Virtual Meeting of the Facilities Committee Wednesday, March 5

001okay we are live all right good evening this is um committee meeting facilities committee meeting committee meeting um today's Wednesday March 5th and it's 5503 um I'm Jennifer perz committee chair uh we have Andre Woodson and Albert benan as committee members also on the call we have um board members Robert Traer Joseph Civic um Marissa Marissa esta Jimenez Willie Medina I think I have all the board members um all right so we'll get started um today's agenda the first item um we have the approval of meeting minutes from February 12 2025 is move Mr Benham Mr Benham moves that I'll second it is there any discussion on that all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions all right those pass um next we have a presentation on the food and nutrition services I

002believe Mr steel or Mr Garcia is gonna leave that I'll kick it off and then I'm gonna turn it over to Mr steel good evening um this evening you're going to get a thorough overview of the food and nutrition operation uh Mr steel has um created a PowerPoint that we're going to go through um we reserve questions till the end that'll be great so with that said you know there's been a great partnership between facilities and and food and nutrition services uh We've unified our uh some of our platforms technology wise in terms of work orders training for custodians training for staff um you know onsign inspections the same inspections that we do every day our head custodians um you know they've implemented something similar in their kitchen so you know we're trying to have

003a more uniform approach to how we report out to everyone and you'll get a sense of all of that as Mr Steele starts to present so with that said K if you can take over thank you George good evening everyone can everyone see my screen yes okay perfect all right so as George mentioned I'm going to give you a brief slightly detailed overview of our new nutrition services so we are one Department with five sub departments working together to ensure all meals are served and that is split between our management team which is in the school lunch District our production kitchen that prepares the meals shipping and receiving that handles all of our ordering finance and payroll that handles the office maintenance and repair for all of our on-site equipment equipment as George mentioned that

004we do have a new partnership in facilities and that increases that helps with the communication between Nutrition department and facilities and it played a key role for us because with fmx we were able to add QR codes to all of our equipment and it gave us the ability to transfer everything and keep track of all of our purchases and um repairs um so we are under a rebuild and you know with rebuilds there's challenges and changes so a lot of the challenges some of the challenges that we've experienced were um exhaust system failures in most of the schools due to um poor handling um the are refrigeration system at the nutrition center is from the 1970s as you can see in this photo this is a water tower that is costing us a lot of

005money in water bills just because of um it has to con constantly use water to cool down the systems fortunately we're working on getting this completely renovated but this is what we were working with to feed the students we also had to deal with broken packaging machines that were 25 years old it broke down daily so we we got in new packing machines in December of 2023 that way we can prepare meals at a lower cost because we had to purchase meals that at a higher cost that were prepackaged just to keep up with the volume and as you can see from the video this is from our new machines and this is a orange chicken and fried rice so this is actually pumping the sauces for the 15 to 17,000 meals that we're preparing

006daily some other challenges were were breakfast in the classroom as you can see from the data it's a lot of classrooms a lot of meals to deliver daily and prior to my arrival they were delivering meals in these green baskets that's milk hot food and no one paid attention to it that's not okay so we removed all the shopping baskets and replaced it with insulated bags this can at least help keep the contamination out and um help with the transportation because there are some schools without elevators and the cafeteria staff they got to carry these baskets up the stairs this doesn't alleviate the problem but it does help a little bit so for the future we plan to Pilot some breakfast vending machines for Last Chance breakfast and then hopefully use that to take the

007load off of the staff while delivering breakfast to the schools without elevators this would also be a part of the free lunch and with our with our um Titan program we can implement it where they can actually just go to the machines and get their breakfast some goals that we are working on in Nutrition department in our rebuild is to promote a positive culture for mutual respect um we are organizing our team building activities to strengthen our relationships we're uring that the environment that we have is supportive we're training and developing our team our staff our management team doing quarterly trainings behavioral assessments we're really trying to bring to embrace our staff my management team and I we're a fairly new management team and we understand what it what the staff they're going through and

008we also understand that we bear the weight of the past and we're trying our best to ensure that everything is working out for the best for the best and ensure that students are receiving the best quality meal um we focus on a lot of recognition we even play um some examples are safety bingo that's a game that recognizes safety where as long as every school is there's no incidents no slips no Falls no Cuts we we put out a bingo number if anyone falls down to management we reset the game some more goals are to enhance our breakfast lunch program obviously every year we just have to get better we take that feedback and we try to um promote better um give better food to the students stents we're hoping to start some cooking at

009elementary schools and we are implementing some new Promotional and special events to draw attention to meals our requirements for meals to be reimbursable is offer versus serve and we have to follow some strict guidelines to ensure that we can feed the students so this is just an example breakfast three out of four of the components lunch three out of five whole grains must be whole grain so sometimes it may be misunderstood why we're doing certain things or why we're serving whole grain pasta but the only way to make sure these meals are free and re and reimbursable is to follow these rules and then if you look at the table it's showing by June 2027 we have to reduce our sodium limits for for the week so that can also play into why you know

010some students will complain say well there's no flavor in the food well to make sure that the meals are you know safe we have to reduce our sodium but it is things we are working on we're increasing our spices and herbs try to bring in some non sodium items to really increase the meals flavor so my first year I identified our inconsistencies I took the year to review the cafeterias taste the food look to see what was thrown in the garbage I proposed a plan on how we can make some changes and that included cafeteria kitchen renovations um standard changes and we started in my second year so my second year we eliminated some items formed meat patties we added some rice and pasta dishes reduced some of those meals that were just individually packaged

011and and purchased Frozen We eliminated Frozen sandwich as the first option we do keep them as backup meals but I did not agree with that being the first option for a sandwich we should make them fresh we included vegetarian vegan options we added we took that data from that year and moved on to this school year and added items back that the students missed and we updated new items added whole muscle chicken what is whole muscle chicken a form chicken patty as you can see they're all uniform shaped a whole muscle chicken patty they're not all shaped the same but it's a fresh piece of chicken that wasn't cut grounded up and reformed into a Patty so we're we're trying to give the students a better quality food so right here is a chart of

012meal served by year we increased our meals the second year I Was Here by 148,000 and as of January of 2025 we're already at two over 2 million meals this next initiative here is one of my um passions because I do not like paper and last school year we didn't spend any money on computer paper I made sure we use the backs in every single piece of color paper before we before we purchased paper I eliminated all styrofoam I was told that the garbage is burnt anyway and I said I did not care we're going compostable and we've achieved 85% compostable compostable paper um down to our breakfast bags paper bags and um serving trays all compostable and recyclable my next initiative was cafeteria enhancements as you can see this was Columbus school and I

013I chose one the school because I wanted to show you that we're not picking just schools in the better part of Bridgeport we're picking every school to to to change and this was Columbus school as you can see there's nothing keeping this food hot there's nothing keeping anything cold and the second picture you can see we added some serving lines and displays this way the students can actually enjoy their food take their food themselves we're not serving food from milk boxes anymore we're actually using a Sleek merchandiser in all of our schools we completed our complete renovation at Caesar Bala and Central High School this was batala before as you can see it's still nice but it could be better this was the change we added merchandisers as you can see the milk looks better

014the fruit looks better we added some hot display so we can service more students in a shorter period of time this was Central High School we could not serve the amount of students at Central we renovated this over spring break in a week and we created this it's an all grab and Go Station custom built to refill all of the food from the back of the kitchen this way we can feed 450 students in 20 minutes because you're not waiting in line asking for what you need everything is all lined up and you just have to walk in and grab and this is a hot food serving station and as you can see it's filled from the back and behind it that's the kitchen in 2024 we remodeled blackham School built a new walk-in for

015the cafeterias upgraded the floors um high schools we introduced the slushie machine the slushy machine is a big hit it's actually 100% fruit juice with no additives into it and then we remodeled Beardsley School Beardsley School the floor was a little messed up and as you can see the serving line was a little outdated we updated it added new systems added new machines and really uplifted it a little bit more we even fixed the floor for 2025 if you haven't heard yesterday we launched our touchless salad bar system at Fair child wheeler we plan to launch this in the other high schools by the fall and I even have it on the plans for the new back future cafeteria enhancements we want to Rebrand to Child Nutrition cafes we're reached out to principles asking for

016Logos school colors we want brand identity we want to communicate we want to work with Communications to get the word out as you can see this is the list of schools that we're working on upgrading and really giving the cafeterias a new life with that we're also going to be upgrading the cafeteria table at some schools some schools that have newer tables depending on how things go we can we're planning on repurposing those tables we're not going to let anything go to waste this is an example of high Horizons sample of Marin s a sample of batala and then this is a sample of Tisdale with uh cafeteria table plans we reached out to Dr worthy and she had sent us the logos and the colors and this was the result that she loved and

017as we're getting our um images back we're reaching out to the principles asking their feedback just to ensure that you know the entire Community is involved in this project this is a sample of Central High School of what we're going to do we even took into consideration um custodians they mentioned that the high schools they have to pull out the hairs and it's really difficult to clean so we really thought about how can we incorporate these new tables to ensure that they can just lift up and that everyone is and everyone in facilities and nutrition were working together even these high tops the chairs all lift up and fold in some technology advance advance enhancements we've done we've implemented a department wide software called Titan that that software we can order through our shipping Department

018receives food through Titan it updates our inventory automatically our menu is created using those items purchased the school cafeterias use Titan to plan their meals for the month Titan can convert those planned meals into an order for each cafeteria Titan converts those orders into deliveries for our drivers and then we take all of those that information and we can use it to plan the menu to see what is liked what has been thrown in the garbage we're implementing digital signage I don't know if you've seen at the train station or at a grocery store those really tall digital screens so we're going to implement those in actually all of the schools that way we can update the signage whenever we need to give some menu information and some schools we may change the menu this

019way we can update that in all the nutritionals on the fly from the nutrition center we're also implementing POS systems at all the elementary schools removing moving away from that clicker system and really getting all of our meals recorded digitally so the Nutrition department we're working really really hard to ensure that we're doing the right thing by the state by this and by the students and we couldn't do it without the cafeteria staff we couldn't do it without the drivers the warehousemen the the management team and we're we're being noticed this is an article from last July where we were recognized for being an upand cominging School District when we went to the school nutrition show in Boston um they mentioned how Bridgeport is one of the largest school districts in Connecticut and that we

020are really changing what we're doing for the students so I I'm really happy to to be here and I'm thank you to the board and George and to the Nutrition department staff the end thank you Mr steel this is um that was really a great presentation and want to thank your staff and um the whole Nutrition department for the work you're doing um I'll take any questions from uh committee members committee Members First um Mr benan do you have any questions yes thank you madam shair um hello how's everyone um I a question before you do this change um how was your budget Mr still before you do the change and how much is the differ between now you spend all this change look amazing I like it of course when it's about kids I

021don't complain and I don't see the you know about the money but want to know what was the budget before you spend this and now how much has it different now fortunately we've increased meals which helped balance that budget um when I arrived there was a previous um Department goal where they had $2 million issued for these changes so when I arrived the money was there and I had to pick up well I had to start the plan there was just a request for the funds so that's when I spent the first year to identify what was wrong before I just made any just drastic changes and do you have other the breakdown before and after how much you spend in each school you know the whatever you know change right now the breakdown how

