001record to All right, it is 10:31 on May 4th, 2026 and we are getting ready to get started the long-term facilities use advisory committee meeting. Um, we are recording this to the cloud. Uh, and if any other persons present are doing the same must notify me at this time. Are either of you also recording? Great. Didn't think so. Just wanted to ask. And we currently have uh no members of the public in the meeting. Um I don't see anyone in the waiting room [snorts] either. So with that, go ahead and call to order um and do a roll call. [gasps] Um I'm Chair Ston. I'm here. Member Deniv >> here. >> And member Webb >> here. Great you. Uh, we're all here. We have a quorum. Um, again, we have an item for public comment,
002but no members of the public are present. If a member of the public does show up, I think maybe we can accommodate them at that time if they would wish to contribute. [gasps] Um, and now with that, we will move on to just reviewing and making sure that we know what the purpose of this group is and how we are going to set ourselves up. Um so a lot of our charge comes from the proposal that we voted on at our meeting last month. Um and this is essentially for us to sort of continue the work that had been done to understand what we are doing with regard to our facilities. I think from my understanding, prior iterations of the action that had been taken around the long-term planning has focused on redrawing district lines
003in terms of like which students are slated to go to which schools, which students are getting bus versus walking, etc. Um, but hadn't really touched on the actual use of the buildings and our long-term thinking with regard to all of our buildings. Um we also so the proposal calls for us to explore a few different um a explore a few different permutations of things we might do. So there's a specific call for us to look at what would happen if we wanted to pursue regionalization. What even would that mean? Now, I want to be clear that the proposal asks for us to gather like information and to understand the impacts of these few different things. It does not call for us to actually like go for any of these things. So, before anyone says, "Oh,
004we're regionalizing now." No, we are exploring what that would look like. Um the I think there were a couple of others. Some of them also include uh we want to understand if we were to consolidate buildings, what would be the impact there? What would be the likely scenarios? Um what would that look like? And how would we make that work with the minimum disruption to our educational services? And ideally, we would want any consolidation to actually improve the providing of our educational services. Um, but at a minimum like having a neutral impact. [gasps] Um, and [clears throat] then I think there's also a call in here for potentially creating additional buildings and beginning the process of thinking through let's say we did want to have a more modern potentially unified elementary school. What would be
005the process there? Um, and then there are there's a statement in there that says and additional things like additional aspects of this that the committee would also like us to to look into. And so that is um basically giving us giving us the ability to um [cough and clears throat] to look at additional um you know to look at additional ways of organizing our buildings and organizing our facilities use that we might not have thought of right in this moment. Um the other sort of major aspect to what this subcommittee does and that we'll also be talking about here in a moment um is that this is structured as an advisory committee and explicitly involves the participation of additional members of non-school committee folks. um [clears throat] doing this for the purpose of basically um
006wanting people to be involved with these long-term discussions and also any decision or recommendation that we might produce would have then the buyin of people who would be affected by that decision. Um, so hopefully it would mean that any decision that we would recommend would have um, you know, I'm going to say the word blessing, but would have, you know, some some agreement to it, would would not face such resistance as if this was something that was just being thought of by school committee members themselves. Um [clears throat] that does mean that we will need to go through a process of recruiting and appointing uh members of the public and deciding what that process is uh amongst the three of us. So that is one of the things I would like for us to get
007started today. All right, I've reviewed that. What [snorts] other things sort of are y'all thinking about? Does that all make sense? Are there questions you have about what we're up to? Um, all right. Seeing none, then I think that we can go ahead and move on to this discussion of the process for soliciting additional members of the community for the committee. Um I am pulling up right now. Making sure that this is the right one. Yes. Uh pulling up right now the proposal as voted on because I believe that it contained some numbers for us to work through in terms of like this many number of parents, this many number of school staff etc. um planning green field. Okay. [snorts] So, we are the three school committee members uh sort of leading and facilitating this
008process. We are the advisory steering committee. Um we would like to solicit an additional 10 advisory committee members drawn from parents, staff, students, and other members of the community. um these additional members will be solicited by us through a self-nomination process and I had sort of put in there as one that is similar uh similarly that was used by the ad hoc superintendent search because that seemed to actually go pretty well of creating a way for people to nominate themselves um and then for us to to go through the process of um like reviewing all of those and then choosing the the final group that we Ed. Um any uh also can we just have a vote to suspend Robert's rules for a minute? >> Motion. >> Great. Thank you. >> Second. >> Great. Uh
009we have to do a roll call vote technically since we're all online, I believe. >> Uh [laughter] >> are you all set? >> Yes. >> All right. I'm a yes. And member Webb, are you a yes? Yes. >> Great. All right. Robert's rules is suspended. So, um, >> basically I had sort of said it seemed to work well when we did it for the superintendent search. Let's do it for this one. Um, any thoughts about the particular makeup of the like 10 additional people? >> What was the makeup for the superintendent search? Like how many staff versus parents versus community members? >> Yeah, we ended up having I think everybody who was on it ended up either being a parent or a staff member or sometimes both. Um I don't think we had I don't
