the course of study guide is brought uh ahead in in any uh

214changes are um communicated by um Dr and carabello and um you know if something was significant I would imagine that the board would um want to weigh in on that discussion would that be would that hit the qualification for significant or just like a practical standpoint I don't think so um personally but I I wouldn't want to speak for Dr carabell I see that she's on the phone on the uh line here but I I think this is something that um you know as we explore and hear from our students you know it could be an easy switch and you know not that I um as I said I I know from a math progression point of view that linear algebra doesn't necessarily have to follow it ad calc but um you know I want

215to make sure that we're not just accidentally um you know pushing our students into the wrong direction either so I think a little bit more time an investigation would probably be helpful with this one yeah I would just say like there's not a the point is to expand Choice give people more options it's not like why we would be have more loyalty to advance calculus over linear algebra that doesn't make sense to me it would just as just as well as it would make sense if you came and said you had to take linear algebra in order to take Advanced calculus so I would strongly encourage you I'm not going to get in the way of this program but I would strongly encourage you to not make that a requirement because it just like you

216might as well make you know taking some kind of literature across the requirement it just doesn't have overlap uh I understood I appreciate that thank you Cody thanks Cody Mike you had something yeah um I know I have voice concerns um last month and um I think some of the concerns were misconstrued is that I'm not necessarily um against um the high school offering linear algebra I think it's a perfectly fine and appropriate thing to do I think though um as they said what gives me pause is that and I think what should we need to continue to consider is um the pressure that whenever we expand our course offerings that that that puts on all of our students and our whole student body the um last month I I think I mentioned race to

217nowhere I got the title of the book rug the title the book is called beyond measure the um race to Nowhere was the documentary based on the book the uh but the books well worth reading the when it came out there was a lot of conversation Chris Winters was the Headmaster at the time and he I remember him having I remember him reading he had the whole um student committee around wellness and student pressures and things like that and what concerned me last month and still concerns me is that when we talked about um adding this course um there was no mention about some of those other factors and some of those other pressures that whenever we add a course or whenever we add a track the um that kind of pressure is going to

218happen and it's going to be felt I mean just look at the conversations that we've been having about how you know college opportunities and this and that and all the kids the eighth graders are hearing that and they're all thinking well now I have to do this and this is a course that um this is a course that very few of any of my understanding is high schools in the country add um that's terrific that we have students that are able to do it and I do not want to I'm voting yes because I do want I want to limit choices for for those students but that also sort of give us pause because we have a lot more students who are now going to feel pressure to do that and how we're supporting students

219to make appropriate choices to what Cody was saying I think has to be an important factor in this the um and it's a larger conversation and I think we as a board need to take up at a later point they at some point I don't know when maybe I think some point around 2000 1999 we seem to think it was okay for high school kids to stay up till one o'clock in the morning doing homework the um that's that's silly right so I think there were other things and there are other institutional pressures that we need to we need to push back and sometimes as an institution it's our role um to put those limits in place so that's that's really just my my concern here but I don't want to shortchange um the students

220the the the small group of students who really you know are are capable and should have this opportunity Christina um I 100 agree Mike that you know once we create the pathway students are going to feel compelled to follow that pathway through college pressures peer pressures what the like so I would caution and urge the administration to really focus on when kids are doing these triple jumps as in Middle School um for to guide them appropriately um so that's perhaps maybe part of the transition in eighth grade ninth grade that we should be thinking about a little bit more in terms of the math path um Andrew I know we had a conversation about this just in terms of so it you're assuring us that it'll only run with the same number of students as

221any other course would run at the high school and the math department like this computer science class correct that's correct um and just just in terms of so we're talking about a course that we are not necessarily even sure is going to get developed or be needed next year in terms of your allocation of Staff time and resources to developing a curriculum for it um could you just kind of speak about that and just the amount of time that's going to be involved in that and obviously if there's an accompanying cost yeah you know a lot of work was already done to put the proposal together we have a couple of people that have worked on a along with me and so uh you know I imagine if we are fortunate enough to have the

