001thank you so uh I am calling this meeting the order I am running my first ever full board meeting so please uh bear with me because I have no Sean ever regret I know sure and I have no short answer but that's okay so uh we I'm going to entertain a motion to enter into the executive session I want you to enter into executive sessions for the purpose of discussions regarding proposed pending or current litigation Collective negotiations pursuant to article 14 of the Civil Service law and matters leading to the appointment employment promotion demotion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of a particular person or Corporation all right second all in favor okay yeah that's funny yeah what is it questions recording okay apologize for the length of our absence but pressing business but we're back
002and because I don't believe there's any modification of the agenda yeah and we don't have do we have anyone sign up for a couple of comments okay moving on and we have student wraps [Music] oh sorry it's over there it's a promotion um um Stella is once again absent due to basketball practice it's from six to eight sometimes um we are starting preparation for our Regency uh this also this entails for us our math uh performance-based assessment tests uh feel like also the Eli Regents um and then on January 1st or January January 23rd we're having a mental health day um for the student's body which will involve workshops about mental health and kind of just trying to bring more awareness to that um this will also start our Student Life conferences this is where
003we we are written evaluations and kind of set goals as an entire with uh the youth family group leaders of the respective students um for high school students this Begins the conversation around the four-year plan which is your classes that you're going to take what uh in-depth you're trying to take in Lacs you need two classes that you're kind of going in depth in or excellent yeah you're going in depth and you're trying like an art portfolio uh or taking two classes or more classes that are required about um that is required for Lacs student to graduate and this is where we start having those conversations of what you're moving forward with uh we have The Adams Family January 27th that weekend um before um I talked about the Vive lower Stones a a performance
004by basic history of speeches the resistance to the Holocaust we raised uh over three thousand dollars from the single event which is pretty crazy because we only have like 300 kids so that means we've made a lot of money um so Big's Castle met again and we talked about the foundations of our school couple I think around you're gonna say around 40 years now I'm not sure on the exact date uh a proposal was brought to here by the foundations of art schools called the lavender document and as a side-based council we read the document and kind of looked back on the reflection of what is the foundations of our schools you know in like first of the 70s maybe 80s um and that was really just powerful to do to kind of look at
005why are we here today uh we currently soon will have the Consortium meeting which is down New York City our journey of 29th this is the 25th anniversary uh you guys are gonna get invited by Dev to come down to New York uh the city we are the oldest school attending significantly by around 20 years um we were kind of seen as like we're at the matriarchs if you could call it in this community um the public education democracy class which is Juniors and seniors is going down to the city and four students which I'm very happy to be a part of and uh are going down and this is getting funded by the Consortium to go down and present and watch the kind of talking about this kind of progressive education movement that's happening
006especially in New York um and then next meeting you guys are excited Katrina relief is going to be selling citrus and so you guys can finally it is nice seeing everyone for the first time since winter break at least for us uh midterm exams are in two weeks and the items has lots of exciting events the toddler released its literary issue featuring student talent and photography foreign [Music] Grace's team for example are working to create a smart Labs environment for lab research and another team is developing glasses cleaning pool on the things students were given the opportunity to present their Solutions in a short tank style presentation and were awarded morning for judges to continue to develop third one We are continuing to meet with Miss Grover regarding mental health space So currently while we
007wait to schedule a meeting with [Music] shifted gears to a discussion about how IHS could offer mental health support after the school level so we had an opportunity to talk to new ideas that we proof system with the addition of Direct online scheduling by students for its appointments especially for those who are not comfortable to help and as well as a designated office specifically for drop-ins during the school these are all suggestions for now but we are hoping some of these ideas are turned it soon and our ultimate goal is information student has access to resources we're also continuing to brainstorm our new ideas with Mr Trumbull about kind of expectation and student support our next steps are to meet up with our school counselors hear this hear their thoughts yeah we also watched the
008recording of the HR meeting from a week ago and are concerned about the issues that this presents for students at IHS I turn over right on field teaching position as well as the teaching positions being built uncertified teachers affect students in classrooms as does low teacher moral and teacher burnout low-teacher pay was a concern brought up at the meeting and an issue that teachers have mentioned um I've also spoken with teachers who have brought up issues with student behavior and discipline and they were frustrated about a perceived lack of support from administrators and dealing with student misbehavior as well as issues with district-wide communication poor student Behavior affects the quality of other students learning as do all the aforementioned problems and we emphasize the importance of finding Solutions District officials including superintendent Dr Brown have
009been subpoenaed to appear in a court case about the incident that occurred in a bus in October with a student reportedly threatening to shoot an up a bus the Tompkins County Sheriff's department has stated that they did not hear back from the district have a request for information and the district attorney of Tompkins County stated that when a threat of gun violence is made in a school setting there is no excuse for the school district to not immediately alert law enforcement police reports say that law enforcement was not notified until around 24 hours after the incident according to the Ithaca boys we would like to ask for more information regarding the situation and whether or not our district has a structured protocol to respond to these situations and inform law enforcement once they are made
010aware of a threat or an incident occurs I would like to give an update about our work regarding sexual harassment as previously mentioned in lots of board meetings of Miss Talcott the Advocacy Center and various students are working together to address these issues most recently I was able to present the toolkit that Lydia door a senior at Lacs and I created while interning at the advocacy said this toolkit is called I support survivors and consists of informational posters and awareness stickers designed by us for School faculty and staff to learn how to better support survivors of sexual relation sexual and relationship violence as well as how to stand against the silence within the school environment I presented this toolkit at the IHS staff meeting last Wednesday and it seems like this District supported material was