010think we ended up with anyone who was like a general community member who wasn't some way very directly connected with the schools. >> I'm just wondering if we'd like to have, you know, a community member on this maybe that doesn't have a child in the schools or as a staff member. Yeah, I mean I I think that um I I mean I I put that language in there. I think that it could be really worthwhile. I'm especially thinking of intentionally drawing maybe from our city councelor pool. >> Yeah. I was just thinking, you know, it's a different setup than, you know, hiring a staff person. >> Sure. Absolutely. and that the stakeholders for reinvisioning our schools might be a little broader than just people who are um in buildings. >> Yeah. Um and so right
011now Yeah. And so just to be clear, we're like thinking through who our ideal like recruitment pool is, like who we intend to send the notice of um hey, put your put your name in the hat, but that we can't control necessarily who actually nominates themselves um and who our final pool ends up being. But I think that's that's a good idea. Are there any particular like when you say general community member is there like a particular organization that you're wanting us to be like hey by the way any like community action for instance they work very closely with our families. Do we want us make make it a point to email them and say hey if anyone from your org even if you're not a parent we know you work like that you care
012about the kids and that you're very involved in the community you understand priorities. Are there other organizations or businesses like that that either of you can think of? >> I think you should email everyone and I think you should make it make it public. Put it out there. You don't know who you're going to get. I'm more concerned overall that we're going to have a lot of people who are going to bring up ideas that are not um legally feasible for us. Can you >> not for lack of excitement and enthusiasm and um the wonderfulness of their ideas but a lot of people don't understand that we are um legally bound to to more requirements than municipality than municipalities are. So from the school side, we have just far more constraints. And so I would
013really like to, if we're really going to do this, I'd like to get some options in place that are actually feasible that we know are going to legally fly before we get um members of the public who are not involved in school >> um in in school constraints to weigh in. Does that make sense? Um because we're going to get a lot of good ideas which I'm really excited about and I'm excited to hear what the community wants. I just often find that like it can be really jarring to go up against the wall of what you want to do versus what you're allowed to do in education. >> And I don't want to get started on some great idea that we ended up not even being able to execute for some law or another.
014So that's why I'd like to kind of focus on maybe people with an education background um who can help help keep the conversation going in the direction of what is possible. Um first and foremost and of course parity. Having members of the community that don't have children in the schools is great. having members of the community that do that are active parents and caregivers, people who want to volunteer, um businesses who are affected by um the schools, all of that is really important. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I think in some ways we have actually the benefit of being a little constrained by the language or the proposal. So, like we can't just um go willy-nilly with our ideas, which is nice, I think, cuz that that I think helps us articulate to the public. Like,
015we might want everything in the apple pie, too, but we can't always have all of the things that we might want. That being said, I think that we are there are clever and interesting things that we could also do, but I definitely hear you about like not wanting to spin our wheels or waste our time or take ourselves off off track by pursuing something that's really not not even feasible. >> Because that was the problem with redistricting is there were so many great ideas, but in the end only three or four options were even educationally feasible, >> right? And when we had to stop and step back and look at that, it was a little bit disheartening because the things that we wanted or that some of the parents wanted were great, but it couldn't
016happen. And it couldn't happen because of building size or bus route or, you know, a variety of things. >> Can you give me an example of one of those that you that you recall? >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was this one idea that a lot of people had where what if we took um like I don't remember exactly the grade bands, but what if we separated the grade bands into different schools? So we had like K through two at one school and three, four, five at another school or you know there were even smaller bands in some cases that they were talking about and and like that's a great idea and it works for some districts and we could see the benefits of that but there were also cons and one and >> even if
017you were willing to work with the cons of it as a district, the main problem was that the buses couldn't do that. the buses can't go drop off at each and every school, the first graders over here, and then drive across town and do the, you know, like they couldn't do it. >> Um, and that doesn't mean that that wasn't a great idea. But there are so many moving parts that it just wouldn't have worked. And then there were some other ones where I don't remember the exact details, but there were some other ones where the superintendent said, "Oh, that's a really good idea except like the staffing wouldn't work because we have teachers that teach multiple grades or don't have the license to teach, you know, X Y and Z or, you know, already
018have to travel to do different things." So, I think that people just don't always understand the moving parts behind the scenes. So, I just want to make sure that all those parts can move >> on an idea that we're interested in before we get invested and then find out that we cannot. So, that's where I think there's going to be like a disconnect between us as the school committee because we don't necessarily know what those parts are and the public also will not necessarily know what those parts are, but the superintendent will and the admin will and the teachers will. specifically the union will know whether something is possible or not. >> Well, they they'll have their ideas about what's possible. >> I'm sure they will. >> Yeah. Um U Member Webb, I saw your
019hand briefly. >> Yeah. I just think it's really important for us to make sure we are including the public, you know, with a lot of the stuff we have had going on so they can know that like, yeah, there's we all have these great concepts, but they won't actually work. And I know I was going to say what member Den had already said that we had talked about like grade bands, you know, and then it was like, okay, grade bands isn't really the best scenario. And then I guess is that what we're like talking about rediscussing is what um that study was already done because that kind of laid out our options as to what we could do. >> Yeah. >> So I guess I'm just looking for like clarity on that like we have