222board um approve it tonight you know as I outlined in the uh proposal we would spend some time uh this spring and summer flushing out the um actual course syllabus in Greater detail so that we have it uh for the future obviously we want to make sure that we have those front-facing and and backward facing uh curriculum documents I don't imagine that it would be very costly maybe a couple of days of growth and development um as far as uh you know bringing maybe two or three teachers together so I I do think the the cost would be sitting you know under a thousand dollars if I had to put a number on it okay thank you um and just um I know Cody has this point about allowing more students and I agree with

223you wholeheartedly that the ACT you you really have to be cautious before doing things that are going to dilute the value of your ad class which is an exceptionally good class um it's extremely helpful for any student who wants to study math in college even if it's not an AP class in terms of the preparation what it allows them to place into place out of or even to take a course in college that they've already taken in high school to ease their college you know first semester College burden thank you in the interest of try to bring trying to bring this to a vote Karen can we make a brief comment then Cody will follow quickly sorry um yeah no I was just going to say one of the things that I had uh asked

224uh Mr burn ahead of time and I thought maybe might be helpful is the number of students that do take adcalc um and are signed up you know currently and signed up for next year um knowing the number of students there are in every grade it's a small percentage I you know I'll let him answer I don't see that it's gonna Drive students that really are not truly focused on this higher level of mass to to stress themselves out that they have to to get to this level um I think this is for very specifically a minded student that's been asked for for years for for higher level math to be taught within our schools so um do you want I don't know uh do you want to mention how many students are currently signed

225up for ad calc yeah right right now we were only able to run one section uh for the current school year so we we have just under 30 students um for adcal presently um but it looks like next year uh we're trending in the same direction that we have for the last couple years and we should have approximately 40 to 45 students um who would sit through ad calc next year okay Cody just real quick on Mike's concern about kids feeling the pressure to do this if you don't have it as if you don't have ad calc as a requirement it goes from being a linear step no pun intended to an alternative and I think it can actually reduce the pressure um it is not it's an easier class I think than ad calc

226so uh having taken a year of linear algebra um the uh I just like I think you can end up in a better situation than the current tracking because if you create a lot of choices it reduces the pressure to go down a particular path thanks Cody I'm going to try to wrap this up I was at the Lions Club breakfast on Saturday morning and uh Barbara O'Neill approached me and she insisted that we approve this course otherwise I was feeling I was going to get detention so I'm going to call the question uh all in favor of approving this course please raise your hand I believe that's unanimous eight zero thank you for checking though okay now we're going to go with the graduation date I move we approve the June 15 2023 as

227a date for Greenwich High School graduation Dr Jones hopefully this will be the fastest item of the night let's make our seniors happy their family's happy and just as a reminder their law did change just a few years ago so that when you set the graduation date even if we do have a storm or something that comes up we do not have to change graduation so this will be set in stone or if Michael secretly seconded it I know you're asking for that but he was secretly saying actually I think Kathleen seconded it for you okay I have a couple of questions I know this should be an easy one I have sorry I have a couple questions so the first question I have and it goes also into our next motion that we're going

228to have regarding the uh last day of school um the first so let me start with that so I know that we don't take Juneteenth off and we are going into it and we the last day of school is then going to be Juneteenth for some and it is a state and federal holiday and I did some checking and the school districts that are still in school take that day off as opposed to days that not so therefore I raise the issue that we are one of the very few districts that are in school that I well actually I couldn't find any District that was in school next day that didn't take this day off so I raised that as concern one and what message does that send to our African-American community that we are

229not taking Juneteenth also because it is a federal and state holiday it it becomes a three-day weekend and you are having graduation on a Thursday night when people might want to get out of town early for a three-day weekend and you have the graduation party that's in late that takes late on a Thursday and people can't get out of town because they can't feel because they can't get out early enough and therefore I raise concerns that perhaps graduation date which isn't necessarily tied as far as I could tell uh to the end of school plus most seniors aren't coming to school anyway because they all have their internships if it makes sense to move the graduation date up a few days so we don't run into a Juneteenth three-day weekend problem and um yeah that's