011very well received I encourage teachers and staff to look through the information first to educate themselves and then when they feel ready to provide a safe space to put up the poster which is titled sexual harassment is never okay and that I support Survivor sticker in their classrooms and learning environment we hope that these resources will create feelings of support and inclusivity I'm already six teachers putting up these posters and stickers and receiving positive feedback across another problem that's been a topic of cheated discussions and concerns for students are the new gender neutral bathrooms than GNH I don't think us as board reps the students or parents were well informed about these new bathrooms would be gender neutral meaning that there will be multiple stalls in one space that all people can use students are
012hearing this information from teachers just talking about it in the hallways and not direct communication from our principal or administrators there are several students expressing concern about the possibility of inappropriate behavior and increased harassment in these shared spaces especially towards women even though there would be ceiling to wall stalls as we heard while using the toilet the space of the bathroom is still shared we are concerned that because of these potential dangerous students especially women will feel unsafe and uncomfortable there has been discussions within classrooms about these bathrooms and many students are worried not just about harassment but people who are not educated or respectful about bathrooms an example of this example that girls are concerned about were boys or like the guys being like immature when seeing them with period products and making them
013uncomfortable um this is already happening with like period products in stalls in bathrooms anyway the boys in our class discussion in in the class discussions uh which were not teacher-led and were mostly student-based also seem to agree to keep gender neutral bathrooms students understand and support having bathrooms that everyone can use but we currently have multiple single stalled gender neutral bathrooms that fulfill this belief and the general consensus is that we don't need to increase uh these two multiple star violence I've also been talking with Zara who says that install gender neutral bathrooms yes and are barely well used which is a good sign but IHS has a very different social ecosystem than lics and students don't think this will be the case one solution would be to continue the construction of the bathrooms and
014when they are finished label just one area as that in the other areas women as we have right now we appreciate that the I guess our district is trying to be more inclusive but we would also like to invite our administrators do them here at Artemis as well as well and if I'm as informed about any of this interview thank you it's working fine I want to thank Grace for one your uh maturing in fourth brightness with the toolking putting that together because we've been talking about this for a long time and it's outstanding and thank you I truly respect that um this is more a question regarding the gender neutral bathroom I think what I hear you saying is this folks aren't ready for it yet so some I need to clarify that but
015that's the impression of getting Floyd I hear you saying that there needs to be more dialogue moving forward and there's no understanding um regarding some of the comments we put the uh presentation at HR um you know we are talking about that and unpacking some of what was presented um if there was a lot um and there was you know some things but our goal um as a board as a district is always to be collaborative and address issues and concerns um and we are working to do that I think you know speaking to teacher shortage and looking at the anti-national issue and National crisis is one conversation that's going on in every single School District um I understand burnout is real especially post covet in every field and when you're front facing highly populated
016Student Activities The burnout's going to need and that much more and we totally understand that and um open to moving forward what that conversation looks like how do we do that what does that look like um yeah how do we do that in a healthy way because stress people are not always cooperative people I know I can get crazy um but you know I also like dialogue and language that that says you know we recognize that there's worth being done and that folks are doing a lot of things I think you know for the last six months we've had era um sharing what she's been doing to recruit and what the student School District's efforts to retain teachers and staff has been and how aggressively we've been doing that um and that's been something that
017we've really just been just pushing forward as much as we can um one reality for Ithaca that we need to realize it's if you're not from here and most teachers actually gravitate back to the areas where they grew up and it can be a hard place to want to stay especially in the winter time so we need to build community we need folks to come here and sometimes they only last two years but also you know it's okay if some people want to go back to where they come from or they want to be someplace else we have a lot of things going on here we're putting a lot of work forward and you know Sometimes some people don't think that this it's a fit for them but we want we do want people to
018be happy happiness is collaborative and it's a decision so I don't want to overthrow this but I think there's work to be done but I think it's working to be done by all um I would just like to follow up on Claire's comments about Pitch night um because thank you for judging so I I um entered my second year as a judge at Pitt pinch night and every year I think the groups get better but what I what I and and you know you're getting these like wonderful wonderful uh ideas like you know Grace's team is basically like little portable clean rooms that can go in any lab and I'm thinking what was I doing when I was her age I was figuring out how to sneak into bars whatsoever well one thing that I
019just wanted to bring up for public consumption is something that that Mr crywe commented on that you know this project lead the way is a national program that actually historically came out of Rochester Institute of Technology um and Ithaca High School was one of the first schools that actually piloted it and it's now it's not only National um it's around the world I've been reading I was reading um applications from India where they're doing Project Lead the Way [Music] see school district is the only District in the entire panoply of that program that has this particular class which is pitch night and this was the the brainchild of an icsb uh Alum icsd parent um and a a code red robotic parent Bank 10 years ago she was our Mentor who was looking at what
020that class used to be who basically basically a bunch of year-long independent studies where kids just you know kind of worked on stuff on their own and and she brought together community members to be mentors and judges and get all of this and this is literally you are the only students in the world who have this class to do and it's it's amazing and I I do think that's indicative of some of the great stuff this community does when it works together and it's students it's teachers it's it's parents and it's just people in the community who want to support the school and and back where we're at our bets and it's been very tough to do things like that in the last three years um and it's wonderful to be able to improve on