022much you spend in each School the change um yes I can gather that and send that out yeah we appreciate that um I have one question but let me think about it so sure now question for now Mr thank you Mr Woodson I yes I have a quick question um I had um spoke to Dr Avery a couple of uh weeks ago and asked him about you know about his uh what what he thought about increasing the time for the breakfast program what do what do you think about that do you think that' help increase the participation I think we would have to I don't think it would increase the participation because most of the breakfast that we serve go directly to the classroom and um I think it would if the breakfast time would

023increase I think that would take away from the time to prepare for lunch and I wouldn't want to cause that kind of issue but I think I think if we had more of no I think it's fine I think it wouldn't change the numbers at all because we also do give Last Chance breakfast okay okay I'm just checking on that because like I said you know early I I I was just you know I'm just kind of um you know I was just a little Disturbed when I heard that um meeting with the governor and a couple of teachers had mentioned about about students coming to school hungry and I don't even I don't I don't know how they come to school I I mean I I'm not I'm not speculating I'm not when I

024know stuff does happen but it was just making me wonder why the kids come to school hungry and they and they mentioned how they were hungry maybe going home from school so I was just running I was asking and inquired with Dr Avery maybe we could try to get like a see we were doing I know previous superintendent how was trying to implement like a dinner program so you know I'm not you know I know the the the the budget is under uh a lot of scrutiny right now so I'm not pushing for a dinner program but you know if if uh you know anything that we could do to to to to keep the kids healthy and to maybe increase attendance in school because you know if kids know they getting a good hot

025healthy meal that that will help increase attendance and stuff like that so you know anything that we can do far as increasing times or or you know is do you do you think there's anything we can do that'll help uh uh uh you know make it easier or you know just make sure that kids aren't coming to school hungry or going going through the day hungry and leaving school hungry do you think there's anything we can do about that well one of my plans to to fight that issue was going to be to implement a vending machine at schools with um High um latenesses for breakfast because then we will be able to offer Last Chance breakfast yeah yeah any anything that we can do because that you know that that help increase attendance plus

026like you said you already I I commend you're doing a great job I seen I had read the article too that you had seen so that was a good you know your your staff and everybody else are doing a great job just want to commend you on you guys on that so thank you thank you Dr Avery Mr Wilson I we are we just had that conversation with staff this morning we we're going to be uh surveying the parents and students as well to kind of see if there's you know their thoughts about you know the timing of the breakfast uh and maybe looking for additional opportunity for them to give us some input as as to how and what we can do to you know provide a little bit more time for them to

027have that that that that breakfast in the morning so hopefully those results will come in you know uh pretty quickly as well so again and we are looking at surveying to try to get some okay I appreciate that Dr ay thank you all right Mrs sha himz good afternoon um first I wanted to say thank you so much for um the Nutritional Center I saw you guys on the news yesterday super excited all of this is happening in our dis in our district um I did have a question about um food waste you briefly mentioned it that you're tracking it through um hopefully mobile applications um and I wanted to know if there is any food waste taking place if there are opportunities for local food pantries or for like the Bridgeport rescue mission to

028come into the school and pick those up to minimize the amount of food waste that um is happening um at the nutrition center level we we do not have any food waste um in the school level our meals are really served through the amount of students that we're feeding and they usually will keep a good record of it um I would have to look into how to do that but I can get back to you thank you Mrs Cal yes if you're doing again um couple of quick questions you mentioned changing over from styrofoam to cardboard compostables is there a cost difference between the two yes there was a cost difference um styrofoam is about a penny the um compostable containers are usually about 2 and A2 cents but we've also reduced the amount of

029meal some of our schools were actually Incorporated uh more um plastic and not plastic but um re reusable trays so we we balanced that out between the schools instead of everyone using all styrofoam some schools we actually Incorporated dis dish machines so they're washing their trays and reusing them so that's how we're we're balancing the two the larger schools they'll use the composable trays in high schools awesome thank you and I just ask I'm about about the fiscal stuff um yeah um I'm not too concerned about the extra cost is balanced out and any cost just so everybody realizes any cost within the food and nutrition center does not hit the operating budget so if he's spending within his budget he's not impacting the students learning your this and also my next question has to

030do with the vending machine the vending machine um automated salad bar what's the name of that thing again I'm sorry it's a volrath serw SE Vu okay now I got I got a question about um costs and maintenance of yes because the main it looks like it might be a little more labor intensive than the traditional methods of serving salad no it's about the same it's actually a lot easier because it's a contained unit and we have an onsite um maintenance technician who handles Food Service Repairs as far as cleaning it out every day um like the cheese and everything would be theeg leftover cheese be thrown away each each container like got to be cleaned separately and then the Noz yes they do have to be cleaned separately but we also have um backup

031containers and that act that machine actually is a refrigerator so it keeps everything cold so you can actually keep it in overnight it has a it has a lock and it has a digital thermometer that let you know um what's wrong or if anything happens to the machine awesome thank you and as far as cost the machine cost 40,000 which is actually similar to the price of a traditional salad bar that has to be fabricated and built into the ground and then you have to purchase all of the pieces to build the salad bar and unit this was just one piece and it takes up less space and this brings up the next question did this come before the board for approval a contract of $40,000 yes it came last year when I um asked

032to go out to bid for um Food Service items so we actually used our um what is that one we used our equipment contract yeah and I was embodied within the whole food and nutrition things we approved in was it January it was one in January and one the year before because we also came out the year before with the um with approval to purchase new food service equipment that was with the initial $2 million when I started right awesome yeah yeah I asked like hundreds of things that come across us and you're aware of the current situation I just so it's a mix of different um different times I've came to the board and done things it's just been the timeline to get things done sometimes overlaps all right thank you all right I

033don't see any other hands uh Mr Garcia I just wanted to take the the time to really thank Ki and what he's doing the management team they're very new they're all they haven't been with the city for more than three years they've been doing an admirable job at trying to change the landscape this is exactly what we need we need disruption we need to change what we're doing um you know and this is a perfect example we're balancing cost along with Innovation and I tip my hat to the whole management team into the entire staff for working through this you know everything comes with a little bit of heartache and pain and and and changing and how we operate but at the end of the day it's all about ensuring that the students have a

034lunch program that they can feel good about so I'm excited for where we are and I can't wait to see where we end up thank you um uh Mr cic your hand is still up I'm go to Mr Medina did you call him or me you Mr Rina okay how you doing thank you Mr steel thank you everyone for presenting thank you madam here uh question uh do we also I believe I know the answer but I wanted to put it on the record we also Supply uh uh food for the after school programs correct correct we provide school we provide a supper program for Lighthouse but we can supply any um after school program a Supper meal as long as we receive a roster from that program yeah because I don't know if I

035saw anything as far as numbers or how many meals are are being used or utilized by the lighthouse programs and what kind of meals do they get like can you give me an example um they'll get similar meals um similar lunch meals like the grilled cheeses popcorn chicken um meatball subs we we usually incorporate the Supper meal as similar as the lunch meal um and for for supper num for meals um last school year we served 235,000 meals so I'm anticipating that we're going to exceed our numbers for breakfast lunch and supper from last year and how does that work against our budget that uh affect our overall when we have an increase or is it that's no the food and nutrition Department it we we can only spend what we receive so as we

036receive the funds from our meal reimbursements That's How we'll operate so if there is a um if we're if we lose numbers then we would have to reconsider how we're going to um serve meals or operate but we're trending in the right direction great also just for clarity or just for my entain myself with uh information here so in a week um how is the diverse on the meals like Monday through Friday are the kids in the after school getting the same meals are they getting five different meal meal s are they you know choices or how is that work in the after school program the after school program they get five different meals they're not get they they don't receive the same thing every day and for the meals we have to follow a

037certain guideline when planning the menu so even for our vegetables we we can't serve baby carrots and juice all week we can only serve juice once a week and uh we'll have to Surf a green vegetable a red vegetable and other a starchy vegetable so even fries are considered a vegetable we can't use that every day as a vegetable or else it wouldn't count as a meal okay so Friday they're not getting the same meal twice during the week they're not getting the same thing like if they sandwiches they're not on Thursday it's not that's not happen no that's not how it happens I I'm not sure how we we can you we'll do chick popcorn chicken and then we'll do a a chicken teriyaki or general sou chicken so we'll do maybe a multiple

038chicken items in the week but it wouldn't be the same thing back to back got you thank you thank you um okay I had another question but had some answers already but thank you very much Mr tror one last I look forward to having lunch with you at one of the schools or multiple schools yes uh thank you for your report Mr steel um I I had a couple of questions you you didn't mention but I'm assuming we still do um snacks in the classroom we offer fresh fruit in the classroom from a fresh F vegetable Grant so the four four times a week the students will receive um berries fresh fruit um carrot sticks yeah but there's no yes that's so that's so the answer is yes yes but you just said four times

039a week not five no because the grant how the grant works we have to it's four times a week based on the delivery is that at all grade levels or just elementary the through grade eight yes um yeah can pre grade eight yeah um and then I know that I'm asking this because I was a fourth fifth grade teacher um we also at blackham we used to have there was a a small group very small group of students who got food before on Friday afternoon is that a a a standard program or was that just something that was being done at blackham I'm not sure H that was probably before my time I think but uh I could it was well it was well before your time I'm just saying on Friday afternoon the security

040guard would go around God Rest his soul he's not here anymore um and hand out I don't know a limited number of meal meal pack you know bags for students that we know needed food for the for the weekend and I didn't know whether that was an official program or an unofficial program I would believe that's an unofficial program but I can look into it okay so well if you don't know about it I'm assuming it was something it was done unofficially by the good people in that school who knew about kids that needed food for the weekend thank you thank you thank you for your report thank you for the presentation we're gonna move on to the um discussion of possible referral to the full board for yes I was having my hands up

041right oh sorry I didn't see you go ahead I have a question for uh Mr Mr still I have a question because I got concerned from parents the student they don't want to eat the food from the cafeteria they can bring their own food from the home whatever parent you know um make for for the student yes yes okay I'm ask you because I don't like some teachers or staff or cafet say oh you're not allowed to bring the food from outside if the student they cannot eat that they don't like the food from the cafeteria we have to respect that um for religion or allergy or they don't like it so I want that message you send it out to all your cafeteria I know Dr every will send it to the all the

042staff the students allowed to bring the food from home so that's why I want to do that for the record yes they are allowed and um that's not something that I can that's not something that I would not allow so I'll just ensure that the staff knows that anyone can bring their own meals yeah and c I know that um Mr Woodson say something I Believe Miss too about wasting the food we still have that same policy whatever food is that the student they don't take it we cannot allow to give it to rescue you know rescue you know Pantry or whatever or something like that they had to waste it we had to throw it away mandatory anyway I would have to look into that but it I would suggest that it could be

043a safety concern because if someone did get sick it the food did come from us no I understand that understand and my last question for you is and as about the budget and it's you Department let's see you got cafeteria the cafeteria one that's the way I call and you got cafeteria 2 if the cafeteria one didn't don't come and the cafeteria 2 do the job of cafeteria one they will get paid the same one or they get paid what the cafeteria to did the job you got my point you said the cafet if the cafeteria one is in there and the cafeteria the cafeteria the cafeteria makes more than the one exactly and cafeteria one is cover cafeteria 2 I believe that cafeteria okay yes in their contract if a cafeteria 2 is out