230my issue so I would say on Juneteenth different districts are handling differently just like Veterans Day I mean I think you'll find like we're actually in school on Veterans Day so I think we look at it where if we're going to be in school we'll make sure that we have programming so that we're educating our students what what that day actually is that's actually part of the requirement that um Governor Lamont put into law that if you're going to be in that you have to have an educational program and if that's the case I think that becomes part of the curriculum which would then need to become that the board would have to look at as well but that's a separate issue but my other point is I know Stanford is off on Juneteenth I

231know Bridgeport is off on Juneteenth the other major cities in districts in the state so I just raised that as an issue maybe we don't want to change it here fine but I would ask that we take a hard look at this if we're going to continue to be in school on June 19th as to what this says to a greater population that we're not taking that day off when others do and also presents like I said earlier I think may have an issue of three-day weekend issues for some people who have it off and teachers whose students may be off in different districts thank you I'd like to call the question just just you know I guess this kind of goes to the point um it kind of depends on if we move it

232or not because we are supposed to have our June Board of Ed meeting on June 15th so we would have to set a new night for our June Board of edin eating if we move it well if we well we're Double Trouble related it would be a school function that you know if we can't be at graduation and here at Central Middle School at the same time I know and that's why I'm answering sarcastically yes Tony one more thing Dr Jones so just keep in mind that it while it's incredibly difficult we are supposed to with Integrity set graduation is close to the last day of school even for seniors so we do have to be cognizant that you move it back to Tuesday we're supposed to get the seniors back in school for the

233rest of the week and I just I just want to share that because that's not going to happen um and that's right um and so I just I share that we also would we would be tabling this until next month because I would have to go back check with Karen Foster you know check with Ralph make sure it's not conflicting with something else that our high school graduation as you know is enormous takes a tremendous amount of booking they have to make sure things are available and you know that the thing the rentals Christina you want to make a final comment yeah just because I in past years we've done it as a first read and then we finally vote in April on the graduation date so I guess the question is can we follow

234that old practice given this other information about Juneteenth I guess that's that's just my question in terms of you were about to call the question so that was my response to your calling well I'll tell you I have a senior who's graduating and boy oh boy is this date very popular amongst the graduating seniors they were so celebratory that this was the date so uh I I would not even want to delay this vote because it seems like uh we would have an uprising in the uh the graduating Community if we did I was just more concerned about all these ancillary things that I don't care when graduation is because I don't have a senior other than we show up thank you for your concern uh so I'd like to call the question uh all

235in favor Cody uh well so that's I'm in favor okay so as am I all against abstentions one abstention two abstentions two abstentions okay so that's six zero two that passes I love when the votes go with non-political groupings Christina could you read the next motion yeah thank you um motion to approve June 16th as the last day of school for sixth and ninth grade students and June 19th as the last day of for all other grades directory Tony the last day of school action is dependent upon no additional days off and if so the calendar will be extended one day for each day that schools are closed second down at Lori Laura has some secondary because you could be the secondary fantastic discussion Michael yeah I have to say I have a I do

236have some agita around um being in school on June 19th the um and I hear about programming I wonder how extensive programming can be if it's also the last day of school in all honesty the awards assemblies and things like that I think it's to me it reminds me of Veterans Day having been in districts where we're in school and when we're out the vast majority of our students will get nothing um unless the school addresses it and I in in that what I see when I watch our Veterans Day across the district I know a lot of you have attended them they are phenomenal and I I trust our staff will would make it a meaningful day Christina and Mike just historically since I'm older than you are I don't want to say that

237in the numbers but um there was a big outcry back in the day when we started going to school on Veterans Day and Columbus Day um particularly Veterans Day so and it was about appropriate responses and activities and to Dr Jones's point I think it's worked out very well that's fine I think the um look this is a new holiday and maybe it's something that that evolves I I don't think we would win the argument that um we could stay in school on Martin Luther King Martin Luther King day and do educational programming so I think the um moving forward after this year I think it's something we need to think about in velocity okay with no more comments I will call the question all in favor raise your hand and that's uh seven in