020where we had them coming and do the study saying X Y and Z. Yeah. Um, no, thank you for for bringing that up. Um, because I think that that was that's uh part of what our next item is is re like thinking about the documents, reviewing the documents from the prior related subcommittees. Um, and I think that that's even just reminding ourselves that those exist and where they are. We're not necessarily going to spend a great amount of time going through them in detail today. Um, but I it was it was uh very important to me and I know that it's important to each of you as well that we're not reinventing the wheel here. But I do think that it is worth noting that that study is now four years old and we have
021some data to fill in the gaps because it had some projections that went out to now that we can fill in with real numbers and understand are their the projections that they had. For instance, for Greenfield total population and Greenfield student population, like are those actually real? Are they did they decline more steeply? Did they stay flatter longer? Like what is that looking like? um because that helps us that helps us contextualize like what our options are and what our needs are. Um a little bit more. But I definitely don't want to to to abandon that study. I do just want to make sure that we are taking taking where it stopped and updating it with what we know. Um, and if I'm remembering like the study gave us the study was I from my
022recollection of it was very much like you're going to have to close some buildings. And maybe that's true. Um, and maybe we can think like more creatively about using our utilizing our buildings in different ways um that alleviates that need perhaps. So, I just like wanting basically all options to be on the table, but any option that we have before we choose to pursue that option, I really want to make sure that we all know what the pros of that, what the cons of that, what the long like what's going to be the long-term outcome or impact, and making sure that we're not doing it either out of like fear or that it's only for dollars and cents, but that there is some educational rationale um or that we understand the educational impact behind any
023choice even if it's driven by dollars and cents. But there was yes there was a lot of work done by the prior subcommittees and I know remember any of you were on those um that there was a study plus there was a lot of discussion plus you heard from a lot of parents plus you know like you did additional work beyond just getting the NASDAQ study am I remembering that correctly? >> Um yes and the NESD study never talked about having a new building. It only talked about potentially building upon a building >> like adding a story or a wing. >> And when that was explored because it did say that like these build some of these buildings are really old and the cost to fix them is really astronomical. So maybe you might want
024to build onto a building. And when they looked at that, there's just no there's no grants from the MSBA that are going to help us with anything that runs on fossil fuels. Like >> it's just not possible. So we would have to fund it entirely. And that is just not doable, especially with um the age of the buildings that they were considering. I think one of the thoughts was like, oh, you could build on to Newton or you could build on to Federal and it just didn't financially it wasn't going to work. and in terms of the building's um health, it wasn't going to work. So, they never explored the possibility of building. So, that's that's what I undertook on my own by going to the MSBA 3-hour long workshop on grants and I sent
025all of the grant information to Steven Sullivan at the time. And that's something that we could pursue, but I believe the mayor said that our we could not even begin to consider um uh loans until 2030, but the whole process is at least a 10-year process. So, we wouldn't even be building until 2035. So, I you all know that my stance is like, let's look at that because it's definitely a possibility. >> I I agree with you on that. Um, I do want to shed some light on the situation and I think both of you have heard it. Back in 1996, they did try to do one big building and it was shot down by the town and that would have been at Murphy Park and also at Newton, we still have the modules here
026from the extension. And when we talk about like condensing buildings, I guess as someone who's like in the buildings and actually sees it, I just I'm like where how would we be dividing up a couple school would we divide a school? You know, you go into these buildings and I see almost every inch being used like are we now having our special education teacher share space with the band teacher? you know, like I guess that's where as someone who's actively in buildings and sees the kids, you know, it's nice that we have some quiet spaces for the kids who need it. And, you know, I mean, I'm doing the book fair right now and the only space I can set up in the book fair in this entire building is in the gym. And then
027at like Federal Street, they set up in the library and GMS they set up in the library. like there's not like extra unused classroom spacesh >> um to just pop in a book fair. >> This is true. I I concur with member web on this. There's not enough space and the buildings are oddly shaped as we know. there are there are spaces they can't even use for the things that they want to use them for because they don't have bathroom access or you know sink access or [laughter] aren't ADA compliant or whatever. Um and we do have a housing crisis in this county. So, I've always thought, you know, some of these buildings would make really great senior housing or really great um city uh offices because we know that the city hall is, you
028know, crumbling and really can't take the strain of the daily traffic of city hall. [gasps] So, we really need to move that as well. And we have all these elementary schools that are super cute. And we have like precedents for this in the area. I mean, they did it in Miller Falls. So, they have the Highland School apartments that are super cute, and that was an elementary school that was suffering the same problems that ours are. Um, I don't really even think that the problem is going to be space or money or grants. It's really the will of the taxpayers to get involved in that. like it's really a PR thing because we all know how people have felt about the library, our beautiful new wonderful library that some of us love and some of