044the most senior cafeteria one will take on that role but they will get pay what C to was doing it right yes for the for their out for the work done yes that's contractual and and there's several different contracts that we have to deal with in nutrition um but yeah we we we we um operate by the governance of whatever contract that employee is uh working on there okay I just want to clarify for thank you Mr gra more question Madame thank you all right um Mr esta Jimenez I just have a quick comment um about potential liability issues and providing food that would go to waste rather and donating them we can um there are waivers that can be signed so for example if a pantry was to go to a school and pick

045up any food that was going to be thrown away they can sign a waiver um to hold Bridgeport Public Schools um free harm lless of of any um of any harm or you know to mitigate that liability issue so I just wanted to kind throw that out there as a potential solution to that issue thank you we'll look into that thank you all right the next item is discussion of possible referral to the full board um approval of the nutrition center bread contract so Mr banan well we haven't even seen the contract it's not in so I wanted to print that up I didn't see it in the package I just wanted to um let you know you're on mute Mr steel would you like me I I'll send it right now I thought that

046came [Music] from the attorney and I'm going to put it in the chat um you could can you um I or email it to you yeah email we don't do the chat on the call okay [Music] okay I sent it over to you I have yet but um there we go all right I'll forward it to the board now like you I guess you can start I'll email it to everybody on right now well I'm reaching well I'm reaching out to the board for approval of this contract to go to the full board for our food and nutrition bre um bread purchases um we recently went back out to bid for bread companies um we had one bidder they and we want to award them the award letter so we can start purchasing bread so

047the contract was is just our new terms of agreement with shav's Bakery all right I'm sending it now to the board Mr benan yeah um what was it um sorry because my connection is getting um slow uh you said he going to send some contract or something to approve it right yep it should be coming into your inbox now okay but do we have that uh I know you send that just to receive it but we never received that before right the meeting no that just came to us all right so mad whatever sprad I don't like to prove something I don't see it and I don't want to read it before because you know I don't want things get um off of Miss State I know he doing a good job but I prefer

048to see the contract first and read it to be sure everything is correct because lot things a l moment you guys know I don't work like that I don't that things a moment so that's my subject and that's our apologies that was a miscue um we thought the attorneys were going to forward that over can I ask you Mr Garcia what's the time um when do we need this approved by uh K we're good for now correct we can wait till uh yes we can wait until the next meeting I'm still we're it's no but it's all right so my next meeting is first week of April the next facilities committee yes that's fine because we have um the contracts for a year and a half okay so we had the time you know I'm

049sorry but I like to read you know um is there a motion then Mr benan I have a question first yes go ahead um is this contract um more or less than the existing contract it is less than the existing contract um and it would take effect you said it's for a year and a half it would take effect uh it would take effect from the day was um issued so right after that meeting and purchasing yes for a year and a half yes so it would not be retroactive it would be effective immediately upon approval correct okay and you said there was only one bidder chobs Bakery yes okay I have no objection to waiting till the next meeting there's no urgency that I can is there a motion from the uh committee but

050was a motion sorry are you tbling it yeah table Yeah table I like to table um contract on T next um facility meeting I'll second that um Mr col what's your question is it uh yeah since it's a motion it's it's related to the motion um T has the next the next the board meetings on Monday and it appears that we'll be able to capture an immediate savings um and we're going to have to bring it back to the full board anyway would it be objectionable for us to take the time over the weekend to read it and bring any questions to the full board on Monday since it's got to go there anyway so it's not to tie up the committee because there's a there's a lot of things that this committee needs to

051be doing in the near future I'm just putting I don't have a vote I'll take back my second so I don't know Mr benan do you want to like uh just table it for you could take back your t uh your motion and we could just put it on the next board meeting yeah I I agree with that uh yeah so you don't take things you know we have a lot of things to do and yeah I'll remove my motion so we can put it in the next worldation meeting so what's your what's your new motion let's let's make it correct here okay I'm making motion to take um please correct me I'm taking motion to um add the contract of Nutri Center to the N publication added in agenda are you okay with that

052I'm good with that to second that um all in favor I I any opposed okay um any exceptions I forgot that one all right so we we'll just um just take a look it be in your packet we'll put on the on the uh agenda for the regular board meeting um I turn sorry the next item on the agenda is um discussion and possible referral to the full Board of the facil master plan um this is um just uh we we had the informational sessions that came out the past week um and so so this is um now time for us to kind of go through what those recommendations are and and I know Mr Garcia is going to um think Mr Garcia and Mr craw are going to kind of uh go over some

053things with us give us some additional information um at this point you know we're we're excited to have both um the facilities master plan and the host of recommendations out um you know those recommendations are framework for the board to be able to at least have some a framework to work from um they're not none of them are set in stone obviously we have to get the community's um involvement uh you know we have had thought exchange up we've had over 1500 interactions on thought exchange so we're quering that information so this is the beginning of the conversation um more than anything this is about all of us working together as a singular voice ensuring that we come up with a strategic plan on how we move forward in the school district um you know

054it's great that we're going to be able to do this with facts and data and we're excited about the the potential of what's to come uh PJ I'm not sure if you have anything to add and we do have um MP planning here if there's any questions uh that have uh come out of the two informational sessions good evening yeah just just really quick um part of uh our planning uh you know started back in July so we we did we put a lot of time uh George's team my team uh both MP planning and um Studio Jade um to go through buildings walk through schools uh make sure that we can give you a comprehensive package so that you can take a look at this package and um look at what uh the companies

055um have come up with and from that point we felt that with having both companies come in and go through this it would give us an idea and a plan for the next 10 years next 15 years whatever it may be to look at some of those um pain points um and to also look at some of those schools that um we have been um keeping up on and doing a really good job with um I'd like to thank MP planning as well as um Studio Jade for all the work that they put into this um it's been a daunting task for uh the team that has been involved with this um I'd like to just make a note that pretty much uh we've been meeting once a week uh with um MP planning and

056with Studio J to go through updates and go through um uh recommendations as far as data that they needed um looking at um uh this point of having a small team that was um put together um to bring in those uh ideas Andor those um programs that were happening in the district a lot of what we found is that when we actually broke down this study and we took a look at where we had different programs um we were enlightened to see that programs were placed in certain quadrants that we've never really looked at before the study to say hey wait a minute how come there is a certain number of programs in this area compared to another area so um with the team with uh MP planning and with Studio Jade I'd like to

057just thank them in advance uh for all the hard work and George's team and Dr Avery um and the team that was on those meetings um once a week um to put together and help uh get this plan out so that the board community members um city and everybody else that was involved could take a look at the finding from the um from the documents any questions so I'll take committee questions first committee members um Mr Woodson do you have questions yes I have a quick question I know like a couple of weeks ago we had approved um we had made a couple appr approvals for elevators in certain buildings and um Dumar Dumar was one of the elevators think that we approve one of the building we approve elevators for do do you think

058it's do you think it's a good good idea to move forward with that um renovation you know saying that seeing that the building know maybe uh maybe uh shut down or you know changed changed uh change the the you know change the you know the situation inside of the building do you think it's still a good idea to get that elevator there absolutely it's a regulatory requirement um it's Ada uh right now we're having issues we can't get parts so you know it's it's it behooves us to go ahead and and and make that uh that repair or that replacement in in that instance um you know once again all of the recommendation that uh MP plan and put in front of the board or recommendations you guys may decide to go in different directions

059um you know it's just a framework but the capital work that we have in front of us is diely needed and we've got to execute we've already got these things uh scheduled out and planned out since our last meeting when you guys give us the approval we've got all the documents signed we've already created schedules with the company so we're ready to go this will be a very busy summer we're going to take advantage of shutdowns um but you know the district is going to be better for it okay thank you Mr benam no I don't have no question at this moment thank you yeah I also want to reiterate what Mr Garcia said that this is this is just these are recommendations and it's going to be our job to really decide and look

060at the the data and and and look at um and also hear from the community on on what the direction uh direction we should go in and so um I just want to reiterate that part um uh me take questions Mrs sh JZ um so I want to say I've I reviewed and saw all the YouTube videos and I have to say like the contractors um they did an amazing job putting all this information together in a very concise and comprehensive way and I really appreciate that so definitely Kudos um to them for that cuz I I know it's it must have taken a very long time but I do have a series of questions um around the facilities master plan um the very first question is around a benefit cost analysis so I did

061see that we have potential savings however we I don't believe I saw the cost associated with it um so in order to make a good financial decision we should truly have the comparison of both to make sure that we're making a DEC an informed decision to secure that we do get savings from the projects that are being proposed is is that something that you guys are currently working on um I believe there's elements of that in the report um the more detailed report may have even more information on that for instance you know recommendation for new construction it's cost avoidance in terms of um buildings that may be replaced um you know not having to expend the dollars that are in the FCA which is the the facilities condition assessment um you know understanding that

062you know we we get 80% reimbursement on school construction so you know we're for instance if uh building needs $50 million worth of repairs and we decide we want to build a new building that's 125 million we're paying 20% of that you know which is 25 million and we're getting a new building so there's there's a host of that and I think those are the details that over time we'll be working through uh what I like to do is have a placeholder on all facilities committee meetings to to have these conversations because as we delve deeper as we get out into the community as we start to get through um you know the findings on the thought exchange and um you know the recommendations that come from you and the questions that come from from

063this body you know we want to incorporate all of that but um you know I'm not sure if um MP planning has any other details on that but this is a working document that will continue to evolve over time I I hi everybody I think the question may have been around um just some cost of what um a new construction would look like so you know as we talked about that um new 7 50 student School in the East End versus the cost avoidance of closing some of the other schools was that the question that you were looking at get get answered yeah making sure really the questions around ensuring that whatever the new school cost that we are able to that the savings of that outweighs the cost yeah and I could get us

064started and then George if you want to pick it back up cuz I know um you're talking about some rough numbers there it's still early in it but I think when we talk about cost avoidance and we look at a facility conditions assessment um that's really a cap like there's Capital renewal in there so it's taking what's in an older building um bringing those different components up to a better state of repair giving them a longer life um but what the capital renewal plan doesn't account for is just some natural limitations within some of the buildings themselves especially some of the older ones where they may not be comparable educationally to say a school built in the last 15 or even 20 years where you know you have a science room that is fully fully

065plumbed it has the technology in there it has everything in there that's capable of you know delivering that education um the fcas look at it more of a um roofs um Mechanicals architecture major elements but you're still working within the framework of that existing building s um so you do fall a little bit behind of if you were to make the investment you're still not having an educational facility that can compare to say a newer facility where things are purposefully built you have the space and you have the architectural design to accommodate what you try what you're aiming to do educationally yeah and that's that 21st century education right um you know in these older buildings there's a Delta you know um we talk about Equity all the time and and the delivery of service

066to the students um there is an inequity because in our older buildings we can't deliver the same level of Education U for instance in some of our older buildings we're maxed out at our energy capacity you know so we can't bring in new technology or um you know functionally the spaces just don't allow for the movement that you need the efficiencies that you need in a 21st century environment so you know once again the recommendations are based on making sure that we're looking at those minute details not only on the facil condition side but on the programming side also yeah and I know George and his team are working on some of the cost for some of the projects that we had proposed um and we'll be able to have those and you know that'll

