001abilities and we've got some things to go over so Mike why don't you just take it please thank you Michelle okay we'll get moving here um there's three items on the agenda for tonight one is a review of the ad specs uh there's two Ed specs that were posted the Early Childhood Center uh the Danbury High School science labs and then we're going to take action to approve each of these Ed specs to move it up to full board for a vote on the uh June 21st meeting so Dan and his team can uh have it ready for their state meeting um later on that week so can I just interrupt you for a minute I'm gonna need some 88 Minutes Bridget Al oh I am not in a position but um I could be
002in about a second so if you wanna I'm just gonna take myself off okay I was asking before we got kind of started yep just just continue and and I will catch up with everybody thank you go ahead Mike Start Interruption that's right so um I don't want to walk through the specs Page by page I'm assuming everybody had a chance to take a look at them um so I just want to give kind of a high level overview of what these projects are there's there's really about three ways to to talk about these one is a little bit about the need for the project and and a bit of the history uh the second piece is really the design features what's unique about it that's going to make life better for uh students in
003Danbury and then lastly just a little bit about cost and timeline so that first piece I'll handle with myself and Rich and then Kelly and John will take uh the second part for their respective um uh Ed specs and then the cost and timeline I'll throw back to Dan and Tom so to start with for Early Childhood Center this is the Early Childhood Center at Granville and this is fundamentally about creating additional space uh there's been some discussions for a long time now about how we were going to handle some of our swelling Pre-K enrollment and there were few ideas that had been thrown around about building some additions um Dan I'll let you talk about the the process of of acquiring the building and why here and all that but this would expand the
004Granville um facility um and add several classrooms um sort of the background around this is the Pre-K enrollment right now we always look at our enrollment projections from our demographer uh and that's what sort of guides a lot of our decision making um this year for example we were projected to have only 283 students in pre-k at the time we wrote this report we already had 374. we knew this increase was coming and that it was coming fast that same demographic report is projected to continually increase through 25 and 26. where they're projecting 367 students that 367 is already lower than where we at are at right now so the need for increasing our space is is really imperative so that projected 367 and 2000 in 2025 2026 we're expecting to be probably closer to
005about 450 if you actually keep those those increase adjustments consistent with where we are right now so the need is there and like I said we batted around a few different project ideas there was some discussion of great plane project but we ultimately landed on the Granville project and I'll let Dan and Anton talk a little bit about how that came about and um and where it's going to go yeah thank you Mike um so uh just to introduce myself uh Dan Patrick's assistant city engineer um I have Tom Hughes with me to our superintendent Construction Services for anyone that doesn't know it um and just to kind of expand on what Mike mentioned um some of you that have been around for a while might kind of be scratching your head um because um
006the 2020 task force that was put together back in um I believe the end of 2019 and kind of presented on some solutions district-wide for for the increasing enrollment throughout all of the grade levels um we had the um Osborne Street Edition the growth at the high school middle school levels which were taken care of by the Career Academy and now the third arm of that was the Pre-K Center The Early Childhood Center for the Pre-K population um and the the goal behind that was really to provide the district with a centralized um location for the Pre-K and at that time the most logical place for us to put that addition and and build that space would as an addition on the Great Plain Elementary School um for the last couple of years that was
007the project that that we're moving forward with um there was funds approved for that in the um uh David Career Academy Bond uh referendum that was approved last year and we were moving full steam ahead with the Great Plain location we even went so far as uh to advertise for architectural services um earlier this year and it was at that time the city was approached with the opportunity to um purchase Granville um so that's kind of where where the twists were where the new information might be coming in for a lot of you um Granville Avenue um as many of you know is the location where Danbury public schools is already operating uh the Early Childhood Center and um very quickly over the last uh couple of weeks months um we have been looking at
008that site to ensure that it can accommodate uh the number of classrooms that we were originally planning to construct as an addition to uh to great plan Elementary School for the Pre-K Center um the building as you all know is is great building I think everyone is very pleased with it very pleased with its location it was recently renovated in in um and we would be looking to expand that space to accommodate approximately uh 16 classrooms total uh which is the number of classrooms that we were looking to construct over at Great Plain um so we've taken a look at the site um it is a it can be a challenge um you know being an inner city site um but we do think it is feasible um so that's what we're moving forward with
