JLMC

001there i see the live perfect um hi so um i think instead of talking vaccines like we have been starting for many meetings um lately since emma will be joining us soon i thought we'd spend some time talking about ventilation um so first question is um a while back um we had talked about a list of rooms that were do not use rooms that were rooms in each building that had been identified as having air exchanges per hour that were low enough to indicate that they shouldn't be used for students so we're wondering if we can have a copy of that list if that list is still in development i know nexus was just back if there are any updates on that um we that was like six questions in one so um that's that's

002kind of we'll kick it off with that all right so yeah so the answer to that is yes we can generate that list the fortunate part is that it's an easier list to generate now than it was previously because we've addressed a lot of the issues so most of the rooms that we have that would be i guess do not use rooms are rooms that uh they're like interior rooms without windows at this point so so even some of the do not use rooms actually exceed the the desired air exchanges per hour it's just a matter of you know having like students in a room without windows okay yeah we we actually went back and and retested a lot of the ones that we initially said we weren't going to test that we're all used

003lists so so we can get and that was i'm sorry was that that was nexus just back in to do that testing this week it did uh starting last week they they hit a bunch of spots and then they finished up this week yeah excellent have they um generated one of their fantastic reports for you yet yes yes so we have an updated report of those rooms and then we have an amended version of our re the the the full report yeah can um can we have a copy of that the probably the full amended report would be best at this point because it has everything all in one place that that has been really nice yeah and that one also includes like it'll look some semi-confusing because it'll say recommended air purifier zero and

004then it'll say air purifier present that was because we decided that any room that's like a core classroom was gonna have one regardless that sounds great you'll see things that they live in their exchanges with an air purifier that brings it up to 17. okay excellent great and that i guess brings me the next question i have is about those air purifiers um so i know that when the air purifiers are doing an amazing job in the classrooms to help actually filter the air because they they are what is providing the filtration for the classroom um the flow the main blower system is providing fresh air in since we're exiting heating season and those air purifiers are what's actually purifying the air but we know that in certain spaces they're not optimal because they actually

005over they overdo the job we're curious about um staff moving those air purifiers around um we know that um you know if so common wisdom would indicate if one is good then probably two is better or something like that you know or if my room doesn't have one i probably should i'm going to find a way to get one but we know that not all rooms can support having those and still maintain good air circulation so i guess it would be helpful to know and communicate that information with people so that we we're sure that the air purifiers are in the rooms where they are intended to be to help keep air circulation its best what do you think about that yeah that's kind of so that that's perfect timing because that was kind of

006what our thinking was with with coming up with this new not new version of the report but the more comprehensive report is it like like i'm saying it actually does illustrate whether or not one is necessary for that room and these sorts of things and so yeah i think it's covered in the new report and i think we can do like a synopsis at the end that kind of gives you the the broader view okay of where they are necessary but yeah at this point that's what we're doing is is moving purifiers to where they need to be and as far as like positioning in the classroom did i get that right was that that would be great sure yes because they they're functional anywhere but like what would be common sense to me wouldn't

007be to other folks right like putting them right next to a unit vent ventilator that's probably not the ideal place to put it because you're you're cleaning air and then you're sucking it right back out of the room so we don't want to do that but yeah we'll do a little write-up on that okay and for some of the spaces that are i think we've talked about this situation before where if a room is is smaller putting in one of these filters might actually overdo the circulation so that's i think that's becoming more of a concern when we're thinking about small spaces where students might have an evaluation done or something like that that people might feel like they should have one of these big air purifiers in their space but that actually would be

008counter productive to cleaning the air so there's some concern about like knowing which spaces should have them and which should not at the same time and being able to communicate that do you think um so would it be possible to include which rooms should not have these yeah yes the short answer is is yes and that that's kind of what we did with this this newer report i just think you know one some of our common themes in this group have been in times where there's a lot of information and we have new things new safety protocol coming the more clear and concise we can make things for people the higher chances of having successful implementation and so i think if we can add to that list rooms that we know that should not have

009the air purifiers i think that's going to help people as well so that they aren't you know finding one in a closet and thinking i should have this because more is better right right personally i'm in the more is better camp so i want like three in my classroom but um you know that's probably not going to help my my air circulation so i think if we can have that so have the list of rooms we should not use rooms that should have hepa filters rooms that should not have hepa filters and then maybe some information i guess the fourth point on where in the classroom is the ideal location i think that will help um that'll give people a staff a sense of um you know knowledge is power and will will also improve

010our safety to the the greatest degree possible yeah absolutely thank you okay so next is another question about air and ventilation we know that most of the spaces in our buildings operate with their own air handling systems and it's not shared air in the whole building but at one point you mentioned that we do know which rooms do have shared air spaces and we're curious if we can have some of that information as well to help people who will be um since we're talking about moving everybody back into buildings um we're using all those nooks and crannies now that we maybe wouldn't have been earlier um so we're wondering about those spaces that do have shared air if you have a map or a list of those spaces so we can plan accordingly so just