238favor all against one against at seven one zero that motion passes okay now it's time for a discussion item we have the Western Middle School soil update Dr Jones I think this one's going to be fairly quick we're excited about where we are Dan do you want to come forward and and share the information that you shared today no come on we're making such great progress I actually got my name on the on the permit sheet today they were working on sending that to Hartford to deep so we're really excited so uh we did get some we recently received what we're considering some favorable news from The Regulators associated with the Western Middle School field the latest discussions with Connecticut DEP have provided information that suggests a limitation to the site-wide mass excavation of two

239feet so if you remember the whole planet of the remediation was to remove two feet of soil in Mass across the entire field ship it out and bring back new fill uh the recent change in that is that The Regulators have are going to allow us to just strip away the topsoil which is let's just say six inches for an average um and remove that from the site that's going to save us a significant amount of time and effort uh it doesn't mean we're we're changing um uh any of the risk profile it just means that we're approaching the project similar to what's going on at the high school um the change in the plan could provide relief to the project by lessening truck traffic decreasing estimated cubic yards of contaminated filled to be disposed

240reducing the amount of fill brought to the site and most importantly should cut down the schedule as to when the fields will be reopened to the public which is the big big news also of significant importance is that the team associated with the project continues to have positive discussions and feedback for meetings with Tyler Greenwich agencies as well as representatives from the neighboring Bakery we've met with the tree Warden to discuss planting and tree removal options we've met with Parks and Rec uh to discuss ancillary equipment needed meaning goals flags for field alignment the actual way the fields are laid out uh we've met with the first selectman's advisory committee for people with disabilities to discuss routes accessible routes to and from the field we've met with the uh the school administration to discuss access

241to the fields during construction we've met with the bakery plant manager to discuss access to the site via the bakery-owned driveway and the GPS Security Department to discuss additional site lighting along the walkway that runs the entire length of the field so all in all the project is moving forward um I think we're in good shape I don't want to throw any dates or dollars at you tonight but it's just a an update that things are looking good Dan that's good news thank you for that sure of course I'll offer my help but I know you'll say no go away as usual so but I will help if anything to do anything go away thank you anyone else have any questions of Dan okay thank you Dan appreciate it okay next action items are all

242Blaze um the special education out of District interim request motion to approve the interim funding request as presented Blaze do we have a second Joe point of order should we actually put the dollar amount in the motion I just read it off I know I know but that's my question I mean it's a question Mike antonacio are you out there like uh I can't answer that well let's go what we have I can get a second and we'll see how that okay I'll happily second it thank you I won't say happily but I'll second it please go ahead so yeah yeah so we've got there to discuss um is the interim this was the one for special ed you said Joe right correct okay so I got a lot of my interims here today um

243so yeah yeah the also the special ed in my financial report um we are currently between the total out of District uh tuition program and the um special education settlement line uh the net of that is currently a negative of uh one million uh fifteen thousand three hundred and seventy three dollars for legally obligated special education expenses or currently carrying this this cost um as you as the board knows um the special education excess cost sharing Grant which helps supports this program is state revenue that program goes directly to the town that Revenue um we we can't access that Revenue so the way to access it is through an interim through uh Dr H's work we are uh receiving actually significantly more even significantly more than budgeted so that we only had budgeted nine hundred

244thousand we're on track this year to be between 1.4 and 1.6 million um last year also just for reference nine hundred thousand was budgeted for the program we had a big deficit but the the Board of Ed absorbed that whole thing but the town general fund had been reimbursed again um 1.3 million and that excess cost program so I will let uh Dr H who is here kind of articulate a little bit more background on the actual uh expenses and how the program's running I will say that we are already absorbing a number of costs um and in addition to this we we the district will be we have a large negative in substitutes we've got a large negative um in electricity already in facilities of overtime were in the red so it's not like