067when they're ready then we'll be able to make a direct comparison to say option um that has cost avoidance tied to what new construction could look like and you have a little better conversation around you know what is the actual differences there from uh cost you know outside of the educational opportunities outside of of the programming opportunities um one of the things that jumped out to me is just going in one of the newer vintage buildings versus some of the older buildings you know your cor spaces a cafeteria in the basement um a gymnasium that's not of the same size or layout of some of even the 1970s and 80s gyms and some of the older buildings those are all things that are not providing the same type of educational quality that some of the

068other buildings are and those if you can just give us a a quick because you know PJ broke it down a bit to me today and and you know we've been working so fast in Furious that when he gave me the Vintage of schools it it sort of really took me back to to how important and impactful this study has been so PJ some of the VES so um we have eight schools right now that are are over 100 years old um of those eight schools um we have three more schools that when we put them together make it 11 over 90 years old okay U then we go back and we take a look at um George and I I pointed out today that we have 23 schools that are over 55 years old

069those 23 schools do Encompass um the schools obviously that are 90 and 100 years old but when you're really looking at our schools that's 23 of those that you you know are over as I said before 55 years old so it's a lot a lot of our schools are are vintage we have um you know um some schools that have been obviously standing with us for a long time some of those schools still are in decent shape um some of those schools believe it or not um you know when we walked through um needed some work as as the study shows um I I think part of the um uh break down with George and I is when we started digging into the data a little bit and just looking at the overall age um

070I would have loved to do a little bit more of a study on with all of that when's the last time we put funding into these buildings um to do what we needed to do inside of that that's not something I had in front of my hands to to bring out to everybody but would it would have been a nice look I know the newer buildings and what George has done with recent construction and you know all the other things that go on but would be nice to see when's the last time you know in one of those buildings that are a 100 years old what did what did we really put in and how much did we put in um uh to those buildings um actually has that info PJ sorry to interrupt um

071that information is in the stewardship report in the facilities data sheet so uh there's a column that tells you the date that the building was born and then the date that there was a renovation and you see that some schools had Renovations some of our older buildings have never been touched but that that you do have that data and PJ I'll make sure that you guys get that information also thank you yeah that that'd be good to look at because the ones that haven't been touched the question would be you know um especially the older buildings what you know um why didn't we go there I know it's from a funding perspective it could be a lot of other things but it's good to see and know and bring out um that some of our

072buildings um we we we've targeted pretty well and other buildings you know um didn't get that that much love let's put it that way um I want to acknowledge Miss cmir joined the call as well a little while ago so just want to acknowledge her attendance um Mr benan oh I'm sorry I wasn't done with my questions I had a few more sorry um I started with the loaded question first um and thank you and I appreciate that response because I realize if you're just looking at Monetary cost benefits you're it's not an Apples to Apples comparison because the buildings would be serving different purposes um um next question is from I noticed in the reports there were um items that said immediate immediate needs versus moderate um in in the facility's budget are those

073immediate needs already um earmarked or is that additional money that would be needed in order to address the building's immediate needs so that's going to be additional funding that's needed we do have Capital we have capital reserve um as you know I reported to the board in the past you know Capital that we had during Esser we we put it sort of in the bank in savings understanding that we needed to execute on Esser we've executed on Esser the district is probably in its best shape it's been in a long time Believe It or Not we've got a solid foundation um now now we're executing on the capital we' bought several contracts um you know we've got some grants that we're going to be executing so we are picking away at those those items we

074have made some strategic decisions also along the way where our buildings that weren't the 100-year Vintage but the 20 to 30- year vintage we made um several Investments to bring those up back up to to to where they needed to be for instance Morin you know we did a lot of work there to bring that building back up to you know a a functional solid state JFK is another one you know we've done a lot of work on that site to stabilize um so you know when we look at a project we say okay if we put money into this what is our return on investment you know we look at this as a business right we we always say to ourselves what is the citizen what is the resident what is the student the

075teacher the stakeholders going to get out of this work that we're doing and we gut check that every single Tuesday in the office and we ensure that every single dollar that spent is spent strategically um you know there is a big gap and you know I I believe it's 50 plus% is uh you know year 1 two three um and then you know we get up to 84% or something in that range for the first five years but you know once again when you think about the age and eventage of these buildings and the lack of investment to be honest you know I mean you know this is this has been something that's gone on for years when you think about the age of our buildings you know there hasn't been a focus and you

076know one of the things that I I love love to say is that education is not just what happens in the classroom it's the facility it's when you pull onto that site it's when you walk through that door it's the light that's flickering right it's it's the bathroom that that is is unrepairable we have to close the gap on those things to take those distractions away from these children so it is a very important part of the educational process thank you um my last question is around the frequency of the master plan and how it will be done so last time it was done I believe it was over 10 years ago is the intent or um Mr Garcia I see you shaking your head I know it was a long time ago but um

077it's the intent that a similar facilities master plan will be done every 10 years and then I or yeah go ahead I think we need to update this every couple years three years because we're going to be making Investments um you know we're going to be doing that work we need to capture that we need to re refocus the decisions that you make will have an impact on on the um on the facilities master plan right so we have to capture those data points to ensure that we're strategically making the decisions that we need to we need to work smarter um you know and and having up to you know current data is going to help us get there um you know we try to do things Based on data that's so important and I

078see Mr s shaking his head yes because when it comes to the fiscal of the nature we can't do this without the without the proper data right and so every few years now I know some of your needs were between three to five years is the intent then to have facilities folks on the ground looking at you know the items that will be H hitting like end of its life within the next five years um you know we pretty much have all of that information now it's all about the funding right it's all about decisions that are going to be made now um you know and then how are we going to offset where do we consolidate where do we close if you decide to close um where do we build um you know all

079of those things are going to play a role on on how we we start to peir back those those dollars that are needed to to really close the gap on on our condition assessment gotcha yeah and I think one of the things that we would recommend and you know providing everything digitally the fcas all that information and um access or Excel spreadsheet so is that you can now go ahead and track and you could use all of that data which is the most current it's going to be the most expansive amount of information you could have you know up through the end of December and ensure that you're using it you're tracking it you're adding your own columns to be able to manage it um and then you have something that's truly useful rather than

080just kind of like a static report um some static information You're Now using it as as part of your facility management system and that's the kind of the way that we view the master plan is it becomes this living breathing document it's a constant process if you follow the plan great if there's some deviations there always are you know you you then can make some adjustments to it but you're using it as a tool and then you realize boy you know some of our information is getting pretty dated we did a lot Maybe we do a targeted update on some of these areas um you know maybe it becomes more focused but now this gives you a good starting point to be able to better manage what you have um better utilize all that good

081information um in a sound system thank you that's all for me thank you Mr benan yeah thank you m CH okay I'm going to the point I'm going to go talk very clear people can understand um Mr Garcia know and Mr Peter you know you guys over do amazing job but I don't want to go back the situation because you T to say a lot of things where is the parent involved in this situation we talk about everything but I don't hear the word parent and students you know how I am with parents and students I know we have to fix a lot of school I love to all school we have to be new schools but you know trying to be closing let's see Bry School Edison Hall School dbar we have the new

082school that's fine I'm okay have new school but let's have it processed before anything happen because I don't want to have the drama we have before absolutely not I know hello Dr ay I know you I know you was coming so I just want to be sure that we had to talk perfect I had to use the word perfect where parents process protocol to plan why the reason come invite the parents come invite the city council they go crazy too because I hate City C start complain but they don't know what's going on inside the school what is the reason uh we trying to close unless see any kind of school because the health issue about our students and staff and parents you know and the safety the most important um and know a lot

083of things going on I know a lot of people's getting crazy because I've heard the word closing school but I don't want the parent understand we're going to close school like crazy without not do the protocol the process and everything had to be to you know and the reason and I'm saying this because I was in New York this weekend and trust me guys that I have received phone calls and text messages like crazy and I said no that's not the way that's not the way because they showed your uh your master plan Mr Garcia and people go crazy I said no that's not the way it is so that's what the reason we had to prepare very good and talk something clear and to a point for the parent they understand why the reason

084we doing this the process and protocol and the most important I believe I believe everybody agree it's the safety of the students it's the safety of the parent the safety of the staff and better education because we don't want to close the school and then the other school think oh my God all the students come to the school we're going to be crazy it's a lot of students a lot of Staff parents going to upset no before we close any school the community parents students you know whoever organizations outside they have to understand we don't want to have that problem we had before you know I don't want the parents go crazy because they think we close you all this pool and I know you throw your master plan they went like they don't understand

085you know you got you got my point guys so I know you guys do an amazing job I know everything is had to be the way it is because we're not going to make the mistake we have before and also we have to think and I know Dr every know that about Transportation when we trying to do that situation we have to think the transportation money everything is money because I know nothing is free you know I I'm glad this happening so the state they can know nothing is free and everything cost the money and everything what we have to go through you know so I can't wait to stay you know be invol in this situation too so we have to think very good I don't want things get information like that because when

086they bring information out parent they don't understand something some understand and other think oh where my son is going why they think Transportation they think my job I'm going to be late um who's going to pick up my son you know all that but we had to think and have make sure we have a plan and we let them know the parents because we talk about everything this that everything data location this the money but I want to be parents be involed I want parent all these schools and everything wherever we going to parents have to be involved we can talk to them you know and also that every all respect we don't need to have so much uh communal for all right and maybe I can say or to because when we have too

087much sometime parents get confused and the information go out sometimes I'm telling you this because this is what we got from outside and remember guys you guys working inside the building us as a board members we more outside and we can know and we get information more from the parents and that's why as a board member you know we let you know what's going on because as I say you work more inside you're doing the job inside us more as a elected we we are we had to listen our community so I just want to say that for the record thank you very much Mr Garcia if you have any question or concern just let me know please thank you I'm just gonna comment a bit on what you said Mr benan um there will

088there will be um some information for the committee on those those dates March 31st April 1st and April 2 or April 2nd April 3rd um 31st April 2nd and April 3rd um and from my understanding of this and Dr aier Mr Garcia you can um you can add on to this but um there there's no closures happening this year or or even next school year um from these recommendations yeah um and if that were to happen that's the board's decision and in that if that was to happen the there would be public hearings at those schools for the parents the parents to give um feedback so that's part of the the policy that we would have to follow making sure that there's public hearings for any school that if we have to close but I'll

089let Mr Garcia explain a little more thank you Dr Avery take it because oh yeah Dr I think I think I just want to make something clear guys this whole process that we've taken on is really trying to make sure that the board gets a very informed data set to be able to make an make make that decision the process is we're at we at the limit preliminary stages of getting the information out to the board to the city that paid for the study to the delegates that we may be you know looking for to go advocate for dollars at the state so the process was to get the information to the board uh and then we're going to go out to the communities as as for several different Community fors to really get input

090from the community we got surveys going out thought exchanges going out you know and then whenever the board decides what they want to do with some of these facilities then we have to go to those individual sites you know get the input from those particular parents about that particular recommendation from the board and then we would move forward to finalizing the recommendation for uh for the for on behalf of the board so again we are we have all intentions to be able to make sure that our parents our community members are in the middle of all of this uh but again it's this is preliminary because the board has to have the information before the community or or city or whatever so that's the process that we're in now uh there's a lot of clarity