011yes we can we can identify specific zones within and there'd be multiple zones within in any particular area but the the easiest way to think about it is if your room is on an outside wall it has a universe and it all the ones with shared ventilation are interior rooms so like wildwood you're you're thinking like the teach well wildwood and fort river same building you're thinking about like the teachers area you know the central area there i think crocker crocker is unique because it was updated like in modern times so like there i think it's mostly just the main offices but yeah yeah we can identify that okay um [Music] because uh okay and i think gene do you have any questions about ventilation while we're on a roll with ben here um i

012just noticed that we lost just lost emma so i'm not sure oh oh hi emma sorry i thought i would know you were thinking we were being rude because we didn't know you know somehow i got into the back of the whatever so oh um oh i had one other for you um so in our buildings that have foldable walls we are curious about how those foldable walls influence circulation and whether those then count as shared air spaces um for for those particular spaces i guess um in um not crocker in fort river and wildwood like those if so for me to visualize we're talking about like front hallway would be the small little breakout rooms that turn into one uh we're thinking the the bigger space um there's a space um in those buildings

013where um part of its cafeteria space with foldable wall and it's i think it's slated for use right now one side will be um classroom one side will be staff lunches so we're curious about how that air exchange happens in that space okay so so each of those are are on a unit ventilator themselves in their uh they're factored in just for that space so then like it'd be a positive if you open the wall you actually would increase airflow but yeah yeah they're designed to work with the wall closed essentially so each of the spaces with the wall closed has its own universe yep for good and for bad like if you've ever been there during like the lunch in the winter one cafeteria will be super hot the next one will be whatever

014it is and then the third cafeteria will have its own climate that's the reason for it is the universe that's more for my folks at wildwood and fort river watching that that was that was helpful thank you sorry my dog just came in that's the squeaking now the only other question that i had and i think it will show up on the nexus report is that one problematic area in um crocker farm that upper classroom that's in the um the corner there that for whatever reason we have we figured out why that why that specific room seems to test lower yeah that one i haven't been directly involved with i just what i did see recently was the the testing that just came back which i ironically is if i remember the building map correctly

015that actually will be my son's class but no no that um other end yeah the other end yeah yeah so that it's been mitigated but i don't have uh an exact remedy for you yet but i can figure out exactly what they did i'm talking about the the space that's directly over the preschool coordinator's office that that classroom which will be occupied yep um soon we'd initially have to use like two air purifiers to get it up but when we just did the the uh after the last report that changed so i i need to find out exactly what it was that that are because it was our hvac guy that did it so i have to figure out exactly what he did today okay it would be helpful to know why that specific space

016it continues um to test low yeah like no no offense to the people that did the remodeling on that building but there there were some things that weren't factored into the the initial engineering there i'm being nice not how we talked about it necessarily but yeah we i i have some concerns as well but i'll i'll keep most of myself um all right emma thank you again as always rockstar um it's particularly around the regional um clinics for educators so i know krista has a list uh that you know we we just wanted to thank you again for the list the regional clinics but krista has a list of some other issues that um we're hoping to get some clarification on great yes and thank you again um vaccines are are so important and we

017just thank you for helping um to get those get those out um i have a question for you about lunch spaces um so as we're thinking about you know moving people into buildings and we have large numbers of staff entering buildings and thinking about how staff ought to be eating lunch do you have recommendations for us on how staff can most safely eat lunch inside a shared lunch room i know some buildings are planning to have single locations where staff will be told to have lunch while we staff may choose to go eat lunch in their cars on their own that's not always an option for people so having an indoor space where staff can eat is is something that is being provided but how can staff eat more most safely indoors yeah to continue

018to socially distance when you're eating so anytime that your mask is down make sure that we have enough separation from others or if we are around other people some people prefer to eat if they have a designated classroom or their desk they might choose to do that to be isolated away from others rather than eating in a communal area i i think at this i'm starting to smile because it makes me think of the beginning of the pandemic but people should not be sharing drinks or food or silverware right that we should continue to have our own utensils and everything and food products and and drinks and then to make sure that we are just doing that really good hand washing and hygiene before and after you eat um but i would say the socially

019distanced part of it is what we're finding is most helpful and in in times of adults eating together is the recommendation for that social distancing still six feet or is there another number that makes more sense given adults and eating with masks off yeah i i'm not sure exactly i would have to see if there's literature about that but i from what i've heard i i think it's still six feet recommended as a gold standard great thanks um i'm gonna gene do you have any other lunch questions no not specifically about launch i think we were also wanting to know about contact tracing still which continues to be um difficult we know it's time consuming but it is it's so necessary yeah i know with the school system um and contact tracing with students that

020were affected in every if they were affected or staff that the school nurse team has really been tasked with that so i would kind of refer back to robin's super knot on that great thanks um gene you had a transportation question i'm just looking at the clock and i think we're down to about five minutes if um yes um i love math so ben there's a math question uh the average car length is what uh like a full-size first one like would you say like 16 feet ish something like that okay so if we're expecting if we're anticipating 112 cars to be dropping off students at crocker farm and um i don't know ballpark the length of the west street driveway 2 000 feet maybe i don't even want to ballpark that one i should