245we have areas of cash that we are flush with um that we can use to cover these legally obligated special education expenses Dr H I think you might want to add some insight onto the actual um program budget status sure so when we met um a month ago maybe a month and a half um at our executive session we kind of talked about some of the um some of the costs that have come you know that have come through the department um you know there is um just in kind of in perspective when I started a year and a half ago the budget for this fiscal year was being presented within starting just a few months and it kind of took us last year to get everything settled and then we had a few high

246cost students um that got added to that so um it's not that we are mismanaging the money or we're you know having a large number of students a lot of this is finally getting to a balance where we know exactly what students we have how much this costs and trying to even it out and as blaze said we we've been able to bring uh bring in through the excess cost um really what some of that deficit is but the money goes directly to the town and so asking for that back to be able to help cover the cost that of the revenue that it's actually generated from this is this is a problem um kind of specific to Greenwich um with the way that the revenue is structured specifically this Revenue program um and so

247it's just a process I reached out to the town to see if we could receipt the excess Revenue um directly back to the program over the nine hundred thousand uh town finance is not interested in doing it that way they want us to follow the the normal interim pathway approach um and so here we are thank you uh Karen it just so I can understand this um so we're asking for an interim of a little over a million dollars but we're saying that the sped excess cost sharing grant that we get we think is estimated to be somewhere between 1.3 and 1.6 million and that amount of money goes to the General Revenue fund for that the town general fund so they're getting that money so what we're asking them is really just to pay

248us back a million of what we've already collected through your hard work in the excess cost sharing Grant do I have that right you have that mostly right except for the fact though that the town I think logic would be on this piece that they budgeted 900 000 for that Revenue um against an expense model so in the mill rate in theory they were building the budget expecting 900 000 in revenue and so it's it's the excess over the 900 000 is how some people would view it but yes the town general fund is being reimbursed 1.3 to 1.6 million and we are essentially asking for those funds to go back to the program to help cover the deficit which is how it would typically typically be arranged um in almost every District in Connecticut

249understood thanks nobody else okay without further seeing no more questions I will call the question uh all in favor please raise your hand that appears to be unanimous eight zero thank you I like eight zeros thank you thank you thank you very much Dr H Blaze you're still in the hot seat uh we have uh the Havre Maya building flood interim motion to approve the interim funding request as presented for Haver Maya building uh response and repair do I have a second oh Laura's gonna second that thank you Laura that's awful nice to you yeah so this is an interim funding request um that we are seeking to submit for 545 000 the background is that uh most of you are aware but on February 4th we had a pipe burst um in the Upper

250Floor of the have a Meyer building two offices on the Upper Floor um The Boardroom uh as they're all unfortunately well aware um and the entire print shop were severely damaged um those damaged areas all contain hazardous materials including Asbestos and lead paint so the areas had to be abated and um like the boardroom was completely gutted to back down to the studs on all sides of the boardroom in that room we had the all the board of Ed's um Tech equipment for what we're doing right now was in there all the furniture was lost and contaminated and then the print shop Furniture was lost so there's two interims related to the uh for Simplicity there's two interims related to the havemeyer flood one is for the rebuilding of the building and the furniture um

251which is a very straightforward uh one especially with insurance uh the second one is uh the print shop which we'll talk about in a minute but that's specific to the actual print shop equipment because most of the print shop equipment was lost so for this first one we're talking 545 it's it's broken down on the attached document but we're coordinating closely Dan's team has been great um they responded immediately and since then um they've got up and running the town's risk manager Megan damato we are working very close with the insurance adjuster has been out for this interim the town uh for this we were advised originally we thought there was a deductible of 250 000 Megan reached out to Dan Tony and I to notify us that for this incident it was going to

252be a 100 000 deductible so um the way that the insurance funding Works which most of us are unfortunately well aware of is that it goes to the the town's fund and the town uh similar to the last conversation we just had has us come for the funding and so this is the funding mechanism to access the the necessary repairs Dan's budget is currently carrying this we're carrying this as a district this entire repair so far so this is a bit time sensitive we got to get it over there to get the insurance reimbursement and the reason that these were with the finance committee on Tuesday when we talked about these with the finance with the Boe finance committee um is because the RTM does not hear any uh items other than budget in May