021those again and I'm fascinated by your comments about gender neutral bathrooms because when people were lobbying as years ago for gender-neutral bathrooms I'm thinking let's see is are people really going to be comfortable with that yeah I think there's a difference under neutral bathrooms there's a difference between the single small bathrooms that we have and the multiple stalls that we're constructing right now and I think well I can't see other people but when I say gender neutral bathrooms I need the like single skills that don't let them all spells which I think we should clarify clearly yeah and are the multiple skull ones in in operation in use now have they been completed or they're about these are the ones being here constructed so people haven't actually had the experience of using them at IHS
022not yet there are that was just for clarification can I ask Grace one more follow-up um I just find it interesting that you were talking about sexual harassment and dealing with that and then the gender neutral and how uh female students feel differently and I wonder if your work with sexual harassment kind of correlates with the fear of gender neutral bathrooms for women students like I'm curious um so I guess personally there could be a correlation um but other students who don't aren't in that work when they just have their regular classic discussions I mean I guess is it is it a culture thing with casinos like you just don't feel safe is it beyond the period products and you don't feel safe or yes it's like beyond that like girls are also worried that
023yeah like if there's guys they might not feel safe in a space that's only meant for like their objectives for I want to ask one question that I do other statement about this um so are you gonna is it uh the same plan that we're doing in IHS or not I just started from school at Lacs with the uh the main like hallway door stop being there it's a different layout so it's exciting and what I'm curious how is it different ly so the the bathrooms Lacs were sort of longer and thinner and have I think four or five stalls um the bathrooms at IHS and G and H um are two and two so the scale is different and it didn't make as much sense as great about it um we looked at it
024various different ways and it didn't um it just couldn't fit as much in if you open it up and make it one larger more open space so the doors are I can't remember honestly there are doors on right so that's actually can be a building I mean we want a district goal of inclusion right we want to strive for everyone to know that they have space By Law And just because that's our value system they can utilize that they feel safe and that they um that have an act that they have access for right so our single stalls you're right Grace they are inclusive they're restrooms okay they're a restaurant um are other restrooms that have multiple stalls within a space and sinks along the wall right if at like Lacs we did not install
025the doors on the hallways back on um because then we could have a vision for them for for where people are washing their hands and you have full privacy in those stalls when you're utilizing them right in terms of the toilet itself has a room right and those toilets have rooms within a room they have sinks so the high school we have not ordered signage we have not put into the contractors of what that signage says what you're saying what you're saying is about signage right how is that going to be labeled to identify who is welcome to use that space yes and so that conversation does not have to be there it doesn't have to be a determination tonight if more time needs to be taken to figure out what that signage says to
026say You are welcome in this bathroom right then that can happen and continue to happen um because recently we had our we have five bathrooms total all right we have two bathrooms upstairs and both of those are recently converted to be General neutral and be careful campaign um for Lacs this has definitely we have the community adjusted there was people that were concerned well do we need this many what if we did the smaller bathrooms downstairs and as a community very quickly once we actually got the bathrooms I mean again I would like I mean I don't wanna I'm sorry you guys so like we are a more Progressive School we are more open to I think a lot of Concepts um especially around gender identity and being more inclusive um and people have less
027of a problem with Lacs with uh sharing a bathroom with someone else I also think we are more of a I mean there's a lot of stuff that we do different things so this is obviously not 100 um and maybe it's something to do with the doors but it's we don't I think the the environment of the bathroom is very different than a gendered bathroom of it is kind of a smaller there's less listening space it is a very and also with the size of like the just the space it's set up of where people aren't really in there that long usually there's not very many people near this thing there's not nearly any communication um and I also think that it makes sense especially for your school as a Justin to still have gendered
028bathrooms in some spaces but I think having no gender uh gender neutral bathrooms that are installed setup is a massive step backwards um I think as a district we are want to respect identity and I think it is incredibly important that we continue to respect gender identity um I think having this is something that definitely is going to take adjusting for students for teachers for mentalities for everything um and again as I said I think having General bathrooms in some situations still can be good for the school as students adjust to the system and maybe that is what will come out of this maybe you'll be a conversation around this just doesn't work people there is actual legitimate concerns this isn't safe but I think that this is something that definitely needs to be given
029a chance because I think it is still very important to respect gender identity in this way yeah yeah I understand one thing like kind of in general I guess moving forward on this finally emphasize the importance of like feedback in general because we don't necessarily know if this is how the majority of students feel like this is what we've been hearing but also like I have I guess never been asked like what I thought of this um and I think at the end of the day students are the ones who are going to be using their bathrooms so I think just going forward it's really important just to ask students I guess what their input is on and just to give you a little history there was a push for years for gender neutral bathrooms
030so so what's the former board members I've had the pleasure of being on a lot of our panels to judge entrepreneurial ideas over here um lots of colleges including Cordell and like folks who participate that I have a staff somewhere in my office this high from the floor of discarded ideas all my time I have to say the best idea I ever heard uh they weren't from here but they were high school students who in 2016. the GID of having anti-bacterial dispensers all New York City Subways and buses and when chaos came we all thought wow those kids were really on something now they're on buses I don't think they made it to the New York City subway yeah but there's an example of our high school students ideas could have really Propel this whole
031society so it is appreciated you know some people are out there taking it very seriously and I've seen uh groups in the past from here named the pitch uh going to Cornell and trying to get funding for some of the great ideas so more power to you ever let anybody tell you what you're doing can't change things the issue that you could have brought up about um controversy concerning when the school district would call in spot and this is something that has been discussed in great nuance and detail and thoughtfulness in relation to both the safety plan which is still in draft form the code of conducts which is still in draft form and and I just want to stress that it is not black and white and um the idea that somebody let alone