091that needs to be happening this is the first meeting for that Clarity uh and I think it's important so and we wanted to make sure that the the board had a voice of the processes that we started being able to help you know uh you know give Clear Directions of what needs to happen but all those things uh Mr ban that you that you talked about we have every intentions to make sure that Clarity is given and that we make sure we take baby steps because we don't want what happened last year to happen you know in this process that we're doing now so it's going to be clear we're going to get the voice of the parents we're going to go down to the get voice from the kiddos and teachers and administrators as

092well uh it's just this is the beginning uh and uh there's a lot more to come George you want to add anything yeah I mean I think you know the most important thing to us as community and making sure that everyone has a voice you'll hear us say it over and over that's the Mantra of this right that we're not going to be able get to get to where we need to go in silos this is everyone working together on the same page moving the ball Based on data and facts and it's just not facilities it's also you know the work that PJ's done and and be able to move boundaries and and and figuring that out and balancing schools um you know there's there's so many different aspects of this this is why we

093want to have our placeholder on the facilities committee meeting and we're always available for for any answers that you may need you really are the voice box in the field you are the ones that are going to be able to give additional information to the community when they have those questions that's why we want to arm you with all the information that we have right now thank you Dr thank you Mr Garcia and remember as always say we a team and together we can make the differ a good Communications are great successful nothing is perfect but at least we have the communication out because I don't want drama we want the parents we understand what we're doing for the best for our children thank you appreciate your information I'm gonna finish up with the committee

094members and I'll I'll go to Mr cic after Mr Woodson so Mr Woodson go ahead committee members go first it's our committee and then you you guys can go okay re really quick you know this information had came out a couple of weeks ago you know I had got the email so you know if you guys got to take the time read the information the information is out there and we have to be the one it's not Dr ay's job to go to the community and you know get this thing you know try to you know uh uh make this thing what is he I mean he has a good he has a good idea of what's going on but as board members that's one of our few jobs is to interact with the community

095and bring the community's information back to Dr ay know we Dr ay shouldn't have to go into the community and and and and explain his plan that should be our job you know Dr ay has enough on his plate know not that like I said not that he can't do it not that he's not capable of doing it but he has he has enough on his plate we should be able to take some off of his plate and and and and and Albert you're you're you are very uh uh active in the community you should be the one going there asking the community what they think and taking their their information back to Dr Avery I agree don't don't don't expect those people those people are busy people they have a busy job they have

096a lot on their plate right now we should be the one in the community you know getting the getting the information as I said together we can make the difference yeah yeah thank you Mrs Cal yeah I have I have seever several questions I would have more I would just like before a meeting like this happens to let us know it's on the agenda because I did not see this on the agenda until I was informed that was on the agenda because the agenda was RIS about 1 o'clock in the afternoon I would have liked more time to prepare more questions but just going forward I would like a little bit more warning for it was it was revised yesterday yeah yesterday at 1:30 PM is when we got notice that and constructive receipt of

097the notice that something like this is going to be on the agenda would be helpful because not everybody checks a 100 times a day to see if the portal has been updated so that that would be appreciated okay now my first question was switched up by something I just heard for the very first time it was just said that we do not intend to close any schools in the 25 26 school year is that a correct assertion Dr a yes or no did I say that no Miss perz said that I said I said that based on the it those are recommendations and it's going to be the board's decision to close or not to close so right now we don't intend because we haven't made that decision yet so right so right now the

098possibility of closing schools exists in 2526 if we take if the board decides on it right if the board decides what's in this plan is actually and their recommendations are actually good recommendations and we want to take their recommendations the group is recommending we close some schools immediately and that is well it is our decision yes but the recommendation is not is not to wait until the 25 26 27 school year to move on any of this is that correct Dr Avery and and it's it's all about the timing of when the decision is made then then based on that decision being made a timeline will be you know uh you know devis to be able to figure out when that's going to happen you know the closer we get to the end of the

099year so if a decision is made in May there's no way that we're going to close a school for the upcoming August there's no way that you could that's not even feasible to do so we have to really look at and kick that out it's all about how we're going to I don't want to rush this this is a delicate situation a lot of decisions need to be made so I think that's part of having deeper conversation so if there's you know if there's a decision to be made say April and may you have to put a timeline on that so once the decision is made then we can put a date and timeline on that to kind of make sure that we're in line with getting things everything's you know orchestrated to close uh

100and so there's a lot of variables there and so I don't I'm not going to make that decision you know or even advise the board to make the decision if we don't have the necessary you you know elements to make a very clear timeline to make it happen right absolutely and and I rais this at finance that there's a very tight timeline if we're doing things this year and would it be nice to hear that that might not even be a possibility it would been great to I would love to go out in the community and sell them we don't need to close any schools until the 2627 school year and our budget will be totally balanced I would love that um what would be the condition of our budget if we wait another year

101to do all that we need to do there's there's still a lot of factors with that also Mr scovic because depending on the additional dollars from the city the state and some additional dollars the state may provide the district that will you know help to solidify you know how much deficit we'll have the 2026 or 2027 so there's a lot of different factors as well so but if we're looking to as a board if you guys are looking to say if we if we close some things now it may save five thou $5 million or10 million all those factors still has to be discussed uh because it's the first that we've gotten it and the board hadn't even made any decisions on anything you heard recommendations but again so there's a lot of factors again

102there's a lot more conversation that need to be had in order to to move this forward and to give you a better Financial gauge as well right I just want the community to be absolutely clear on what may or may not happen and the decisions that we're making I'm not advocating for closing schools this year I'm not advocating for closing schools at all best case scenario they come and give us the $27 million we need for balance the 2526 school year and the $12 million that we need the next school year but if that's not a reality we got a whole different ball of ax all right so now I'll get to some of the questions first question has to do with the demographic studies um first I would like to commend the groups I

103went through most of the buildings on a demographic studies looked at the space and it all seems to be very professionally done I've been through most both buildings from bows to stem um and yeah the conditional reports are viable but the demographic studies how do we go from I'm having trouble wrapping my around mind around the shrinking population when the last three years we're growing we've got several new projects coming online including um a new project they just got a demolition per permit for on I can't remember recall where it is and a couple um a senior center getting converted and deal Point coming online in the next couple of years with multiple multiple buildings and we've been we've been shrinking and how are we going to shrink over the next 10 years um I

104can answer that question um so as part of our demographic study we've canvas the community's demographics building permits what's getting constructed um what's been constructed the students generated out of those um future development um is slow coming in Bridgeport um you do have a couple projects but you don't have the number of projects um in number type and bedroom count and scale that say Stanford Norwalk um some of the other communities in Fairfield County have um so I know we get focused on some individual projects um you've declined pretty significantly in enrollment over the last probably 12 years um we're seeing a little bubble in the high school now which is tied back to your Kinder Garden cohorts that were 2010 2012 um what really causing the continued decline is that your elementary school has

105just smaller cohorts now that are matriculating up into the high school so um and I could share my screen if someone who um will give me the uh give give me the permission to do so I have this one chart that I think really kind of answers that question Joe if I if I could um but you know it's really a function of immigration um and it's net immigration um we do have a movement of students there's movement in movement out all the time um but your net immigration isn't overcoming your net out migration um every single year um this year was a bit of an anomaly you had a little bit more net IM migration we saw it at the high school level um but across the board it wasn't there at every grade

106level um we follow the state methodology they require you to do a cohort survival for any school construction Grant that's the methodology that we follow um I've been doing projections for over 20 some years now I think it's 25 years now um and you know tracking our work especially in urban districts um within each given Year we're plus or minus 1% accuracy um so I know it's a surprise to some but I think one of the factors to consider especially um when we started this work um and I've seen it in the past is some of the new immigration policies and what we're seeing over the next several years is probably going to slow down IM migration not only in Bridgeport nationally but also um we're going to see that probably in the next two

107or three years I recall going back about eight years or so ago from Trump's last presidency we saw an Abrupt slowdown in danburry Norwalk where I was working at the time for about two and a half three years where immigration really slowed down so I think that also may result in slightly lower enrollment than what we're projecting you should be able to share now oh I see it it just popped up thank you um thank you yeah so um this chart really kind of says it all where we kind of track the colorized enrollment um across the board and we can look and say you know the enrollment pressures we're feeling now at the high school hopefully everybody can see it um where we have some of these much larger cohorts um that's really tracking

108back to when we had much larger kindergarten cohorts um you can see these kindergarten cohorts in 2010 through really 2014 um they were they were large um they were 1,800 1900 um over the last several years you know we're 14500 kindergarten cohorts that are metrica through so as you kind of Follow That wave of orange and red colors those move from the upper left down to the lower right and so when we talked about 5700 students in the high schools um you know over the next couple years and then that's dropping off off the reason why that's really dropping off is due to the fact that you just have smaller grade cohorts replacing the larger cohorts as they move through the high school so it's really kind of like a shift a little bit um

109where you've been seeing growth over the last few years in the high school which we see here clearly um but then that growth is going to level off and then re be replaced by a decline as these smaller cohorts move their way on through into the high school and then you add to that little bump in the prek in the last two years yeah and and and prek is you know a great it it attracts people um but prek is not really demographically driven it's a more of a function of um if you provide the seats they will get filled in every District unless you know we become a state that has a policy or District that has a policy on universal prek then it becomes a much better indicator um but really what we're

110seeing you know even outside of this year with the um the state change at the at the 9th hour for the kindergarten start times which is a little bit lower than we anticipated we're still looking at you know much much smaller cohorts moving through no no I agree I just not ex excuse me yeah Mr SC yeah please I'm not done um yeah okay now speaking of the kindergarten cohorts going down that that's been facted in because not all our schools have prek seats that's all been facted and but the prek the because because we get we get more students than that are in prek arriving into our schools I don't go to our Public Schools I'll go to a private prek or no prek and then come into the kindergarten year that's a that's

111all factored in yeah okay that's that's all that happens in a lot of places we're not unfortunately you know we're all not unique but it's one of those things where like I said if you can get them you know if we ever get to the point educationally where you know we have the funding budgets and space um that would then become a much better indicator right and a much better attractor yeah so Mike if if I could intervene just for one second um you know I I think the number that always startles me is um we have that extra 6,200 students who live in Bridgeport but do not go to a Bridgeport Public School yeah at any time those 6,200 students you know at this point pending on whatever grade level I think high schools

112we're looking at about 2700 of those students um were either going to Charter parochial private um you know school choice wherever they may be going that's a number that um I had given MP planning just so that they can be cognizant of the possibilities of at any time if something happens children can migrate back to the Bridgeport um Public Schools yeah PJ and that's great to bring that up because remember we were talking and it may have been back in September October I can't even it was definitely early fall some time where we had done an analysis where we started tracking back and forth based on state IDs um and we do see that movement back and forth between um private bral Charter back into the public schools um and you know that's something that

113becomes a bit of a challenge too um because as you start to see these different offerings pop up it becomes a competition for the universe of students that are in Bridgeport right um you know if something were to happen to some of these other institutions then you would likely see greater enrollment in brid Port right but if also you see opening of additional other offerings other schools um then you would see a potential erosion into some of your students um so that becomes a little bit fluid in that um number where it's really you know it's not like it was a long time ago where you didn't have all these other competing organizations for your students you have a handful of parochial schools you know and and they competed for students um it's a much