029us still hate. It's kind of the same thing. we would be doing something really divisive. And um that's where I see the pain because the beauty of having an elementary school for all is that we recognize and understand that we're in a high needs um area. And if we could build a new elementary school, think of all of the things we could plan in that elementary school to help and foster those kids with different needs. We could think ahead of the box. We wouldn't be just like trying to make something fit and work for them. We could think ahead of time and make things for them. And that's a beautiful thing to be able to do. And I I really truly believe that there are a lot of schools around us that are going to
030close before we start closing schools and we're probably going going to get an influx of students just because that's happening. Um the rural schools are having problems and they're the ones that are regionalizing. So that's another aspect of it is like nobody's approached us to regionalize and all of the smaller schools are trying to come together and do that. I [clears throat] know that's another aspect of our charge. So >> yeah, >> something to talk about because I think they're all connected. Yes, we are sort of um you know one of the things that we can't control but that we do have a responsibility to act on the basis of is all of this macroeconomic stuff happening around us. Um you know systemic disinvestment in our rural area uh population decline. Um, and like like
031there's population decline as in we are like our birth rate is just not at replacement level which is not just in the United States that is all quote unquote developed economies throughout the entire world has been for a while but there's also population decline in western mass in particular as people are getting squeezed out by raising prices without wages also increasing proportionately or um not enough like good long-term jobs. Um so they go elsewhere to seek them. Um you know, so like there we're sort of like in the mastrom of all of this happening and trying to figure out what we think is the best thing to do. And I also want to just acknowledge that we're trying to do long-term planning in a context that is fundamentally unstable. And so it might seem like
032an oxymoron or contradiction in in mindsets, but I think that we can and we do have the ability to look ahead at the trends that are happening now and saying, "Okay, absent some like massive change in either direction, this is the general trend we're still operating under and we're probably going to be still operating under that in four, five, 10 years, you know. Um [clears throat] and so and yeah and I um so I think that is part of what we're doing and part of what our charge is and I think that that's one of the ways that we can build on the NASDAQ study because they lay that out pretty clearly of like here's the macro trends that are happening and I think that we can that's what we can do is we can
033go back and say yep that trend held up yep our data showed that we did that or nope it actually changed in this way and here's what we think the like impact of that change in whatever way is. So that's that's part of what we're doing is a little bit of study up. >> Um and then to I think y'all's point about um getting the community on board to do anything. I think that's part of why we're an advisory committee and not just a subcommittee is because we want to make sure that there are members of the public who can help spread that word on our behalf and that if they were part of creating the decision then they can be part of helping us advocate to the public. And I think being very transparent,
034being very open about what are what are the options we're even looking at um and giving confidence that we are systematically exploring these and that it's not a knee-jerk reaction to anything, but it is a thoughtful um like view of what our needs are in the long term can help us. I don't think that we're ever gonna get 100% agreement. Um because that's just not how people work. Um but I do think that we with enough consideration can have a decision that most people will be able to live with. And that's that's kind of where we're aiming for at this moment. Um and to the to the question of like how old even are our buildings? Um, Federal Street North, 1906. Federal Street South 1930, AEAL 1930, Newton 1915. Um, Four Corners 1955. So, rapidly
035like that doesn't sound like that long ago, but it's almost 100 years ago. It's like 85 years ago. Um, GMS 1960, but I think that that might even be Is that right? Um, and then GHS are obviously our newest building already a decade old. Um, and so I think that that's just like yes, they're adorable. Yes, they are charming and the maintenance on them and the energy usage on them kind of a kind of a bear biting us in the butt a little bit. Um, and when I've done, you know, we've all done these walkthroughs, we've got we are doing the best we can with the facilities we have. And imagine if we had facilities that were built for the modern era that were bright and open and airy and had air conditioning um or
036you know and used green infrastructure. Um you know I think that that that is something that is worth us looking into. Um I recognize that the appetite in Greenfield for building new buildings is low. Low, low, low. I get that. And to your point earlier, remember if this is a years out process, the later we start, the later we complete, right? And so it's not committing us to doing any one thing right now, but it is saying if this is an option, here's what it would take. Here's what it's going to be. Here's expected timelines. Like here's um laying the groundwork for potentially being able to make a choice. Um, okay. I >> I get what you're saying about the appetite of the community and I think that's one of my main things for why
037I'm like, hey, let's make sure we have people who don't have kids in the school who are also weighing in on the process, [clears throat] >> you know, and I'm not saying like let's go find the library dislikers, but you know, maybe they maybe we want them, you know, to be part of the pro. We want them that's who we want on the process is the people who don't always feel their voices are heard. seen in the process. >> Yeah, we want the perspective fairly represented. Um because elsewise it looks like we're just ramming through another decision without considering what people's needs and wants are. Um >> I'd also like to see a list of like I I agree with member web. I'd also like to see a list of like back to the like
038visionary dream of having an elementary school. what issues with the town would be solved by having an elementary school that aren't just educational. Like for example, we all know the Green River swimming area is going to be closed at some point in time. It is not sustainable. If we're building an elementary school, guess what? We can build a pool. We could build a pool. We could have that pool be the community pool on the weekends. We could charge >> for swim lessons. >> Have swim lessons. We could have summer camp with swimming. We could like make our some money back for that. Like there's all these little tiny things that we could do. Oh, the city hall is like we can't have the city hall there. You know what would make it amazing? City Hall,