032a chief law enforcement officer would suggest that it's as black as white as black and white has no excuse for not calling the police is is quite surprising to me I thought you were going to keep going let me just add to that um having a legal background and having uh the next partner who's been an entire career at law enforcement um the impression that I took away from the comments was that this is a second routine has no ID about what's happening there's no idea about Detroit situations represent um uh I don't want to say actual security threats now that we know what's happening in Newport News but the insinuation was an appreciated we have a decades-long relationship with the agency with which we interact on a fairly frequent basis which is we don't
033have a significant relationship with the Sheriff's Department except it does a very small portion of his district lies within that territory but we have full faith that our executive team understands the mission and can make those decisions because they have relationships with families and with the children are consistent so yeah it was it was the insinuation that somehow nine of us and our team don't care about the safety of students and families in this District that was reprehensible so then uh I will probably have a chance to see this Sheriff at some point but I'll say that to him today all right thank you for clarifying I appreciate that I guess I'm running this meeting so I guess we can move on uh with to the consent agenda I will move the consent agenda as
034presented is there anything that anybody needs to speak to okay so all in favor and so then we have uh Dr Brown yes thank you for the opportunity um just one quick update on my accessible because although I've been trying to figure out how to use the center you haven't figured it out yet so if you can help me use that in part them out there in your future forever yeah next time I'm just gonna shut up Hannah please or I'll find something else that you've never generally used I do Aaron I was like [Applause] just quickly just a shout out to our young people and the adults who are part of our accommodation ceremony we had our first accommodation Summer of the year uh this afternoon at five o'clock we recognized I think 240
035young people and adults or state and Nationals achievements so it was great uh we would do our next ceremony I think we're going to try to do it in June so we're going to have a big one in June hopefully outdoors and get a shout out those ceremonies are the best things we do each year from my perspective so thank you to all the folks who work and particularly Emily put all that together she does an excellent job thanks for the option so foreign [Laughter] [Applause] as much as we can like Focus right bathrooms are one itty-bitty slice the high school's one slice Lac has one place this project where it is correct it is massive right it is like I am I feel so honored to be able to be the District representative Dan
036bryman has been helping you really Dr Brown I mean there's just so many of us Mary I mean they're we're all working as a team to do this but I am so honored to be the boy sort of this evening with my colleagues who are just absolutely fantastic we have such a gifted team um for those of you that don't know we have Cindy Doucette from campus construction she's our senior project manager and then we have Chris labitz who are is our lead architecture project we have been the team since the beginning when we sort of just been stewarding this we've been working with uh building leadership and you're right we can always do better we can always do better with um the feedback that we get and and the influence of the design development
037and we keep growing and we're going to talk about some exciting work that we're going to be doing um you know in playground design and youth voice so we keep I think every time and every moment we get better and better so tonight what we're going to try to do is give an overview of sort of like what where we've come from and then where we're going and I'm gonna keep pushing the button with great hopes that it's going to work and if not we'll uh you know I'll just pretend and swipe like that thank you Trisha so when I say right like it's multi-year so notice here right we started in 2019 we're not yet to 2024 and all of these yellow lines all throughout all right represent different phases different elements of the
038project who tried to break down this 120 million dollars of semi-planned kind of uh in progress yet to be developed over this course of time so that there was some predictability about phasing of this right so you can notice here um you know we don't Market but there was uh you know there was oh we did actually covet right we didn't have this on the original slide this happened um and it was really very interesting to do Capital Project work during a pandemic so schedules got changed things got shifted but we really have been trying to push things forward right in a manner um that that we really are trying to address the needs of our students our staff and our communities because our buildings are our community centers right we're really proud of those
039small elementary schools that serve communities and all of the people that live around them we're really proud that the high school hosts events from all over the nation really um so we want to really have a facility that represents the quality of our program and so you'll see here all along the way there's different phases in what um Cindy's going to do is sort of talk about where we've already been what sort of complete right um you'll see here phase one she'll talk a few things about phase two which we're entering into the next big section in the summer typically in summer you'll see a lot of work happening um and then Chris is going to jump in after Cindy sort of talks about what's completed with sort of the future phases right and all
040along the way here you have to remember that all of these projects have elements to them right so each of the phases have a design development phase where you're sort of percolating all these ideas and you're meeting with stakeholders and you're deciding can we do this can we not do this can we should we increase the budget here oh wait this idea came up Lacs was completely done with students right we had many many meetings back and forth around the design um work and that was pre-covered right having them write a texture text offices they hosted um you know then from the design development phase you go and those all those plans that go into the documents hours and hours of work that are vetted by creative vetted created vetted um go then into the
041State Education Department and we sit and we wait Let Me Wait some more and then finally it's approved right after months and months and months of waiting and once those those documents come back to us we go out for bid and bid um means that we actually get contractors to bid on the work right and say I can do the general um contractor work I could do the site work I can do the plumbing we can do the HVAC we can do the electrical and all those pieces come together they get the big big set of documents they they put their bids in um we open those bids publicly we award The Works of the lowest bidder after betting them and then the construction development begins and and you go through all those plans with
042those contractors to make sure it's all feasible they start to um you know get all of their materials and supplies in their Workforce in order and they work on schedules with Cindy and then the work begins which is Construction and so that's sort of what those yellow lines represent each one of them and every one of those goes through that phase so with that said I'm going to turn it over to Cindy who is going to sort of talk about um phase one I'm going to move over here so that I am so in phase one over here you can see all the buildings that were touched uh some of the high points or the transportation building we've repaved the entire bus parking lot here at the high school we redid the pool we renovated