114different um landscape today I think to put it simply okay then now would like I'd like to move on to the facility side I'm not advocating for one school closed or no schools closed or any schools closed with my questions it's just about the plan and how it's been presented to us um if you recall we develop through surveys uh The Guiding criteria and one of the short-term gring guiding criteria seek opportunities to consolidate consolidate facilities where possible it's determined that r the number of facilities as necessary efforts should be made to reduce disproportionate impact upon any one Community this is I'm bringing this up because the original plan by the former superintendent had three schools in one neighborhood closing this new present presentation swaps out Beardsley and Bryant bringing the basically the east side

115of our district with four school closures potential closures rather than three and how is that decision made to swap out Bryant and beard I think uh if if I can these once again are recommendations um just looking at the area and the potential of creating a new school at a 750 student capacity we looked at that area um so what we're doing is bringing a 21st century School online in that part of town in the one area that you can build on but once again that is that is a recommendation and you know it's framework for you guys to figure out what we need to do moving forward set that set that George and George if I may help answer the question um we didn't really see it as a we saw it more as

116a A smart business decision from a cost avoidance standpoint with through a replacement of a school um it would be one thing to close the schools and then say we're going to infill classroom spaces throughout all of your schools with students from the closed schools um we saw it as an opportunity to be able to improve the learning environments through a new school similar in size through the new Winthrop school that was actually taking a look at the Ed specs for that looking at what that early design conversations looked like for that school um what would it make sense on the site that we had an opportunity to be able to look at um and we see it as not a straightup consolidation but more of a replacement um we have sites that are smaller

117um you know obviously you're not going to be able to construct a new school it doesn't meet the state standards for sighting schools on any of those sites um so to be able to have that opportunity to be able to have a replacement school and have a a building that's going to have that 30 40e life um from a financial decision and an operational decision May a lot of sense especially when you look at um a school that would have between 85 and 95 students per grade um you have enough sections to operate efficiently rather than operating several small schools inefficiently where your class sizes are all over the place um it was really a decision based on the fcas it was based on the amount of use those schools are seeing and it was

118based on our walkthroughs and our own visuals of the schools we walked through probably 70 schools in the last year Alone um throughout all of our client communities um and several of the schools in that neighborhood were memorable to me very memorable to me all right F follow up has any redistricting scenarios been run that could Spread spread the pain equitably across the district between the North End South End East End and West End if we choose to close schools to fill the new potential Harding to capacity or while or or even while waiting for the new new Harding if I mean because if we call if the schools are closed I'm not going to keep saying I'm not going to say consolidate Consolidated is kind of misleading we're actually closing schools making more schools

119into less schools so those are school closures I want to be clear with my language with the community that we're considering school closures and we're using the word consolidation to make more into less so there'll be less schools just want to be clear on that um what my train thought so so I could answer that Mr sakalik um right now the the original plan with the former superintendent um my office did look at a um redistricting breakdown for schools that were closed during this plan um we did not have any discussion with MP planning about um any redistricting at this point except for one of the issues that we have at um the new bassic and BMA and it wasn't a redistricting it was just discussing what we were going to do with the Overflow

120of some of our students where that building was already over capacity before it started um as we said before um the recommendations that were set forth is um part of our discussion was you can't condense without expanding um in bridport so you have to have a a thought process of um looking at facilities that may require us to um uh do some work on and other facilities at this point that we really wanted to look at if we had a chance to put a new building because space is so vast where could we apply this building and in what area could we possibly place it so that it would be you know um a place that we could possibly look to put other schools but you know since it is the board who is making

121their recommendations and we wanted to um give you the recommendations of the company um we did not go into any type of um redistricting scenario throughout the district um with MP planning yeah that being said as as I recall what was presented to us the redistricting that was done was redistricting them to everybody from from those schools to other nearby schools but it wasn't a comprehensive redistricting of every single school is like say get every school 80% capacity correct and and I think that would be useful for us to run a couple of different scenarios I don't know how labor intensive it is if it's just computer program with the if then scenario I would like to see what would happen if we swap out schools to original School suggested if one school's on the

122east side one school's on the west side one school's on the south south side and redistribute all those students so every school has at least 80% capacity and none over 100% capacity or vice versa so everybody gets treated fairly no matter what the outcome is of this I mean because why should my son and the people who live around me not share in increased class size well those very neighborhoods that very one single neighborhood is going to suffer increased class size increased buildings increased population in that one Mega School while all these other little schools get to stay in these other neighborhoods and not considered forclosure can I interject there um because it's my understand that they they wouldn't all be going to that one school there's other schools in that Within those um should

123we look at those four schools that were recommended they'd be redistrict within the within the East Side schools and not all students will be going to that new East Side facility so yeah if I don't know somebody wants to confirm that but that that was mying point of information Madam chair yes let's be clear this is the East End over here I understand that but it does take part of the East Side including berley it's part of the east side and it's it's labeled on the facility master plan as the East Side school right um yeah you wanted to get confirmation of what you just said yeah yeah I was doing but I don't know if uh um either Mr C or yeah Mr all of that takes we you have to take all of

124that into account redistricting um you know the new building I mean everything this is why we've uh ensured you had all of the data possible to make the decisions and and as far as um I want to go to Mr st's uh point on cost benefit analysis and that and I think um what one of the facilities guys mentioned that it's not only um cost benefit of funding but um programming now Mo most studies I've seen and looked at small schools are better for inner cities and poor poor areas because it builds a sense of community and the mega schools are a little a little better for more well-to-do areas have we taken those studies into account when proposing this Mega school well this is not a mega school I mean you know when I

125think of Mega schools I think of batala um you know these these bass uh blackham for instance those are Mega schools where you have a thousand plus students in them 7 50 is sort of the Wheelhouse right now for for school construction yeah that's that 750 K8 is probably the most efficient model for a K8 school um that's what you're seeing being built most commonly in um urban districts um you know and the reason it seems larger is if you're drawing a lot of schools in Connecticut are typically K5 K4 K k6 fewer k6 nowadays and those typ come in about 500 um and you add the three extra grades and it gets you right around that 800 student it all comes down to how you design it and how you operate it um how

126You' be able to separate the grades of students um through thoughtful design and making them feel like a smaller learning environment I think getting back to that earlier question of you know if we were to just reshuffle the decks um across the board with all your buildings now in the elementary you're about 80% utilization I think when we talked about it when we look at things um to me the most pressing issues that you're facing right now are your Capital needs and just balancing enrollment across all your schools doesn't do anything to address your Capital needs um in the long term I think that really needs to be tackled um starting you know this next year being able to have that plan in place um you know and if you were to look at what

127that East End School would look like um School Construction at best would be an occupied School in George correct me if I'm wrong probably four years out five years out um Grand application 18 months design 18 20 months construction occupation at the beginning of a year um you would never go ahead and do a redistricting now um that far in advance of a school construction project um you you would largely take a look at the enrollment across the board and then begin to balance enrollment once you know the number of facilities you're going to have as part of that um School construction program yeah four five years exactly yeah we would never recommend unless there was extenda circumstances to go ahead and just comprehensively redistrict before you begin implementing a construction program and a master

128plan because ultimately what'll happen is you'll be either wed to what you're doing now because of the community um or you're going to be moving people more than once moving families and children numerous times um if you redistrict in advance of implementing a master plan so from a process standpoint our experience it's really not the best order of operations right I I don't I don't disagree with that then that's one of the problems I had with the initial plan was doing three the three stages so but how how does that fit with if we were to move this year or next year we can't redistrict into Harding so we're going to have to redistrict twice once the new Harding's built we're going to have to redistrict to fill that building and we're going to have

129to redistrict to move the children that any schools that are closed are waiting for their new school to be built correct unless we wait four to five years to do anything until the build up I I I think depending on the school um and and you know whatever schools we're going to bring into the new or the or the East Side site um some of it because the school size is so small um at this point some of it is I guess a little bit easier to to maneuver around pending on depending on again the decision of the board um for us any Mass redistricting that that you're looking at right now we we don't recommend that um we don't we don't recommend a a redistricting um around you know around the city of bridport

130um yes there are some buildings that are not utilized um to the fullest capacity that they could be there are other means around that there are other things that we can do programmatically um to probably help um put some programs into the buildings to um get those numbers up a little bit but I I would not recommend and and Mike you're the expert um that's here but I I would not recommend a a um uh a full uh uh redistricting um for brdb public schools go ahead Mike you're the expert thanks PJ um yeah it if if we didn't go ahead and do facility condition assessments really understand what your Capital needs are and this was strictly about a process where uh you're trying to better utilize enrollment without any school construction um or better

131utilize your space without School construction um then that becomes something totally different um which it's not um you have very clear needs and we were trying to frame out how best to tackle those needs and I think one of the biggest questions that we had and we've been talking about in order to facilitate School construction you have to have viable school facilities to be able to swing kid into um you know once you shutter a school and it's no longer in an educational use um then it's difficult to get it back into an educational use um so I think it's to be able to have a thoughtful and swing space plan when you're tackling the school construction we propos some ideas on occupied renovation you know this is Master planning level um but should have

132building become no longer needed um in the between now and when you're actually in the throws of the school construction um an educational building can be retired and put forth as swing space um as you work towards the next step of that and once you are committed to certain levels of school construction we would then recommend to be starting that conversation on what that school redistricting looks like um what areas should be moved how does it align with the swing space plan how does it align with the construction plan um to ensure that students and families aren't overly impact that we're not moving people more than once um we're going to minimize the disruption and it's going to be done in a really well-laid out thoughtful manner all right now that final point question and

133we're sure we're going to discuss this more look at the transportation cost and everything else going forward I don't want to take up too much time tonight um Dunbar School Dunbar school is listed as medium needs on the facilities master plan yet it's still recommended to consolidates which is taking away a fourth School in that five mile radius not because of the facility's condition now if Hall Edison or any of those other schools are listed as closures that's one of the closest schools too them can we not potentially fill that up and not take away a neighborhood school from the neighborhood children that is not in disrepair I think Dumar we left intentionally open we agree that it is in moderate need it there's some good components there it's just really underutilized I'll be honest

134with you um it just has a a lot of space that is um not used to its fullest to be honest with you right I think right to further that Honesty if we were to redistrict to take care of that underutilization that would be something that would help out the school and remain open and into Dumar I think you could definitely help out utilization in that entire area but it needs to be a a thoughtful process right if you're going to put students into Dumar um as part of a short a near-term consolidation of a building um um then would those same students move into the school that you're having the construction program in I think you know then you're looking at the boundaries in a two-step process right um and we definitely want yeah

135so it gets yeah I I think it's I don't see any way around the two boundaries unless we're holding off on closing a single school until we got a new skill built can somebody explain to me how we could hold off on moving people twice you without a new school buildt and keeping all the schools open you know you I think Mr sakovic with for us you know and and and I'm hearing what you're saying we're we're going off um board recommendations right now the company gave you some recommendations that they set forth I think for us if we have guidance from the board on exactly what you're looking at and what's the consensus of the board and where we're looking to go um those things that we need to do can be updated or

136modified or looked at you know at a sense to where we can actually do what it is that we're being asked to do I don't think we're looking at every single scenario that could possibly happen because we're not sure what the board is going to recommend to us for us to do once we're on a path where you guys guide us on what it is that you see and what what we need to do I think from that process we can start giving you some answers to those questions by getting in and and and getting dirty a little bit with that data to be able to speak to you about it awesome yeah thank thank you very much I I don't mean to seem aggressive I'm just trying to be forthright get all the questions