009um you know ultimately the site is in the heart of downtown Danbury it really lends itself to where a lot of that um uh Pre-K population is located where the growth is coming from and um it just provides a school in a location that will be permanently hours rather than a lease space that we can continue to enjoy for for you know all the years to come so with that said I think that that's kind of the background on it we are uh we're excited to move forward with it again we are in very very early concept stages um the aspect that you're looking at that was put together is really kind of our our project manual for this um so we don't have anything to present in terms of um design drawings things of
010that nature um we were really just moving forward the very early initial stages of the project in order to get us um all of our approvals in line and in order for our state Grant application which has a June 30th deadline for next year's priority list and we typically like to submit that application at least a week usually we try to get two weeks early just to make sure the state can digest it take a look at it make sure that everything looks good and is acceptable so that we can address any comment that they might have prior to the June 30th thank you Dan did you want to talk a little bit about the specifics um like additional classrooms I know we're going from 13 to 16 there's a multi-purpose room are there any
011other features that you think are are worth calling out at this time I know like you said with the design really isn't fully baked yet and there's still a lot of changes that could be made with where walls are how big certain rooms are how many offices there are um yeah essentially we're looking to maintain a lot of the space that's there um you know the building is um operated and and um you know it's fully occupied as exists today and we would basically be looking to expand that um I think we can get um at least six classrooms there I think there's ten classrooms there existing so uh We've looked at it we we can we can pick six classrooms there um if it turns out that there's an opportunity to um to fit
012more um and and project funds and budget allows it you know we'll always take that opportunity to to to to to do our best and uh see what we can do to do the best we can for for everyone and create as much space as we can uh but right now the goal is to meet um the six additional classrooms for a total of six team that we were planning on constructing a great plan um and uh yeah really the the idea behind great playing the centralization was to try and um mitigate any leases um I know we have at least in this building now if we were uh when when we purchased it um you know it'll take care of that lease and uh provide some extra space for the district um I know
013everything's growing and and the numbers have changed since uh since 2020 when this plan was put in place um but uh you know we're gonna we're gonna do as best we can to to maximize the site maximize the space and and create a well-functioning school for the district thanks Dan Madam chair without without specifications what are we actually voting on tonight the need we we have no numbers to uh the uh the Ed specs uh are we're part of the package um so these are included in the um the agenda pack for tonight right but we have no direct specifications with cost is that correct and um Mike if I could jump in uh that's how it works with Ed specs um the Board of Ed uh approves the spec it goes back to the
014building committee um they'll come up with cost estimates they'll put it out for bid they'll they'll look at the budgetary aspects of things um you're just voting on what you uh want educationally uh in the project okay and if I'm incorrect uh no you you that you're you're you're correct John um like I said uh the aspect is is essentially serves as the project manual um so it kind of details the need for the project um the rationalization for the project um the programming of the spaces that you want to see the types of spaces size of sizes of spaces um really just kind of kind of the backbone as to what you are doing not so much the details of um how and how we're not approving the cost okay thank you great bye
015Mr I misunderstood your question yeah um okay Kelly do you want to talk a little bit about just the program and and how this is going to be an enhancement sure sure right now uh just as a reminder to the board um we have 10 classrooms preschool classrooms currently housed at the current Grandville location we have three class preschool classrooms uh that are special ed preschool programs housed at our Sacred Heart location which is separate from Granville we'll be adding a fourth preschool classroom there for next school year so the 23-24 school year so this would give us the ability to bring those four classrooms over into the Granville location if this project were to move forward and be approved that also helps us to centralize services so many of our preschoolers receive speech occupational
016or physical therapy um Assistive Technology support adaptive physical education and it really helps to have all those programs under one leader which is our special education supervisor in one location to help to provide continuity of programming for those students it also provides for the um the increase in growth which we have seen historically with a particular tick over the last few years in our preschool program I don't know if there's any particular questions that you have about the current program as it exists I'd be happy to answer them can I can I ask a question Michelle is that okay okay go ahead Teresa just curious the ins the Connecticut Institute for families their school uh what do they do sure so um they provide early childhood education for students that is a separate grant that
017they receive directly from the state it is not operated by the Danbury public schools we do collaborate with them oftentimes we will have children that may attend part of the day with them that come to our special education preschool programming to receive their iepied services so it is certainly um a very valuable Early Childhood Program in our community and there are many others as well but these particular programs are ages three through five at the preschool are any students with special needs that were required by state law to receive special education programming and it was not and that is with us in our current programs thank you so Kelly how many will this be able to service this new look you know larger size the 16 classrooms how many students we're talking about 385 right