043the Lufkin Center we renovated and created the nurses and guidance Suites a lot of the smaller work that was done at the elementary schools were for secure vestibules we also did the stadium and the Press Box under phase one so most of that work all of that work is complete and we're in equipments right now closing out those contractors we're about halfway done with getting those Prime contractors closed out so the district can submit their final costs any questions on phase one of the students or board members guess more yes what's happening with cult is it finished and because we're planning on York sorry I know I almost said it's the same gang earlier what's up is it done it is done we have some panels that have had failure uh uh and today we
044got a final resolution of how to proceed and that's been conveyed to the contractor so we're hoping in the next couple of weeks we can get them organized in there and complete that work and we will definitely let um Amanda and Dr Brad know and that's complete so these meetings can start to take place and those panels were in lower York Upper York is yeah it was that back sort of kind of ledge area due to the moisture but the spaces are available and have been being used by the high school Community since April of 22. any other questions all right move on to the next one so here um are some of the miscellaneous things that we've also done we um have worked on the temperature control upgrade for the both middle schools um
045for many of the students maybe when you were there as middle schoolers you experience the fluctuations and temperatures so we've upgraded those to be digitally controlled uh controls now instead of what we call pneumatic which were by air and if a compressor went down you had no control this way it's electronically computerized um we've also completed the entire High School roof replacement um and we're cleaning that project up now and getting ready to close that contract out as well um some of the other ancillary work um that's been done under capital outlay projects are the Caroline and Cuca Heights Elementary Schools their gyms taking down those uh scary partitions that have the keys of putting curtains in and redoing flooring and some features and we're looking at or I have done some parking flooring in
046court airport also in the in the mix right now for Northeast okay any questions on any of that work our current large project um we are about halfway through we're almost halfway through many of the buildings here um started in the spring of 22 so we started at the um at Lehman at the wit at South Hill and um and Enfield thank you with a little bit of work inside but mainly that work is the geothermal well field who's drilled last summer which will tie into no equipment in the building for the heating system get rid of the old boilers and we're going with a geothermal well system uh with heat pumps for for energy efficient get the districts off of fossil fuels for that building that work will continue this coming summer Enfield this
047summer is going to be a wreck let's just be honest a little bit uh we're going to be tearing up the front of the school to take out the fuel oil tank that's currently in use we're going to be gutting the boiler room to put those new pieces of equipment in to work with the geothermal field we're going to be renovating inside and taking every heating unit out of every classroom some rooftops some ceiling units and replacing them so the entire building is going to be tore up um Chris will talk about some additional work not in phase two but it's going to also take place at Enfield this coming summer but for the work that we've started um we've got an addition going on at South Hill with the new entrance that faces Aurora
048Street and the new driveway and parking lot that we've heard great things that have alleviated a lot of the traffic problems that have been historical up there at that building so we're very happy that that work has has released achieved the congestion on that Hill as the wit we're renovating the auditorium we did some toilet room Renovations and redid the kitchen floor we'll be renovating the front entrance there next summer to make a secure vest of fuel and put up some canopies for places for kids to hang out while they're waiting to get picked up by parents or buses um this is where Chris is going to pick up with phase three which is upcoming lunch yeah so uh these big projects some small projects um future work coming up uh the yellow highlighted areas
049are those areas Enfield that are going to be reversed yes we're doing one cut on every project and this is the basic infrastructure improvements that we do over time right every day your roof is a day over so uh just something that the that we do a lot of planning around and look forward and try to anticipate the next roofs along with the staff that's in those buildings every day and know it's this year so that's coming up soon um another part of that is replacing all the windows at bjm as well as doing some masonry Improvement so some of this some of this parapet coping up at the top is just it's aging out I think it's uh that's going on close to 100 years old so it's it's had a good life of
050service and it's time to replace that kind of stuff for safety and for uh you know the the longevity the building um also part of part of this phase at Enfield the Cindy alluded to earlier was some improvements to the Bus drop off area part of part of the goal there is to take advantage of uh the feeling of children when they arrive at a school right and do you I mean here's the here's the old picture right again you've had a lot of work to make your facilities serve as long as they have right and that's a testament to the to the ongoing care that you take in your buildings um but refreshing the look and trying to make an environment where kids get off the buses here and and have something that's a
051little more exciting to them we're putting the the murals back up that the kids of you know previous decades completed um to you know the goal being to get to Center School in a way that is exciting and they're ready to learn when they sit down class or else in them there are some other entry pieces there okay moving forward to the high school so um Cindy talked about decarbonizing Enfield we have a similar opportunity because there's Lake Source cooling that comes right past um Ithaca High School as on its way up to Cornell and so we're going to be taking more advantage of Lake Source cooling to extend the cooling uh through the rest of the campus as we're doing that we're going to be replacing aging mechanical equipment and the controls right so
052the the mechanical equipment is the stuff that you know makes the Heat or moves the heat from one place to another and and blows the air around and stuff and the control system is like the brains it tells those pieces of equipment what to do and when and how much I don't know Chris Paul for dramatic effect or reiterate what you just said because I've been here for a decade and every day people have asked for air conditioning at the high school so I want to make sure everybody we're getting air conditioning at the high school Junction to that we often hear that Cornell's not doing enough but we're not just using everybody in town and everybody wants them to contribute more and uh I don't think anyone can argue that this will be a
053significant contribution but it looked like you know what folks typically are asking for but this is huge yeah so the district has an agreement thank you yes cool that's that's the bottom line cooling to the campus right um it started with with G and H right those are the the places where there's the bulk of the teaching and learning happening especially on that second floor right so uh we're excited to do that this is going to take about four years to get all this done so it's going to be a process so anyone who's currently in high school now sorry a bunch of school friends um and get them all excited for them sibling um yeah siblings friends community members so you know the sort of the the red or part is what what we're