137out because I'm not sure if I'm G to see you guys again or we're going to have these opportunities for such a in-depth in-depth conversation I just want to try to get out as much as I can that's all the questions I have for now thank you Mr tror thank you madam chair um first I I I just I didn't think I I heard um the answer to your question which is when you talk about uh the new uh pre K to8 school on the Old Harding site um as a 750 student school um where are the other students going because the total population of the four schools that you're talking about to populate that new facility is about a thousand students so you said they wouldn't all go to that facility you asked me

138that no you're you asked that question and I didn't hear well I know like I'm sure Mr Garcia I'm sure Mr Garcia probably can answer but like I know beerley for instance um that's in a location where students um live in in the hooker area or the Marin area um right dunar tuale I wondered if that's what they were what their intent if they had any thoughts on that I didn't hear yeah our our intent was depending on the timing of school construction we would recommend looking at that quadrant of the city and probably look at a larger redistricting for that in order to populate the school um and be able to make some adjustments to boundaries to be able to look at say you know likely School construction four years from now right look

139at the enrollment look at utilization look at where special programs are um and utilize the space better to be able to fill out the school to the design capacity and then make any adjustments necessary um to improve utilization across the board yeah and I think Mr travor for for for just us um when we looked at a school that can house um 750 children which is pretty much the standard as we all know um our our job was not to make that decision our job was to say we have a school we know that some of the buildings in that area are are those schools that are over a hundred years old um The Proposal was going to be that this is this is an area where we can put a 750 um student building

140and with putting that building it was going to be the board to recommend how we do that what we do if that's the site because there isn't as George will tell you there isn't a lot of land around where you can build a new school and throughout bridport when we really looked at it there wasn't a lot of places in other um areas of town where we could really build either so you know if we were to do that and and we were granted that you know space that would be a place where we can place a building where we could accommodate 750 children in that school well I I understand that I'm not I I heard what you said about 750 students I'm a teacher who taught at blackham with 1100 1100 1200 students

141and I think blackham is is a wonderful school um so I'm not I don't agree with the thought that that's a horrible thing a thousand students in a in a pre- a school um but 750 I understand is more desirable um so I'm not opposed to it I hadn't heard the 750 number till tonight um and so that meant less when I added up the numbers in the current schools uh it was more than 750 so I hadn't heard the answer to the question um I know the schools that uh Miss perz just said uh you know the hooker or Marin the Tisdale or Barnum you know are the most the closest schools to where they are um uh the next question is you mentioned that the very outset Mr Garcia uh that we're beginning

142the conversation with thought exchange um I I know that when we have the initial Community meetings at the end of the month beginning of next um we will have the first face-to-face uh you know human interaction uh I I want to go on record is saying I think thought exchange is horrible uh method of interaction uh I have found the last time we did a thought exchange survey that after about 20 to 30 interactions I grew bored because there were 500 questions or comments to interact with it becomes impossible to interact so I just want to say that you know I remember when we first looked at thought exchange I remember how it seemed to offer this miraculous way for humans to interact with each other through an AI um and it's just overwhelming um

143somebody puts a comment out there and you can interact with somebody else's comment and your own comments get interacted with and it just gets overwhelming uh at some point when you see that there's now 150 to 200 comments to to to interact with and it becomes uh people give up on interacting with other people's comments uh I think um so hearing what people say at personal meetings and what Miss Perez said earlier is going to be the most critical thing uh I think Mr scovic mentioned it and certainly Mr benan did uh when we we end up moving to the public interaction and the public discussions those will be critical to us um uh PJ at the very beginning um we discussed looking at the distribution of uh special needs classes yes and if it's

144in this m of information and I I admit I've been away for a week um so I have gone through the immediate packets as quickly as I could but the mound I haven't uh is there a an analysis that shows the distribution of special needs classes throughout the city somewhere in this packet that you to that I can look at after tonight's meeting I can I can get you I mean we have maps in the office also of all of the special ed um programming I can get that to you um definitely by tomorrow I can get you all the maps so you can take a look at it because you were going to look at the distribution of yes needs classes throughout the city to see if there was any concentrations inappropriate concentrations yeah

145of classes at certain schools or certain areas of the city absolutely Mike you I mean you could speak in here or do we have that in what we already been given or you you need to get it to us PJ I have what we prepared back in uh dare I say October um so it's current and I I know the I care I don't care if it's October today it's gonna you know this school year is appropriate I just I just wanted to know if we looked at that because yeah smaller packets and I actually the mega book yeah I actually broke it down by quadrant between Rise sord um or rise Lea and regular resource um it was included in that giant 6 64 page yeah file yeah it's actually it's it's slide 52

146in that giant 64 page slide deck um and then on slide 53 we did the same exercise um for bilingual and ESL rooms broken down by quadrant um and with that we looked at the number of rooms as well as the number of students um that were served by those programs okay and that's in a slide deck that we got in um that's me book that's it's in the mega book yeah all right I'll take a look at it there thank you um uh next question uh the I know George if I recall the earlier discussions and I do understand the sighting problem in our city because I remember when Ed Gomes and Max Medina and Bob and all these guys were on the school committee they they you know looking at Baya and other

147places that they set up schools trying to find clean sites in our city um the the we we talked about the the Old Harding site as a clean site I know I looked at you know the bellerine college junior college is one I liked in this NE neighborhood too but the funding source if I recall that you were talking about a federal funding source no it would be City bonding with um you know going through the the school construction Grant method um you know we we would look to build something highly efficient which we would have Partnerships with technical support through the department of energy and we have a partner at Yukon also but you know we're still you know we're working through the details we're finalizing budgets and site plans and things like that

148just to have something for you guys to to look at and understand what the true cost would be um but you know it'll be City bonding I think um you know MP planet did a great job of showing us all the different kickers and opportunities within the grants where you can sort of get additional percentage points one of the things that is is a Hot Topic right now it's prek um you know we would look to build a robust prek in that building because we need it in the district right now we can't accommodate um the need for pre- throughout the district because we don't have the the classrooms and bathrooms so these are opportunities when we look at opportunities look at it strategically to not only Elevate but also fill the Gap and where

149the needs are um so this building would be highly efficient I would love to build a net zero one you know one of there aren't any in urban school districts um if not Net Zero elements of Net Zero and that gives our delegation the ability to go to the state and say listen we get 80% but because we have a robust prek and we're building a highly efficient building we'd like to get 90% on the program so now if let's say the program is $140 million or $100 million we pay 10 cents on the dollar right this is this is the way that we're looking at what we're doing question was I I thought that was Federal money you were looking at and given what's going on in Washington I was concerned about the the

150reliability of that ah we'll stay local okay well that that's that was my concern so that that's where I I was coming from that that makes me feel better um the the reliability um the um um where is this uh you mentioned it earlier the uh tracking I don't remember remember whether it was George or PJ the uh is it in the again the mega book The births and maintenance data info on each building you mentioned having this the information that I I I I could get that to you um no did did you say it was in the in the in the is that in the big book too uh no oh okay I was just if you had given it to us I was going to look to take a look at it

151out of curiosity yeah I can send that to you if you can get that to us I would appreciate it PJ I will okay because it is it is upsetting when two things to us when we have built newer buildings in the last 10 years or 20 15 years trying to go back like Bayan the problem we had with mold or um you know some of these other schools where we built new schools and then had significant problems with a new school and you think you know what the heck uh and we're now doing Winthrop which is the second time we've renovated winr uh and we haven't taken care of other schools and other neighborhoods It's upsetting to some of us um so as you say we wouldn't be in this predicament if it was

152done right the first time um and so we want to do right um the um I know and you know George because you it's going to come at us that some of the local uh elected officials are going to argue about new versus renovated um in my neighborhood um and um I've heard it in some of the responses tonight and it's going to come up um and so we will be we need to be prepared for that the advantage of of new versus renovated and keeping the old smaller neighborhood schools versus that so I just want to raise that issue um and be prepared for uh the argument about the smaller schools and the advantage of a small neighborhood school which does have its advantages and the bones of the neighborhood school um and uh

153you know so the the people in the neighborhood are going to want to know that not withstanding the argument of other people the people in the neighborhood are going to want to know and part of it is you know laying out what the attraction and advantage of this new facility be and of course one of the things that we need to really think about is um and has always been an issue in this neighborhood is Crossing Boston Avenue and you know there has to be a plan for how we cross Boston Avenue um whether you're coming from the Beardsley neighborhood or you're coming from my neighborhood um to get across the street to Harding the Old Harding um and so you know it that's a it's a major it's a major concern and and I

154don't know if you guys have discussed this or have any plan for this but if you're going to make a proposal to build a new facility with all the bells and whistles that you're talking about you got to deal with the bell and whistle of getting KS safely to and from school listen everything that we do is going to be thoughtful we're going to make sure that we cross every single bridge on the way there um and I understand the the the concerns uh from the community from um some council members um you know but once again we have to start to make tough decisions if we want to move forward in the district no but I'm with you on that but do you have any is there any thought given yet or plan given

155to how the kids get across BS that um we're not there yet we're still in development of the plan itself but you know part of part of the state requirements is traffic studies and and migratory paths to buildings and all of those things so you know will be able to um ensure that the students will be able to make their way to school safely um uh a question on the dis the capacity I saw a lot of the information about the capacity of current schools when you did capacity did you take into account control transfers um control transfers as in students that go to a school that they're not zoned for is that what we're talking about yes yeah we we noticed that a lot um you know and we seen say that as I

156say I'm sorry to interrupt Mike but I want to be clear as a teacher at blackham we had a lot of students who didn't live in our neighborhood because people didn't want to go to their neighborhood school they wanted to go to blackm or they wanted to get a control transfer to a better school I'm going to be honest with you when I went through a lot of the data um a lot of the students that are controlled transfers um were either due to the presence of a say like a a bilingual program that was at um Marine um where they were coming from you know outside of that zone school to go there and some of the other ones there was only a the the largest occurrence were due to um either they were

157in a really a special program such as bilingual or they were in a districtwide special ed program or they were as part of the intradistrict magnet school otherwise they were kind of nominal where it was just like a couple here or a couple there there wasn't a tremendous prevalence of them and I assume that typical to how State Statute is if if you're granted an exception you know as the legislation calls it um you know they're providing their own transportation and there's a reason that's been vetted by the District of why they're there whether it's caregiving after school or some other extenda circumstance on a personal level um but I didn't see anything outside of the students in the database that we had that were you know actually tagged as being part of a special

158program that happened to be in that building itself um okay so so Mr Trey I could answer that too part of the data set did have the control transfers in there so um because control transfers like anything else um from year to year you really don't know how many you're going to get we know a lot ask for control transfers um at this point but we stayed away from certain schools like winrep because we knew that um winthrip's going to um uh be a new building and we knew that moving um students from winra into uh the swing space at PMA um we can't accept some of those in other um periods like for Hall Edison Dumar and the schools that initially were going to be um uh closed before uh obviously it came to

159the board um we made sure that any control transfer at this point out was accepted but nothing was accepted in since that point um once the study and once that stud stud came out we opened it up again to where they could control transfer in or they could control transfer out again that we when I go back to how many we had last year compared to how many we had this year we have control and we have administrative transfers so there's two two aspects of it but they were all in that data set when we looked at it again when you project it's it's hard on that end because you really don't know I mean I mean yes do do a lot of parents want to go into winthrip school or a school that they