018now possibly 450 what will it accommodate um so it would it would give us the ability right next school year we'll have the 14 classroom so we're anticipating some growth with that at about 400 or so um possibly even a little bit more and then we give us several additional classroom spaces uh for that continued enrollment and growth and just a reminder that our preschool most of our preschool programs are a split day session so meaning we have an AM class and a PM class um so there could be anywhere between uh depending on the type of programming we're talking about some of our more specialized have a smaller student-to-teacher ratio they might have 10 or so students in the classroom other classes might have upwards of 16 18 and those would be 16 or
01918 students in the morning and an additional in the afternoon um so I think it would give us you know a pretty a pretty good number for continued enrollment six additional rooms and 18 students 108 students am plus PM we're at 216 that that makes us space we need anybody else you want to continue Mike do you want to continue Mike I guess does anybody have any other questions or just just one yeah please it would be better to have it all housed in in one one unit so with the split split program will we be saving any for any supervisory or administrative savings by only having one administrator for one housing or are we or will there be no cost savings whatsoever so as far as administrative functioning right now we have one administrator
020overseeing um the the two different locations currently with a designee that's functioning um when they're at an alternate location um so as far as an administrator salary no there will not be a savings there um but uh when you look at you know secretarial staff you know um safety Advocates and things like that um that will be something we'll have to consider based on the enrollment when we merge the two programs together there could be some savings um the other thing um that I foresee is we currently are um we need to account for travel time between the two locations for some of our related services staff so like our speech and language Pathologists our OTS and occupational therapists and physical therapists so we do lose some of their day in just transitioning from one
021program to the next so they would be able to take on and um you know provide Direct Services to more children so that would maximize our efficiency there thank you all right well if everyone's good on preschool we can move on to the big kids um could I ask the question um I I'm not only committed yes class yes go ahead I also understand another facility that's being looked at versus Great Plain okay uh and going back a couple of years ago uh the people over in that era was very uh upset because they all feel the boardroom talking about where why are you going to bring more students over there when we're done oh parking is bad so so I guess I guess my question is is this the only place that you're looking
022at Mike were you able to understand that whole question no I I think I can piece it together I think I have a pretty good understanding of it just from from being in some of the um past uh past meetings where um you know some of these plans were discussed um so this um this location is actually a a new location we are pivoting away from the Great Plains School location um and and looking to purchase the building at 22 Granville Avenue um to construct the site so um I I spoke a little bit in the beginning about great plane um as far as the history of how we got to today um but this would be this this would be a an alternate site um where there would be no no additions to Great
023Plain um which is a kind of another one of the benefits of the thrust because great plane you know no sight is perfect but great plane in particular would have been a challenging site um you know to accommodate all of the parking uh the Bus drop off in traffic um in this case you know we at Granville Danbury public schools have a school they're operating currently um you know the neighborhood is used um to the to the uh bus traffic um parent drop-off uh traffic um you know and it it's it's really kind of kind of lended itself to be an ideal location I mean it already is an ideal location um we're just uh just looking to to continue to keep it there and have ownership of it um so that's that's one of
024the the main benefits of this as well um and again thank you thank you Dan I I sort of misunderstood because I didn't hear the uh the early part of it and I apologize for that uh I thought you was talking about class more classroom over at Great Plains where I I couldn't see where that's happening uh Granville Avenue you know uh yes I've been over there it's a you know and we can have everyone under the same umbrella I don't see anything wrong with it I would just uh sorry that I missed hurt because you know I was about to go battle for great plane you know we we don't need no more traffic over at Great plane and uh you know so I appreciate the chairperson for letting me uh voice my opinion
025and and I appreciate uh the clarification and I think that's what we really need to be when we're explaining it to board members and parents and stuff because people will get upset when you're talking about moving Thank You Bridget do you have any questions or comments in here um so the only question I would have um in the specs I think there was a brief discussion about remediation so if you could just uh talk it doesn't seem like we're going to need an awful lot of Remediation in the building but if you could talk to that for just a second to clarify I'd appreciate it someone sure so um as part of this project uh right now a portion of the building is occupied um released by by Danbury public schools and the other remaining