253so we have to also get it to them by the April meeting so that's that's the background um if there's questions about the specific repair I think Dan's still there but um well I heard you say something nice about Dan he's gone so you don't have to keep doing that and uh so we're good okay thanks you're welcome so what you're saying is this uh this money we're asking for the town will be reimbursed To Us by the insurance company less a hundred thousand dollars is that what you said that's that's yep that's what should happen thank you any questions I see no questions uh so let's uh let's take a question I'm sorry okay Karen um please what is the timeline for getting reimbursed by the insurance company and do we anticipate any haggles

254by the insurance company with respect to the amount and what they will be willing to reimburse great questions um the so we're we're I'm not 100 sure on the timeline I will find that out that's why the town has it this way so that we can access the funds right away and then they'll get reimbursed directly the town will actually get reimbursed directly by the insurance company um the re one of the reasons that the building one is separate is or we have a high confidence of full reimbursement we're working really closely with Megan when we talk about the print shop um equipment that one's a little less straightforward and I think there there's a little more of a gray area in that one this one uh we're fairly confident everything is fairly is pretty

255straightforward with the with the insurance with Megan and everybody on the actual building damage okay and the other question I have then and maybe this goes to the other one but um is it uh 100 000 for like would they be sorry it's getting late um that's one incident it's just that's what that was my question it's one incident so even though these are two separate approval promotions in respect to the financial piece will only be out technically if everything goes as planned a hundred thousand and the insurance company would pay 442 000 in one and then whatever the other one is but it's looked at this one incident and we would only be a hundred thousand for both of these to combine yes one incident One Insurance claim uh two different interims because of

256the the nature of the two different interim the way the town funds them but one one incident one property claim any more questions seeing none I would like to say I'd like to take a vote all in favor raise your hand that looks like one of those unanimous votes how cool is that eight zero thank you very much uh next one is the print shop interim funding request motion to approve the interim funding request as presented for the Haver Maya building flood print shop equipment do I have a second I'm gonna go with Laura again thank you Laura okay um any questions oh I'm sorry Blaze go ahead well yeah I'll I'll present this one quickly it's a little uh more complicated we talked about it at the finance committee on Tuesday a little bit

257more in length um but essentially the thought process behind submitting the interim is that the timing of the end of the fiscal year and the fact that the RTM doesn't hear anything in May is why it's before you right now for discussion um the equipment all in um to basically rebuild the print shop is 234 650 the difference on that interim request right now which is partially unknown is also the fact that the print shop lost all paper all ink everything in the print shop was was lost um we're currently as of this week so Jonathan sopranowitz who oversees the The Print Shop team we set up a approach where the print shop staff is currently working but we have announced an outsourced um vendor actually doing the printing right now in Stanford for a

258very low cost this has been a lot to try to get a print shop back up and running so that we still have the function going that is operating out of Stanford um we'll see how it goes it just started yesterday so that's exciting news but this interim is before you I could see um you know if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them okay thanks Blaze I do have a quick question uh if we do get the interim from the uh from the town and the insurance company pays us do we have to give it back to the town I'm just kidding any real questions Karen oh there you are go ahead Karen yeah I just have one quick question because I know that uh The Print Shop is uh utilized by

259ourselves as well as the town um it's a shared resource so I just was wondering I mean you know it's is it specifically covered under our insurance is that why we're requesting the full amount of funds uh needed to replace or is it something that's a shared expense with the town it is the town's Insurance uh other way around towns insurance and fully budgeted by the Board of Education it's in our budget which is why we're the ones that have to ask for the interim and we actually eat all the excess costs it's a separate point we could talk about it lots of discussions we're only focused on putting what we have back okay thank you hey boys um oh wait sorry I wanted to order good Cody um what's the if we like the