039Federal Street. That would make an amazing city hall or Newton. >> Federal Street or the middle school even >> Newton would be amazing senior housing with all those individual doors. So, like if we're solving other city problems and we're talking to residents about it from that standpoint that like we're not just we want a shiny new building, >> but like we have things there's things coming down the pipe that are going to cost a lot of money and be a problem. We can solve them with what we have. >> That's a sustainable act >> and they can be involved in that and they can see how it will benefit their lives in other ways. if they don't have a student in the schools, well, now you can go swim, you know, or like your uh
040elderly family members could have a place to live. Like there's a lot, >> right? >> I [clears throat] totally agree. And I think that when I'm going back up to the earlier agenda item for just a moment, um, when I'm thinking about the makeup of makeup of our committee, that's I want people who do housing. So either there I know that there's like housing green field as a group, but there's also people who are like on housing and planning commissions and boards that we might want to specifically strongly encourage to [laughter] nominate themselves to be part of this group. Um or even like the Greenfield Business Association so that we can help them understand, oh, what if Newton was actually a spot for a lot of commercial interest and development cuz it's right there on
041Main Street. like it's a pretty accessible um to get shipments and deliveries if that's something that you need as a business. Um but to help get their interest, they might also have connections, let's just be real, to capital that [laughter] we don't currently have access to um that we would need to make any kind of like redevelopment of other buildings go. But also, I think we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves. Um that's not the decision we've reached yet. [laughter] We haven't fully explored it yet. I think there's we're clearly excited about it, but um we ultimately will be beholden to the will of the group. Um and um and are also we are not in charge of deciding anything. We are in charge of creating comprehensive understanding, getting all the parameters out
042on the table. And if we get to the point where at toward the end where we have like, oh, one of these options is clearly better than the others, then we can make a recommendation to the full committee. But it will be the full school committee who's ultimately responsible for choosing one or none um and stewarding the next phase of an like implementing that choice. So, just being clear of what we're responsible for, what we can do versus what we have to pass along. Um, member Webb, I saw a hand go up again. Was that >> No, I think it was the we're getting ahead of ourselves because I think Newton has been like deemed a historic building and has like some historic >> I mean I'm in it now but I think it has
043>> built as a as a model school um at one point like when it was constructed >> and I think you are correct on the GMS time frame because that was a junior high >> right? it might be worthwhile to just call MSBA and just find out what even beginning steps are like like if you wanted to do if you wanted to do this sometime in the future like what would you do because I'm going to guess that like we couldn't even make a recommendation that this would be possible if we didn't have a conversation with them first to find out if like because it could be that like yeah we we recommend that we do this but also like there's no there's no land or there's no you know space or you know, who
044knows what the thing could be. >> I went to the learning lunch on Friday. >> Oh, good. >> And then I um I did look up like our rating system and we were all like ones and twos for our building. >> What does that mean? It it just means like we're not in like high need of repairs is kind of what I was and then I was cons curious because they do I took some notes but they do like repair grants for windows and stuff obviously >> but AEL doesn't qualify because it's a subsearate prek. So, but if we put kindergarten with a in that building, then it would qualify. >> But a standalone prek doesn't qualify. >> So, that was just some like food for thought. Um, I mean, I guess it's helpful I'm
045saying this to you guys, but yeah, it was neat. They were talking about, you know, the mini splits, you know, applying for that. But again, our I went on their website and it showed that there was like we were we're ones and twos. You know, they're more concerned about the threes and the fours. Correct. >> Yeah, that's why it would be a good idea to call them and have them like just I don't know walk us through maybe they could make a presentation at the subcommittee so that we can understand like what is even >> I might have time talking about things that aren't >> I have I think they sent me their presentation thing from the lunch and I could forward >> I think >> and even if they didn't we can reach out
046to them and say hey we know you made a presentation. Please give give your slides to us. >> Yeah, I've been trying to go to the lunchons just to have like some knowledge. >> Yeah, I totally appreciate you seeking out professional development. Thank you. >> That's great. >> So good. >> Good for you. >> I mean, I don't have, you know, I don't have the years of experience like you guys have, but I want to be helpful and do the best I can. >> Going to professional development is the most helpful thing any member can do. I truly believe it. >> Yeah. Um, great. So, >> I did find it, so I will forward it. >> Thank you. Um, okay. So, we can we can decide on this later, but in my mind, one of
047the ways that we can sort of organize ourselves to accomplish all of this because we do have a bit of a deadline of May 12th, 2027, which is about a year from now to sort of have these studies done, have all of our information in order, have it all written out in a way that is like legible to other people. Um and uh if we have a recommendation at the end of that to have that [clears throat] recommendation clearly outlined. Um one of the ways I was thinking we could organize once we've gone through the process of soliciting nominations, sifting through them, getting our team in order, setting a regular schedule of meetings, then we might even be able to subdivide further and have like task forces for each option. So that we might have