054going to try to tackle first and then the the gold Parts later uh this will include also a total reorganization of um right out right out there um the drop off because this is also another front entrance to the school the buses come in here a lot of visitors come improving the safety and the flow of traffic around there importantly also a renovation to the stem area that some of you can see is an imagery over so we're really excited about that um and we will when Jedi so we've done some renderings we've done a lot of virtual reality with with uh Mr briegel Mr kragny and students around visioning what what this would look like walking around with VR goggles and trying to experience the space and electronic format yes I just like like
055today I saw this with the VR goggles and it was really cool great we have kids influenced that design right so yeah last year we had a series of obsessions with code red folks and other STEM related folks who are taking students who are taking those classes primarily and had some really great feedback about you know how the you know the classroom layout and details about how that that's going to be laid out so really excited to um to help that whole side of the curriculum be supported by the facilities more there's also a connection between being made between this part of the building and sort of the back hallways of the of sort of the athletic Suite over there so you'll be able to get from from gym to lunch quicker as a as
056a teen I would appreciate that and but that will that will probably increase just visibility of the stem spaces and the curriculum to more students because right now it's kind of like this weird like end of the building like why would you go there if you weren't already going so we hope to to get some more folks exposed to what's happening in this part of the building so these are some other renderings from from different areas and we're excited about the big space down here that's sort of designed for the build season right with the with the high clearance to try to uh simulate some of the course that you will um that your students in your program and your friends will be competing on um as they as they go really to the National
057stage so um there's also a science room here uh this is meant to be a a multi-use science stream so it's got uh peninsulas and some gas and water um and you know the physics folks can can hang things from the bar joists and swing around bowling balls or whatever and do something some um laboratory type of work um in the next stage of of uh this work uh someone mentioned the the playground at Fall Creek and this is a very important space to our community right to a lot of folks um my my boys grew up playing on that right so so I get that as well um and we're really excited to have some some Partners uh Dr loback from Cornell who has done a lot of research on this and and it's
058really her um her career to to study play and study um uh what what spaces help students um use this as a learning environment and from a lot of different different aspects so we're looking forward to having a community process around that um to see what that that redesign looks like um also bjm on the on this part of the screen uh there's a little bit more work to to um uh to make some improvements to the cafeteria area at BJ and it's a relatively small piece but that'll happen also at Fall Creek so those were two uh eating spaces that just seemed like they needed a little uh refreshing to help them feel um yeah all right so someone who's not all facilities um this may have come up the high school spaces in
059particular have you guys discussed or can you speak to how those new areas where stem are going to facilitate more project-based learning um yeah could we try to go back a couple I'm not sure um probably can't really see a whole lot in these images but um the space that is okay so we're renovating about 10 000 square feet or so the existing space taking those existing um rooms and combining them and reorganizing them there's also an addition and in that Edition is a relatively open and flexible space which is good for for project-based learning so um you've got furniture that can move around power coming from the ceiling in a way to support like different kinds of things like okay we're going to do a couple weeks on this type of project so we're
060going to roll the table in and we're going to set it up in this way okay it's build season now so we're going to roll the tables out and that's going to be the code red space um and uh that's in one of the flexible spots this is this has more of the equipment in here that's probably going to stay where it is but if we go one more go back and forth I mean forward please so this is in the addition and you can see it's it's kind of this big open space and that's the space I was talking about that um that we're trying to design a in as flexible way as possible um but I also think that teachers uh I've been in a lot of those design meetings in the classrooms
061uh that are going to be along the edge the quarter edge of the space they intend to have a lot of project-based learning occurring in them with collaborative teams with the kids that's right uh working on Independent projects or group projects so yeah I think the classrooms as well as the that's where if you will the designing of the learning would go on in the project then they'll go out to the the shop spaces and depending on how what their project is it's a carpentry project it's a packaging project that's uh you know a welding project a metal project um they would go to that specific work Zone in the larger area as well and that's been sort of the vision from the main teachers for that space to sort of create individual spaces or
062rooms for those types of projects yeah thanks bye yeah it looks um you have any image of those but it looks it looks pretty simple straightforward there's rows of computers around down both sides and then just a big table in the middle so we heard on the front a lot from the students when they're doing like small robotics projects and things like that they're on the computer they're modeling things they're turning they're building they're going back and they're modeling and they're they've got chairs yeah oh and you know down down the road no I'm sorry there is uh we're looking at um you know the bus garage facility that was repaved um uh and looking at the mandates you know coming from New York State and how does you know how does Ithaca transition to
063a zero emission which generally is going to mean electric uh buses and what does that infrastructure look like and so we're planning for a multi-phase sort of project I'm not going to get into because we discussed it out of the meetings happy to answer questions if you have that but um there's plan we're starting on it so right one thing that I will say uh in the budget that is going out to the voters uh in May right you will see proposition two will have a request to the voters to approve the purchase of um electric buses so I think we're up to five um and then also some infrastructure work to be able to install chargers at the bus garage to get us you know charging for those five first five buses and then
064we'll continue to grow that and continue to grow that each year so that's going to be in the main proposition so if you are a voting age or your families it's a really good thing to sort of let people know and educate them about that proposition so that proposition one is the budget proposition two would be our utilization of the capital reserve to purchase those buses and do that work yes any questions thank you it's exciting everybody so please you know visit the spaces see what's being done um if you want tours we can we can probably arrange for that as well so let us know Zara's living it every day I have one question about the uh EV buses are we doing any of this work in collaboration with policies for this first round