260current temper the temporary setup we have for um this print shop that we're using does that mean that we potentially don't need this or like if if we approve this does that mean that we're for sure rebuilding the print shop or is there a chance still that we've made one of go fully outsourced Blaze you want me to jump in there for a second we're having conversations and I'll hand it over to Dr Jones about doing some analytics on that Cody very good question so we're going to decide within this short period of time now that we're Outsourcing the printing it's certainly not a growing business so we hope it's not a growing business printing so I don't think personally I don't think we want to be in the printing business so and Dr Jones

261agrees we're going to do some analytics on just that point so how does that impact us for from a voting standpoint I think that you could you know you could withdraw the motion and you could you could do what the BET does which is um condition the interim upon execution of the interim funding upon a uh analysis of the Outsourcing cost uh something like that I would be in favor of that approach well Blaze tell me this and I agree with Cody uh uh if we claim the insurance claim and we get the payment do we have to take that money and put it back into uh the printing equipment well remember all the insurance money goes back to the town so that that would be another piece of it what I asked Megan and

262I do not have an answer yet is if we that is that question exactly if we do not rebuild the print shop does this does the town still get reimbursed for all the Lost equipment and I and I do not have an answer to that yet from Megan but I did ask that question because I think it's a good question well it depends on the policy but yes sometimes you have to discount if you take the money rather than the rebuild on a home you'll get a discount to not rebuild the home so it all depends on the policy but now do we think uh are you advising us to approve this motion and and take action on the other things we're talking about and get answers there or should we hold the motion until

263we get the answers I may let Dr Jones weigh in I think from just my initial reaction it would be to maybe approve it with the conditions that we discussed so that we could still uh move forward um if needed on it presenting back to you but also I think you could do it either way I'll go to Christina's I think we should it's better to approve it with the conditions just because of the RTM timing because if the analytics show that we really want to replace the equipment and we don't get it on the RTM call for April now we're waiting till June do you want me to withdraw my motion you reframe it in a different way and then move forward on that I guess well do we want to put the conditions

264on or do we want to let the BET put the conditions on it because that's the other alternative is we just vote on it and we communicate with them that if you want because by the time it gets to them and gets to the RTM we will have probably performed I don't know how quickly Tony you would guys would do the analytics we may have the data so we may not necessarily to worry about phrasing how to do the condition in the spur of the moment your call Joe well I would say we move forward with the motion and uh we these conversations are going on so we know we could change uh the flow of cash if need be uh so uh uh with the understanding that we're going to continue these discussions I

265say we uh I'll call the question and have a vote all in favor Cody I'm not in favor okay all against one against abstention no Karen did you not vote oh sorry I missed it it's getting late I do apologize so what number do we have there thank you yeah and thank you that was the logic for doing the interim separately so that we uh if needed could ask for one of those to be conditioned and put into a separate fund from the other work thank you now we have a uh two discussion not two discussion items for Blaze uh a financial Staffing report so the funny the financial report it's really late so I won't repeat the whole report and I did get that one posted on time uh so I'll basically just say

266the the main oh on most of the finance the main concern um right now is the special education budget which is putting pressure on everything else we've received some relief from the penalties that um were negotiated by uh Dr carabello and uh Elmer who for all of the debacle that went on back with the bus company in September um through October in November those penalties are going to be close to almost a million dollars that they've negotiated to help pay for both all of the extra costs we had to pay for um and also we'll be providing us some budgetary relief that is how we are able to help absorb the additional electric cost um and as well as we have the ARP funding this year to help with the substitute budget as well as

267the facilities overtime so otherwise we're relatively on track contingent upon that intern for special ed you just approved Revenue continues to be a little bit strong the Food Service lunch fund uh had our financial meeting with the food service team um free lunch it was resumed as of March 1st back so we we have free lunch again for the remainder of the Year those meals are being reimbursed I think at four dollars and fifteen cents again per meal and so that should provide us with both a great program for our community and a uh healthy fund balance for the school lunch fund and I'm happy to take any questions questions Blaze just a quick one the one I always ask uh We've uh we have the uh this funding or this Federal money that we've