048two or three of us um for like somebody one group can do regionalization, one group can do building um either consolidation or construction. Uh one group can think about redistribution across buildings. Um [clears throat] uh there's an another idea that came forward uh about community schools and I know that Framingham is doing a lot of work around community schools and what that does is brings in a lot more of these um places like community action or places you know or or like the YMCA of these other non-school entities that actually have a lot to do with our school families. with our like with the actual community of of students and families and provide services. And in some models that I've read about, those entities actually kind of have little outposts in the building um and
049provide service directly in the building as a way to um like sort of like consolidate that service and have it more accessible to families. Um, but some people just have like a lot more like I'm not exactly sure how it works, which is why I would maybe want to look into it, but it we know that we're a community where a lot of our families receive services of of varying types, um, we just are that. And so if there's a way that we can make it easier for families to access them, more streamlined, and also I know that a lot of our nonprofits in the area um are being constrained by some of the same factors of rising rent, um higher utility, wage pressures upwards, and like less funding. if there's a win that we
050can keep those services here as well that we know our families are going to access anyway, maybe that's something to look into as well. But so the general idea would be to have like a small group focused on that and then reporting out to the big to the advisory committee as a whole. Um, [clears throat] we could always also have all of us do a deep dive into any one of these topics, but take a month or two, like take a couple of months per, you know, as a whole group. Like we can organize ourselves sort of in any way that we would like. Um, yes, member web. >> Um, sorry, I just don't want to interrupt you. What is the dynamics looking like? Like how many community members are we thinking? How many parents
051are we thinking? How many staff are we thinking? Are we thinking like three of each? Two of each. >> Yeah. So, we >> I don't know what the makeup was of the superintendent search. And I really want I really want to emphasize I really want to make sure we have community stakeholders who are not just parents. And um >> sorry, one of my I have one more group to get through the book fair. Um, but you know, I want to just make sure that we have >> Yep. So, we have up to 10 that we voted on uh as a full committee. Um, and we say parents, staff, students, and other members. So, we can kind of choose right now. Um, what's the makeup that we would like? That's a group, that's a decision we
052can come to organically and together. Um I would love like let's see if we had kind of two parents, two staff, two students, two other members of the community and then two others like two ad hoc just like they can make three parents or three staff or whomever sort of as people apply. But I think at a minimum it would be nice to have two of each. the student. >> So, two students, two parents, two staff, two community members, and then like two others. >> Whatever cate as long as they're community. >> Yeah. >> Or schoolbased or what they fall into one of those categories. >> Okay. >> What do people folks think of that? Or is there any group that we think should have greater proportion of representation? >> I think that sounds good.
053>> Okay. But I think that maybe maybe with the two wild cards, it might be nice to have like somebody from housing like you were talking about or somebody from a youth organization >> um to have preference for those spaces. I mean, community members obviously, but that have background in those things whether they have uh children in the district or not. I just want to make sure that we tap the ultimate green field brain trust that exists. >> I like that two wild card concept. I like just having it written like that, like knowing that what we're looking for is somebody who comes to us with some experience of unhoused um and how to help that in the community and other you know. >> Yeah. And >> yeah, I think that's important because like what
054we're really doing is actually like visionary work, you know, and >> the only reason that the things exist around us is because somebody had the idea to do it like the like you know for what however anybody feels about the library, somebody had to push that into existence with the help of a lot of other people. Like they had to create the momentum and the group and the community spirit to do it. So if we're doing that essentially is what we're wanting to make recommendations to do these things. We want people who like have experience with doing that, with saying, "Hey, this thing should be over there and this is why or we should change this thing because of that." and not be afraid to say it and like reach for bigger things because I
055just don't I just think that looking around at all at how all of these communities around us are struggling and nationwide how everybody is struggling like the only way to combat that the apathy, the difficulty, the lack of funding is to maybe think outside the box to really think of new ways of doing things and to put new things into practice that maybe we're not used to. And that takes people with experience in those areas. So, I would really like to hear from them because there are other models that we may not even be thinking about. >> I I mean, I'm just enjoying just hearing us even talk about like 10 years, maybe we could have a beautiful elementary school with like an indoor track and some pickle ball courts, you know? Like I mean
056I know I'm dreaming of being big in a swimming pool and you know having it be you know having a beautiful auditorium as well and you know our services under one roof so our staff members aren't driving back and forth all day >> space for the kids that have different needs that they can actually have those needs right there fulfilled >> and and seeing more of like the the buddies you know I just saw the I just saw the fourth and the kindergarten buddies walking down together and it was like super touching, you know, and like maybe having the preschool under the, you know, under the roof, you know, maybe we're looking at a K through five or a K through six or, you know, maybe we're looking at something a little different. I don't
057know. But then like I'm coming back to like where where's this going? Like, you know, and that's something we really would need to hammer out later at a later date. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that's kind of our whole job. We have about a year to figure out where we're going. Uh, that's >> that's great. Um, thinking about our process because a year sounds like a long time, but in the in the land where you only meet once a month, it's not. It's 12 12 sessions together. Um, like this is our sort of prelim. I would love to get a sense from you both of when would we like to meet next because we have a couple of options. We can you can empower me to sort of create the form that people fill out