065or is this all on in-house so both supported us they had received received um an opportunity to enter into a collaborative with NYSEG um and that was early on that was like about a year and a half ago and so there was some data that we were able to gain from that process but both these then sort of that support they're there as a partner but really it's on it's on the districts to sort of roll these things out business officials have been talking to say like it would be really great if there was actually a um I don't know just like sort of a green initiative Cooperative kind of through BOCES where all the districts can come together because we are we're all going to be trying to move this forward and we all
066need to start thinking about when I take when Ithaca takes the sports team to wherever we're going to need to charge right and so what does that look like through BOCES that we can have a collaborative where we're actually utilizing each other's uh Utility Services right without like running in to that issue of like you need an MOA okay I'll call you know Binghamton and we'll see what we can do with Elmira and right it would just be so much cleaner if we could sort of get the word all that they've asked you to come speak to the group they're spinning your heads up oh right I'm happy to do it I'm not shy but it is relates to Electric blessing um it's about the green New Deal and we've been following through with a
067lot of initiatives on the original and the ideas and I was curious like are we committed to it at this point I don't know is this the place to address like no no no no I'm trying to answer it because it's a city initiative um and the icsd well we're actually and I don't want to that's why I'm trying to answer it correctly because I a lot of the initiative we're doing with this Capital Campaign Will address some of the things in the green new deal because I know what the ultimate goal is to be you know um carbon neutral footprint by x amount of years yeah you know but we're implementing a ton of stuff and updating things and making them more energy efficient so we will be meeting that I don't know to
068the extent of the green New Deal and I couldn't speak in specifics I think yesterday but let me try and put a spin on it so last year when the students came and uh proposed that the district signed on they were very serious about it and Grace and her colleagues chimed in as well and I think at that time we tried to get across we might have been successful actually we tried to get across that a lot of the uh bullet points in that icsd green deer were underway and I say I don't think we were successful communicating that has been seem to be taking as if we were serious about it right we knew these things were on the way and I don't think we've come back together Barbara because it's used to have
069that further conversation right about about what pieces of that we still need to be held accountable and what pieces we've moved so maybe it's not like that was clear it's in writing nowhere on the buses nowhere onto you working on several other components of that yeah we should have that conversation again I think I think revisiting all that energy from the summit right like and there's a lot of daily things I think you know I'm looking at Dan because I know there was some questions about composting what are our goals around sort of management on waste on what are our goals around um the types of items that we're utilizing in the cafeteria to prevent waste right is that like installation of dishwashers some of these things could actually be done without major capital projects
070but we're not you know we definitely as a group talk about the the lead certification and I mean we've been we've been doing those there's a veritable plan a place of foreign audit you know there are all kinds of things that um that you can do um yeah so first it's really awesome seeing all these like new spaces being built um one thing I think I heard you mentioned was uh for the Lacs Renovations you're able to like include the Lacs students uh like in discussions surrounding these right and I know this was done with IHS students within Tech Wing so I was wondering uh to my knowledge I don't think this happened with the bathrooms and I was wondering how we could include this discussion now it did it did happen yeah really I'll
071just be honest uh we really centered the voices and experiences of those children who are not right here right or a transgender um and really I know um as a cisgender woman too who supports so much around sexual harassment prevention and response um I also I also totally hear you know some of your questions that have talked with kids for a number of years about about those as well um and uh sorry some of your experiences I think around um culture right I think would probably be helpful so it might be nice to have some meetings with some Lacs maybe students and staff and IHS students and staff to kind of help with the transition like how do we want to handle this what what are some of the things that you all learned in
072order for us to um and It's Tricky too right there's this balance sexual harassment prevention and response it also requires us to ensure that um that that discrimination against those who are transgender or gender uh not performing right also doesn't happen right so like sexual harassment like this broad terms so we've got a we've got to like figure out this boat and together um yeah yeah I I really appreciate you saying that and it's I guess good that we included uh the transgender now buying students because of course we should Center uh voices that maybe don't get as much uh like attention but I think the next step I don't know if this is possible but also including the entire school as these stuff I just learn about students go through so the sign again
073right so we I definitely hear you about the signage and then even the drawers to the hallways like design on bathrooms they're pretty standard for high schools right like um in terms of just like you know the door we I don't think anybody would disagree that you wouldn't want privacy right going to utilize the facility even if it was a facility that was labeled this is a girl's room right or it's labeled this is a boys are it's nice to have privacy and utilize facilities what we noticed right was that they were outdated and that they were even unsafe right we had a wall collapse in front of them um you know which is why they started that's why we started it so soon right it was actually scheduled to start in February break yeah
074but after the wall failure we took it over in December and when I say well I mean like it was just a stack of um it wasn't even a wall it was just a stack of sort of concrete blocks right that over time right that that when you if you lean on the door and you move so that nobody was in there was it was like it's okay like everybody's safe and we move that immediately forward right so so the designs of bathrooms aren't like that creative what you're asking for though is voice around who is welcome and who is who is whatever you're labeled for right and how how does that represent the community culture and what I'm hearing and I think Lily is talking as well is like I really want to make
075sure that we're also focusing on the culture because we can put doors and signage up but if people feel unsafe because the culture isn't part of respect and dignity and care and that's me as a dignity act coordinator for the district that is unacceptable more than any bathroom planning for construction purposes no offense architect and construction manager but culture is what makes a building that's right so that is that is something that from a dignity act I'm happy to sit in on those two yeah trying to extract that culture and put it into built form that's going to last 50 years this is the tricky thing we look at it right also just one resource we might develop which is kind of a map of Ithaca High School bathrooms because there are different bathrooms that