268received State money whatever money you want to call it uh We've uh uh we assigned that money to something or there's some still outstanding uh can you please uh we talked about it a little bit earlier can you just readdress that we're not going to be giving any money back Dr Jones and I are working hard with the cabinet to get every Grand dollar spent what's uh what's unspent at this point or unassigned well primarily the unassigned well the the unspent pieces we have a large portion of these grants that are salaries so the salaries are carrying every month so that that's that's the largest piece of why you see the balance for the grants that are going to expire thank you any further questions seeing none well we're not putting into votes okay great

269that is US good with blaze thank you blaze oh we have the transfer sorry uh budget transfer Blaze yeah so no actional transfers just informational budget transfers um they're on there most of them are across or are within um major object code 100s to 100s you can see that they were primarily three of the four transfers were being used to fund um the contract or services from focused on learning and then the fourth one is an informational transfer from a special education just to uh pay for legal services for attorney fees thank you any questions seeing none we'll move on thank you Blaise thank you agenda planning uh Karen did you say there was something you'd like to put on the agenda did you mention something during the week I have a couple of things

270that I'd like to put take up to put on the agenda the first is um by next meeting on April 20th we should be in a position from the policy committee to have first reads on a host of policies that I'll be getting that will be getting to you so I want to make sure that that gets on um also I wanted to get an update on uh the our plan for racial imbalance I know that at our last meeting well the last meeting with the state I believe they asked for a plan to be put into place I'd like to understand where we're at uh with that putting forward what's our timeline when will information get to the board about looking at that so I think that needs to be addressed um the other

271thing and I've said it before I know generally what the reaction is going to be I think in regards to this but I do think for proper process and procedure since we've been talking a lot about that today the superintendent's goals were never voted on by the board we've done that in the past and I do think it is important to continue that we haven't done it I realized on June 1st we have her evaluation uh however I do think that we need to continue with the practice that we've always done so I would ask that those being for an action item on April 3rd on our April meeting and I do think we need to talk about moving now our June 15th meeting and coming up with a new date for that which I

272would just suggest bumping it down a week and not moving it up because we would be having that just doesn't work we would be having two meetings back to back on weeks so I think I would suggest we move it to the following Thursday oh yeah okay so wow anything else we want to add to the agenda um well the two items on the ham have field and the sprinklers that's right need to get put on in April um vis-a-vr board meeting in June my suggestion would be rather than moving by week I'd move it by a day to just earlier that week um just because I think kids get out of school and you know that's kind of prime vacation time for people and I think you know ideally if we keep it in

273the same week maybe Tuesday or Wednesday if we don't want to do back to back nights that's a suggestion the reading waiver yeah that was requested oh on the for agenda planning yeah reading waiver okay Michael um um I had hoped that Pope Springs Eternal that the Strategic plan committee will be in place to bring the board goal stock back next month Laura uh so the vice chair of the CMS building committee likes to stay up late and watch meetings and wants me to let the board know that the CMS Municipal Improvement needs to be addressed in late April or early May so we may want to put that on the agenda for our future meetings is that just as simple as what we did for Old Greenwich just authorizing to move forward my guess

274is yes because there have been so many meetings at the Town level between p and Z DPW all those slam CSG all of those parties have been at the table for weeks now on the Mi issue okay anything else to add to the uh just now very crowded agenda yes Karen I also have a question whether or not we can put it on as an agenda item um and this goes to the point uh and maybe there's a different way to address it but um given that Mr Boland has resigned in as of the end of June um I think it would be beneficial to get an update I know that there was a report done by the um by the administration or an investigation done by the administration I think it would be beneficial

275if we could get some update on that Poland update is that appropriate for executive session well it's the findings right so there was particular findings that were done that I thought that um forgive me it's late I'm forgetting the name uh doctor no no no we did thank you that Dr Bud had done in connection with his investigation that I thought was had been completed but we were waiting to determine you know one the status of Mr bolin's employment as well as the other state investigations that were going on and it would be helpful to get an understanding of what um Dr Butthead concluded in his report okay anything else before Laura makes her motion motion to adjourn I'll second that thank you Laura we're adjourned oh sorry all in favor of adjourning please put

276your hand up thank you that's unanimous of course