160feel on a certain end sure but that doesn't mean you're going to be granted just because you want to go there um we looked at that methodology and again you know for the magnets they can't go into a magnet so you know when you look at the the intr district or in District however it is they can't get into it because it's through a lottery and through a program so yes that was part of the the breakdown but I I will be honest with you um I don't we did not go back 10 years and take a look at you know what it looked like because it's it's pretty sporadic year to year okay thank you um in the packet entitled uh the dated February 27th the master plan status update review of key findings

161on page 17 High School individual School projections uh you project out 10 years um you sort of and and the 10year trend is down in all high schools yeah correct um I mean the five-year trend is down except for Central um the 10 your trend is down for everybody what's that about correct you're you're and I'll just bring that same chart back up again um you're right now in a bubble of high school where you're at your recent peak in high school um and that bubble's driven by as I mentioned earlier in the earlier question just a lot of elementary students that when you had a bubble in elementary they're now in high school now so these smaller cohorts over the last eight years are moving up into the high school and that's why we're

162going to see that High School enrollment drop off um eventually getting down to about 53 5200 and then bouncing back up again so it it it really is that kind of EB and flow um of your enrollment by grade but you but on your 10year Trend they're all down they're all going down you have a end of it that shows everybody going down correct so the elementary is going down um really driven because and this is a great slide and this was slide seven for what we presented on um February um I think it was 20 was 27th or 25th I can't remember now either way last week um your birth Earth cohorts um especially those over the last 5 years are much lower than what they were say 5 to 10 years ago so

163we're seeing a continuation of those smaller kindergarten classes moving coming into the system um and then moving ahead um it's just really where you're at demographically so you're just saying that you know the the the future of the city is is the children are just dropping yeah you have much fewer Birds over the last several years than you've had at any time in the past this chart does a great job of it so when we look at that bigger class of kindergarteners first and second graders in 2010 11 12 those are corresponding to when the birs were at an alltime Peak so when you had birth in 2006 of 2500 your highest births in the last last 25 years um that corresponds directly with your very large kindergarten class that you had at 1925 in

164201122 right so you know it's that birth Tok correlation from the demographic standpoint when your births were higher that lag of roughly five years you had much larger kindergarten cohorts so as BTS now have dropped off 500 450 Birds below annually what they were say 20 years ago that's leading to those smaller kindergarten cohorts so going back to Mr cic's question about the new construction and everything where this is going to the uh the building uh new house new housing for the young professionals without kids will be attending our Public Schools yeah a lot of and I'm I'm switching between decks here I'm going to open up that um full 64 slide deck here and just go to the Housing Development slide which is slide 13 if you want to note it to give you

165a more streamlined approach when you get into that um deck um when you have time so we went through all the developments and by and large um you know we're tracking units look at what has been built um we're seeing a lot of units that are very low in bedroom count these are luxury market rate units especially um those that are still in that pending category at steel point which construction is forthcoming um but we've seen construction like that before in our work in Connecticut and New Jersey and we don't see a lot of students coming out of that type of housing unit yeah this is the G gentrifying yeah exactly um and you know a good case in point is um projections that we did back got them 15 years ago 10 years ago

166in Norwalk when those units were first starting to spring up in Stanford and Norwalk and you know there was this fear that they were going to generate a lot of schoolage children and you know we're still doing work in those communities and you know they typically generate um you know 0.1 if that um students per unit very very very very very small number um not not like you know a Housing Authority property that's going to have um two or three bedrooms or you know even say you know um a multif family with a higher bedroom count that has a you know a much higher affordability percentage um in Connecticut you know we do this I probably do 20 25 enrollment projections a year for different communities we we see these types of development and we

167track them we address match students and we just don't see the students yield coming from them yeah it's good for the city um from you know a housing standpoint it's good from a housing standpoint but it doesn't really generate school age children well it's not good from the city from a affordable housing point of view no and the people that live in this city need affordable housing it it's it's not healthy when you look at the lack of affordable housing and the people that actually live here I I sadly I think that's a state that's a state region and a national problem that it is I I don't think any of us are going to solve we could chat but it's a great conversation no but it's a it is a it is a it

168you're correct it's it's beyond Bridgeport um and the last thing I wanted to just comment on unless I'm missing something and and I think that I just want to be clear Mr sakovic was pressing you on this all of you uh I'm looking at page 25 proposed elementary schools of the uh packet that was presented yesterday the recommended master plan um and un unless I'm missing anything I I don't see uh that any schools could close this next year because I heard what Mr Sagal was saying the proposed closed school well actually a question that I was asking I I I started at the beginning and I guess I go back to it when I talked about thought exchange how much of this data is now public are these on the website available for the

169public or how is this being Mr trayor yes all all the documents are posted online uh after every meeting we just post them online for uh our community to that's what I was hoping was your answer Dr I appreciate that yes sir and at the same time did we remove all the old stuff we went through the the web page and made sure that those are removed uh you can correct me if I'm wrong PJ but I think that was a request that was made that was that was requested and we we had asked um for it to be removed it was removed thank you it's been requested many it's been requested many times but I know recently I talked to the chair about it and she said she was going to speak with y'all

170about it because it would it would it would certainly create a great deal of confusion to have the old plan and the new plan posted on the same website yes sir some there was some contradiction sir um so all this stuff that was presented last week and this week is posted on the website for the public to look at and you you read the Clos schedule on this page if we went forward with this I I as proposed nothing closes next year because you can't close anything until you've got the new build facilities built that that is correct okay yeah I just switched slides to help with the conversation no that was correct I got that was exactly the slide I was looking at and I think this is a good way to look at

171it um of how we laid out that program yes sir and you know dates are subject to funding and you know a whole bunch of other things going to school construction right but this was our best shot at trying to lay out a a reasonable schedule of how that waterfall should look y I got you and I think you know getting back to our kind of like our our early section of our um master plan recommendations and we know School construction takes time and I you know that's why we kind of put some of this in the front end you know this is intended to guide that long-term Vision we identified you know underutilized space we also identified you know what really draws our eye is those Priority One those major items for schools that

172need to be addressed um you know obviously you want to be purposeful in how you're putting money into the schools not nobody has unlimited funds to put money into every building you know um it has to have a thoughtful process by master plan but I think the last sentence near-term decision making should be in alignment with the recommendations of the plan if you are in agreement as PJ puts it with the recommendations of the plan so if you know outside of this year in between now and when construction is going to occur you know if if there are some schools that need to be Consolidated reference the plan look at what that's calling for look at what that timeline and how that would lay out um if for extenda financial and operational needs it has

173to be done right um we understand that it's which right that I get it's the reality that you know every district and everybody lives in anymore right um and there's no you know guarantees with funding it's you know it's a difficult process so we just wanted to make sure that that was clear that this is that longer term vision and if things are going to have to happen in the interim reference the plan and that's why we also wanted to make the plan a bit malleable um to say that if things change um you know don't don't feel like you have to be beholden to what we wrote here is in stone it's not it's a guiding document right yes I understand I'm done thank you madam chair um I'm I'm running the meeting because

174um Miss um peris has to do something in the her job so I have Mr Woodson have her hands up Mr wood okay one one quick comment I just want to remind Mr travor you know at the finance meeting couple of days ago Mr enco stressed the importance of us moving in the timely fashion not the way he said it but that's the nice way you know of saying it but you I just want to remind Mr trer that and uh I I wasn't I wasn't the finance meeting Mr Woodson so yeah yeah he he I think he had just wed I don't know if he missed it but yeah he stressed you know the importance of the timeline you know of us having to move move move kind of quickly on these things you

175know even though you know the information coming out like we like we just got some information today so you know like I said over the weekend we're going to try to uh brush up on information so Monday we can make an informed decision and uh we just got to start moving like like Mr Ino said if you if you didn't see it it was a good meeting uh from the last Finance meeting we had and uh even even even yeah I know I remember I forgot you were out of town yeah even even Joe even Joe kind of uh was uh moving um in that not not I ain't going to say he was changing his Direction but even you know Joe was listening a lot to Mr anle and just realizing that we got

176to move kind of quick you know we every day is is is costing us every hour you know so just want to bring that up thank you yeah no I appreciate that Mr Woodson and I I couldn't agree with you more thank you Mr Woodson um I just like to make a motion to bring this um to the full board to discussion only um they have a second Tomo thank you I and thank you Mr Woodson so um anyone have some question just before I say our journey Mr saket I know you really spoke Mr tror or Mr Bina being yes Mr viina you got the floor sir thank you um very small because I want to have a chance to review everything again but I know uh George is still on and everybody is

177still on and PJ also um sorry Mr Kaa um that um I know we're going to be you know looking at moving the district around a little bit and also what programs are wear and all that stuff just want to make sure that everybody keeps in mind as some the kind of like that always thinks about this in this uh area is the transportation cost um because that is going to be you know also a factor that needs to be uh shown to the board when we talk about our budget process and when we talk about these schools the way they're they're being shown to us and presented to us that we look at you know what is could be it could be a better thing it could be a worse thing but we need

178to see that uh the cause of what we're doing when we talk about redistricting and moving kids around especially with the prek program that they're about because then that means every prek is probably gonna be going to a certain area from all around the district and it's just a concerned when you talk about uh uh Transportation cost so just want to keep that out there in the minds of the whole board my colleagues and also the those that are working on the plan but again uh thank you Mr um subba uh I enjoyed every trip that we took around the schools and everything and uh and the book is you know about you know want to say about six and a half inches thick so I thank you for taking some time I know we're

179going to have a few meetings uh but I look forward to getting a true uh presentation to the full board uh before we take any Vote or anything at all so thank thank you again for your team uh Mr superintendent uh George uh Mr karfa um and everyone in question and all the board members and committee members thank you very much all right as Mr minina said I don't need to say it again but thank you everyone so I'll make a motion toj the meeting don't you got vote I believe sir you didn't vote on your motion yet you didn't vote on your motion you got a motion in a second but you haven't voted so sorry I didn't hear your said again you made a motion you Andre made a motion you second it

180and then you had discussion made you haven't done your vote B yeah I was going through that but you know you just say it you know I'm trying to say it but you know you went through so all right any discussion done wa so you a favor I would transy to make motion you know to bring this to the board to discuss so I just make a motion to to join the meeting and thank you Mr wson I'm sorry wait Mr Benham if I may Mr Benham if I I think you misunderstood so I'm gonna do it a little slower you already have made a motion to bring this over to for discussion to the whole board you had a motion made by Mr Andrew Woodson said so move you second it you open to

181discussion and that's when I ask a question I want to discuss one more point and you guys have not voted as a committee yeah you haven't voted that's what I was trying to bring to your attention that you guys actually have not voted the motion on the floor to move this for discussion to the whole board prior to your statement trying to a meeting so I want to remind you that was my point that I was making that's what I said in the beginning Mr Medina and i' say that or during the meeting to make a motion to discuss only into the full board that's what I said early I don't I don't know you're hear me but M wson say second in the beginning or run no he already made the motion sir you're

182just making a vote Yes No that's it vote Yes Med please me everything long I want to go I want to relax everybody GNA want to relax all right so Jan meeting see you um soon thank you for everything God bless you all thank you sir appreciate you thank you good night everybody good night good night