058to nominate themselves, say a little bit about who you are, like how you're connected, why you want to be part of this group. Um tell us a little bit more about like the areas of expertise or understanding [clears throat] or exposure to the community. Like what's your deal? Um so that when we're reviewing everyone, we can um be like, "Okay, we want to maybe prioritize this person because they have utilized these services or we want to prioritize this person because they have this type of lived experience or you know, like so we can do some of that." Um and then meet in a month to actually review people or we can meet in a couple of weeks and we can work on creating that that like nomination form together. Um and then and then sometime
059in June get people. Does that distinction make sense? Either you empower me to go forth and we start recruiting now and the next time we meet we're looking through potential people and deciding um or uh or we meet again and sort of like really formalize and shore up this process and then start recruiting after [clears throat] that. I like the idea of meeting and and showing up the process together just because >> I've noticed that we have a lot of work on our plates as a school committee this year. Like there's a lot of work going on >> and I think that as much labor as can be delegated in the meetings, like if we can bang things out as a group >> Mhm. I think that that's better than leaving it all to one
060person or I just I just have I have a lot of work like policy is so much work right [laughter] now and there's so many things that I'm like writing and all my emotions and my blah blah blah blah and I just know that everybody's feeling that or maybe I don't know who's feeling that way other than me but I am and so I would love to do it together so that it's just like I'd like to take more bite-sized pieces together. Um, and also knowing that you have all of your uh chair duties. Um, it's just we're doing a lot. So, >> yep. >> Um, I know that the three of our schedules are not the easiest to coordinate. Um, we're sort of all operating on different time blocks. If we were to meet
061if we were to be actually be able to start at 10:00 instead of 10:30, I know that was a challenge. Um, would Mondays from 10 to 11 generally work for getting some of this like the setup done before we start recruiting community members? >> Yes. >> So, I normally have budget and finance on Mondays at 11. >> Okay. >> And Mondays totally work, [laughter] >> but if we were to like go over it might be um it was today for me 10:30 would have been fine. I just had scheduled a chunk of time for the book fair to not have >> whatever you hear in the background happening and to be more focused. >> Yeah, totally understand. Um would >> I could even do earlier like Okay. >> Would earlier work for you? Remember when
062>> Yeah, like um I I dropped Liam off around 8:30, so I could definitely do like 9 9:30 cup of coffee in me before a few minutes took a breath without humans, smaller humans before diving into stuff. Why don't we set would 9 uh yeah, I want to give you some space between subcommittee meetings. So would 9:00 a.m. on the 18th work? I don't want us to get too um I don't want to like let a whole month go by before we're looking at our process. So I'd like to like have a some more frequent meetings now to set everything up and then maybe move back to >> You said in May? >> Yes. May 18th. Yeah, that would work. >> 9:00 a.m. Monday, May 18th. >> Yeah, that's >> all right. That will be
063our next >> uh subcommittee meeting for this and um I can come with just like a draft and it would it's basically going to be a copy of what I need for the superintendent search and then we can review that together. >> Are we going to be in person or are we still going to be remote? >> I think remote is probably fine for these. Okay. >> Okay. It was just only today I wasn't able to be there in person. >> I say be cozy in your home. Get your coffee in here or be cozy wherever you are. >> Okay. >> Um All right. So, I will schedule that with Becky. I will come with a draft of this uh nomination form for soliciting additional people um and be able to communicate out to the
064world like here's the process that we're going to follow. Here's our timeline. and I can come up with drafts of that as well that we can react to um as a group. >> So, are there any other items that you would like to see on that agenda for the 18th? I can get this from >> maybe not for the 18th, but I'd love to have a presentation or a meeting um with the building facilities manager, but I think that our I think left. [clears throat] So, I'm not sure who the new person is or if they've been onboarded. >> They are hiring. They have not actually they're like still in the soliciting applications and interview phase. So, we don't have a facilities person just yet. Okay. And whoever comes on, it's going to take them
065a while to understand all the things. So maybe this is like a future item like in six months or so given the situation unless like >> still around and interested and capable. >> I wouldn't count on it. >> Okay. Like I mean like not to say that he's not interested and certainly he's capable, but once someone goes and starts working for another district, they very rarely want to come and >> Yeah, that's what I meant by capable. Like maybe he's just not here or he's like >> I mean I don't think it would hurt to ask him. >> Yeah, maybe just be willing to like do a little exit of like this is where our buildings stand now. It would be nice to know like his take because >> do we know when his last
066day was or is >> it's sometime this month? I don't think it's happened yet, but it's not. I don't believe it's May 30th. Um >> I don't think it would hurt to ask him or even if he could just do a little write up for us possibly. >> Yeah, that would be great. He's been so helpful in the past. So, but I don't I didn't want to like interfere with his his future whatever he's doing. like I don't want to impose or ask him to do something when he's on his way out. But if he has like um information that he's submitting as his like >> he also has an assistant too. >> Yeah. >> He has like someone that works with him as well. We might be able to poach. >> Okay. Yeah. It
067would just be great to see where we are now >> or in six months see where we are when the new person comes on and has had a chance to digest. No, [clears throat] it's it's sad that he's leaving us and I wish him the best, but I'd also like some info. >> I mean, in a lot of our >> it throughout the years and he's, you know, really like kept everything going. So, and we have the Google Docs from past >> um tours and I think you guys added to the you guys continued to build on the old one that we had. Did you or did you make a new one? >> I don't know if we made a new one. we either added on or had them as handwritten notes that we need