021know that because of the crackers um i'm just concerned about uh traffic flow because west street is a pretty heavily used um route particularly in the mornings in the afternoons and what uh yeah i'm you know you're putting on your i'm asking you to put your other hat on as facilities um what is the district doing i think probably crocker is the one that would potentially have the biggest issue since there's just that one access point um and west street again is is a fairly busy thoroughfare yeah i'm just wondering how that's going to work yeah so actually crocker was the the easiest to kind of plan out because of the shay street entrance so so you know you know in a typical year and okay so let me back up for a second so

022normally people park back there right on the in that street yeah street is is the turnaround and we're losing some staff parking which is going to be my next question where is staff going to park for losing that parking is because i don't want to keep trashing with people for design no no no they're they didn't they did not include enough space turn around space the turning radius for a bus was not included into the parking spaces that were added on so what we've done was to take those away as parking spaces and then use that area strictly for bus and bands so that that frees up that front part of the building in terms of parent pickup which is so what we figured was it does it sounds weird but every bus is two

023and a half cars roughly on average and we're talking like full size sedan you know taurus or something like that yeah they're like no it's about 16 feet i think yeah so that that frees up a lot of space and then once we did out the modeling there's no no concerns with backup it's you know into uh west street there because we have like the island area and all that we have extra space to to put cars there the the only issue that i would foresee is like the increased traffic volume coming out like it's gonna be a point blinking period it's gonna be annoying if you have to drive down west street during that that period that's that's where i was getting because um there is going to have to be some time frame

024where the cards need to come to a stop open the door so that the students can exit the car so we're not talking about like a conveyor belt of cars that we're just going to continually go um but they're going to have to stop and so there will be some backup is there has i'm just hoping that there's been some discussion with the town as far as traffic mitigation on this because we're um start of the day well the buses we're going to start arriving at 9 20 correct yep okay and at the end of the day um it just knowing if you know if i were um someone that lived in amherst and depended on west street to get from here to there at those times of days i would want to know i

025would want to know this right and and uh so we have been we kind of started preliminary con conversations around like you know traffic controls and these sorts of things like you'll notice like the signs that that light up we've been talking to them about that sort of thing and then like traffic patterns a little bit but yeah it's it's it's hard to get an actual read on like how that that exactly it impacts traffic until yeah what happens right right that's the unfortunate part of that is it's all theoretical until it actually happens well what we've got was to increase you know normally you'll see the two people out there i don't want to call them crossing guards because they're not officially but the people with the right no i know um yeah i

026am concerned with the the i mean this is a pretty large increase in the number of vehicles that will be entering and exiting the west street driveway um with having one person that's potentially you know with other than a vest a lime green vest um a very now extremely busy um traffic area yeah and we've added back up to our staff that's out there so it'll be all hands on that's good that's good to hear but um i will you know me i'm gonna be asking for another update on this uh next friday um oh actually no next friday um good friday yes so we won't so we will not be meeting next friday um but um i think we would appreciate an update on the traffic again i'm going to go back to that

027educational community and how whatever the schools do affects affects the community at large and it's going to be helpful information for for people to know that the they're on on monday through friday that there is going to be traffic potential traffic issues on west street during at certain times of the day yep and as much as we don't like to micromanage in our department that's one of those we're going to have to have eyes on the objective and monitor it like very carefully in the beginning just so we know where we need to make tweaks where we you know where we're doing the right things i think a lot of what we normally would do for parent pickup will work but in different ways if that makes sense we're going to have to make adjustments

028it's not going to be normal and like you say it impacts i mean you have you have a residential neighborhood right past there in both directions no matter which way you're going so we definitely impact the community right there right and that's a you know west street is is a busy street that people use to get from point south yep directly into either amherst center or umass at times as well so um it impacts uh whatever happens there is going to impact the greater community yeah so all right anything else any parting again emma we can't thank you enough and ben of course we can't thank either both of you enough because um it's like the you know the image of the iceberg where the public only sees that very small amount of work that

029you do and what's below the surface is enormous and that's the work that you're also doing and i have several staff members that that would be upset with me if i didn't personally directly and publicly thank you for last night for the uh the vaccination clinic where yeah i can't say that the exact number boom we're safer now than we were before and you are a serious part of that there was quite a number of your staff that were that were at our clinic as with amherst staff i mean it's hard when you pull the data right because people don't always live in the communities that they work in um to really get that granular data to know what was our true distribution of what school system um people were coming from but it by

030people's addresses it was a it was a good variety um but also a large number of people from amherst even if we're just thinking about teachers and educators and school support staff that live in amherst that were able to get vaccinated at that clinic so strong work everybody but we you know we as ben said we have a lot of uh school staff that don't always get included in the thanks so our facilities and maintenance transportation the food service workers that are essential they are absolutely essential and we want to make sure and we thank you emma and northampton for ensuring that they are getting the vaccines that they need as well absolutely all right thank you everybody thank you have a good weekend thanks you too