076offer different amenities and maybe just you know making um making it clear to folks that there is a choice of what you know what sort of facility you feel comfortable using and so giving a greater variety hopefully will help down the people feel more comfortable in giving people more Choice yeah I have a question I'm not hope I'm not like delving into this too specifically but in terms of like the students who were contacted regarding or I guess provided feedback on this um I just have like I guess I'm just wondering how are like these students chosen or like like the tech wing for instance like um I don't know like a lot of students have classes there so I'm just like curious as to the power students selected specifically to give them feedback on
077this what are the numbers like in terms of students it sounds like uh maybe there's like a question behind your question like do we have every trans and non-binary student well in the in that part like it talk to me a little bit more like you're hoping that we've got like a really large sample size of those um we've been hearing this for years right we had to start planning that how many years ago well we started bathrooms we started talking about in 2019 yeah we needed to know what we were going to do throughout the district or elementary middle and high school good um he got some meetings with students Village we've had superintendent's advisory committee oh yeah we have had several years we had students come to facilities committee actually self-select yeah um
078and then um in various conversations I think Mrs Grover and I probably in terms of some of the connections that we've had with the students and different student groups three or four years probably is yeah great um and uh and so you know I heard you two talking like is it like a majority of students are are feeling this way we've also had some like some focus groups right to get really in depth with a combination of um students who identify as this gender yeah hearing and a complicated too right like it's um not everybody's always totally smart audience about how are we communicating together um and I'm also afraid to like choice is really important um I've had some tips uh come to my office and really mad like you're making a choice to
079do something that's um because you're not changing your bathroom you're discriminating we had a student takeover of our Instagram one year gradual five years ago and and they were like I'd have to do this I've had to navigate backwards just before we had any different picture message I've had to navigate how to use this bathroom at this the school where I'm supposed to feel good right now there's legislation that says attempt you have to right we are we we must cure that students appropriate um so now we have some more right yeah and I like I really appreciate that these discussions are happening um and I think like I don't know I'm in general I think it would be better if more students knew that these discussions were happening because as far as I know
080um like I wasn't wearing any specials were having a Grace wasn't really aware of where I guess among the more connected so to say students in the school district so um and if students know that these discussions are happening then they can also I guess get an opportunity to share their feedback so I don't just in general I guess that kind of goes along with communication but I think it's important just so students know that these discussions are happening because they're all really good opportunities for feedback you also need to recognize that you're talking years of conversation like before you were in high school these conversations weren't happening correct yeah so that's why you probably haven't heard anything about it okay right yes because Amanda said yeah if he was called the process for the
081phase that we're doing now that have the high school toilet rooms in there started in 2019 when I came to the project so those decisions had been made a long time before they you actually see the fruition of the work so the decisions were made in 2019. the design started in 2019 happening before that right but on a project what you're seeing happening right now in your G area bathrooms those discussions of that design started in 2019 so it just takes a long time for the design process and as Amanda said the SED approval which is months long before you actually get to that point of construction so a pandemic in the mixes but I think it's a super good point because like I'm like oh we already talked about it but yes they're in
082high school for only four years and you have to re-engage you're totally right okay yeah I think that's I mean I really meant it when I opened saying we're never good enough with communication we're never good enough and we own it every single day we never say collaborate enough like that's what we always strive to do better every single year so um you know I think Zara knows like the degree New Deal is a great example you have District staff in that you know um in that Summit planning it shoulder to shoulder listening to students we open it up I mean we get better I think every single time we have an opportunity to engage in topics that for some might feel really difficult and for us we welcome them we want to hear the
083different perspectives and and I'm not joking when I say like everything minus like major design work right which even that with money you can change and then you ran under money for somewhere else right but um you know we can always reconvene rediscus what what do this what does signage look like what does this look like but really at the heart of it is culture yeah that's culture yeah and I think if the discussions have been going on for like a while I think or if they were in the past I think like that's probably why I didn't hear about them but then I'm also thinking like since these bathrooms are gonna affect students in the future and things change um I don't know I think it's a great point because we have to think
084when the conversation starts and then the implementation happens yeah you've got a time lapse so absolutely we've got to revisit it absolutely yeah yeah so how do we get students in discussion continued discussion Express you all are going to go back to the students it's going to be talked about in um the Tattler we have the whole construction update on our website and all right so it's just reminding your peers that their involvement is crucial yeah and as we come up with the EV charging station at the budget and everything like that just reminded and at any time you know there's that let's talk portal it comes to us right students have access to that portal it's not just for adults who want to sort of tell us all the great things we're doing I
085think you should tell us anytime that let's put talk portal is there for you right and and you know it's a really great mechanism we actually encourage it with the capital project because it's eligibility for us to also um you know get the right people in on the messaging get the right people pulled together we have meetings after that sometimes you might get an email response but a lot of times it's followed up with a meetings so those are those are great to have and you know I do I can travel over there yeah you just walk across just invite us to something um and we can all also utilize our communication team which is grow um since we started this um I think that was one of the the reasons why we wanted to
086grow the communication team is to support things like the capital project because one person to try to communicate to a building that I I'm you know I know all the leadership but I'm not there every day right like to to be able to support that communication cycle is really people Okay so thank you so much um and as far as I know there's nothing else on the agenda states of importance of Finance next week and policy is on Thursday this Thursday 12th at five o'clock okay thank you everyone [Applause]