068to transcribe into a Google doc. >> Yeah. Put this stuff in there. And like maybe that's also something that we should do as as the subcommittee is like make that Google doc functional [snorts] >> functional and public. Yeah. So that people can see what we've seen on the tours and what we've assessed as being an issue and then check off the things when they're fixed. Mhm. [clears throat] >> You know, because there's the things that he knows about and the things that parents see and the things that we see and all that. >> Okay. Any other future items that you want to name? I know we had talked about like either getting an MSBA person or at least reviewing the presentation. >> Um, MSBA some sort of information from the MSBA about what is possible
069in reach would be great. It >> would also be really great to find out >> the actuality of the energy buildings and who would give us that information. Would that be the facilities? >> I think it's on the MSDA website >> of our buildings. >> On the Greenfield City website, there is a place where we can find the actual energy usage. >> Oh, okay. Yep. [clears throat] >> And on the MSBA website, there is um information on there, too. >> Okay. Okay. >> Because I I was in the meeting and I was like, "Oh, where do I even find like I didn't know what the rating scale was for our building." >> Um and the only one again that's not on there is ADL. And I was curious why that wasn't on there. And that's
070when I asked the question. They were like, "Yeah, standalone preschools don't qualify for any of our grant funding." >> That's fascinating to me. >> That's really I'm really glad you found that out. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, >> um, well, we're talking like 10 years. We've I've been hearing about these windows and gutters at AAL and I'm always like, why have they why is it 10 years and we haven't, you know, repainted and puttied them or fixed the gutter system and now, you know, then I have >> I think that we finally got some capital money for at least the wind like painting. >> Yes, that's what it needs is painting, scraping and painting. [snorts] >> Yeah. to seal it back up. >> But yeah, on their website on MSBA, sorry, I'm learning all these
071acronyms. >> Um, it does say I'm on my phone doing it, by the way. Um, it does give you like our rating system. If you go to your school, I think we're in we're in region one, I believe. Yeah, region one. You go to Greenfield and it says it'll tell you like all the projects they've done for our schools, too. So, they did a green repair at four corners. Um, but it doesn't give me the date, which I find odd. Says Federal Street School, Green River, and it says the high school. It says the type of project was a core problem. So, I'm assuming that would be the high school. That may have been our Yeah, the old high school because >> that may have been the new high. Could have been the new high
072school because it says like $65 million. >> Oh, yeah. That would be the new high school then. >> And then it says accelerated because there's also like the accelerated repairs >> we can apply for with them, too. But everything is due January 12th. >> Yeah. All that stuff is the beginning of the year. And when the when the like boiler was having problems at the high school, I talked to Kumifford who jumped on the Zoom with the mayor and they all looked at the um accelerated repair. But again, like we don't qualify if it's all fossil fuels, >> right? >> Or it's like a combination of age like >> Well, well, the accelerated repair is the accelerated heat repair was windows and doors. uh heat pumps >> and I think it I know you're saying
073it wasn't furnaces but that's not what it there was one more thing that did qualify roof >> if it uses natural gas or if it uses like not oil you know then it probably qualifies >> so it does give a list but it doesn't give a date about when it was completed even though it says estimation building completed date on their little website it doesn't actually show that But it does show we had um and it I guess the accelerated repair wasn't open for on the back is the price. >> Um the accelerated repair wasn't open this year. >> Who knows? >> I think that's what they said in the presentation, but it will be open again. >> Okay. >> But again, you can't like you can't like count on when the furnace is going
074to break, you know? You can't count on Right. >> Yeah. These would be sort of like long-term things that maybe we've had in the hopper for a while that can't couldn't like muster the resources to do. But >> yeah, >> I'm not sure if we have anything that fits quite that bill right now. >> Again, roofs, windows, which I know the windows on Federal Street just got done. >> Uh Newton I know had a new roof put on not that long ago. >> Long ago. Yeah. >> Um besides like the skylight leaking, which is a normal occurrence for every household that has skylights. Um, >> it's saying that four corners had something done too, but I don't know exactly. >> It's possible that they >> the what? >> Fencing. >> Green repair. >> No, but
075they may have had um >> their roof as well because the mushroom leaks the the little hallway between the mushroom and the main building. >> Wouldn't the fence fall under the wreck department? because the recck department's in charge of any exterior items. >> I don't know, but I remember that they were going to do the fence at Four Corners and then they found fencing left over at Newton and they brought it to Four Corners. Like it's all in that dock. Melissa, we got to get you um connected to the dock. >> Just if you have access to it, do you want to just share it with with her? >> Yeah, I'll share it with you. >> Thank you. >> Um and also access to it. It should it should really should be public. There are
076so many things that really should be public >> and we're working on it. [clears throat] Luckily, we've got three very like let's make it publicminded individuals uh on this meeting right now. So, um >> yeah, I think the more we make thing the public aware, the better off we'll be. >> Yeah. The more transparent we are, like the easier it is for us to just be like, you know, everything that we know, you know. Um okay, I'm conscious of the fact that we scheduled this for an hour. We're now 4 minutes past that and I don't want to keep you all too much longer. I know you both have a lot of stuff to do every day. >> Um, >> any last thoughts, questions? >> Do we need We We're all good that we're meeting
077in two weeks and we're going to review the pro like we're going to actually get the things in place that we need to start recruiting people. [laughter] >> You have one of these already? >> I feel good about it. >> Great. >> Yes. Great. >> All right, then. I I'm making a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All right. Got to say, uh, member Deniv, >> yes. >> I'm a Yes. Member Webb. >> Yes. >> All right. We are adjourned at 11:35 a.m. Thank you both so much. And I will see you in a couple of weeks. I'll see you before then. I'll see you next week for the regular meeting. Bye.