026portion of the building I believe is currently occupied by a church not all of the areas were um renovated um and and abated during the 2020 renovation so as part of this project we would be taking over the building as a whole um so the the area that's currently used by the church would also turn into classroom space and it's really some of the areas in there um that that are likely to contain some hazardous materials that would have to be evaded as part of the project okay thank you very much I appreciate the explanation so if everybody comfortable um would we like to go ahead and try to put it to a motion to address in front of the board the approval of the education specifications for Early Childhood Child Support Center is there
027emotion anyone so moved I'll suck at that approved by uh moved by Bridget and second in by Al Russo thank you Mike okay great um so we'll move along now to the uh science labs at Danbury High School so where Grandville was really a project about expanding uh the science lab project isn't really so much expanding it's it's about rejuvenating and modernizing uh the existing labs in that building I've really been there since the 60s I make a little comment in the Ed Speck that when they were built we hadn't even yet been to the Moon Science Education has come a long way um so our facilities need to accommodate that so um I'm not going to get I don't want to get into the the enrollment numbers and all that again we all know
028Danbury High School um has has a lot of kids um they are going to be a site of the academy oh sorry Mr Russo I apologize but procedurally I I have to ask I realize we have a motion on the floor in a second do we need to vote as a committee on on the motion that was made to support oh okay is that is that the case Mike yes to bring it what did you just I'm sorry I have the motion eyes Bridget motioned I second and I suppose you have to ask for a vote okay and we have a vote please uh so I'm gonna say uh all those in favor sorry aye aye any opposed I apologize opposed none okay the motion is past that thank you sorry Mike that's all right
029I'm so excited to get talking about the science labs I wanted to make my joke about the moon so [Laughter] uh so anyhow without further wait a minute I was in the science lab at that time so be careful well I'm uh I'm sure they they did a great job uh but Back in 1970 Teresa that's that was there in 1960 I know she didn't get a chance to be there until I did though you were in a higher level you were in the honors low yeah I did have Irish cab so I'll let Mr LaRosa talk a little bit about the changes in science curriculum um and what that means for the classroom space where we need to hold the classes um so a few years ago so I'll introduce myself for those that
030don't know I'm John LaRosa I'm one of the assistant principals at Danbury High School um I work closely with Rich jalbert and his team on facility stuff within the building and formerly I was a science department head for about 10 years in a science teacher before that so my knowledge is pretty good in Science World um our science building currently again as as Teresa mentioned and Mike mentioned um is the original science building for Denver High School science is pretty different than it is than it was in 1962. um there was a lot of direct instruction back then um and and all of us have taken science classes in high school and if you remember like lab class you had a lab book and you followed step one and then went to step two and
031you followed a procedural um lab experience that is not the science of today our science curriculum is based off of the national or the Next Generation science standards which most districts in the country follow all of the state of Connecticut follows and that curriculum is transformed from direct instruction and kind of like cookbook lab settings to a lot more inquiry-based student cooperation problem solving based activities our classrooms right now we have I think it's 16 classrooms Dan correct me if I'm wrong 16 science classrooms and they're a mix they were built for a specific reason so we have specific chemistry they called chemistry labs and specific biology Labs um and and they're all outdated they no longer fit this this new science idea of um students collaborating to solve problems they were built um to
032have direct instruction and or cookie cutter cookbook Style Lab activities so the plans that Dan has been working on with his Engineers would would do two things for us they would provide more collaborative space in all of the classrooms so not just the chemistry classrooms that right now have collaborative space this would provide direct instruction space as well as collaborative working spaces in all of the science classrooms so all 16 versus what I think is now about seven or eight um it would also update all of the facilities within those spaces so after all of these years the sinks that are in those classrooms that are used regularly for activities no longer functioning and the city is unable to really fix them because of years of chemicals going down the drains have eroded pipes and
033created problems that the city just cannot address and which means it puts an impact on the teacher's ability to implement this new new style of curriculum so in in the layout changes of the classroom which we'll also be updating all of the facilities so that the materials and the the functionality of the space will work we're going to be hopefully moving away from designated chemistry class designated biology class to make classrooms a little bit more Universal again having a direct instruction space and a collaborative working space because as we all know the the population of the high school is growing and we don't always have the same number of chemistry classes each year if we have a larger sophomore class we need more chemistry classes and then the following year we need more physics classrooms
034some of the updates will allow us to really utilize the science classrooms as a whole more efficiently to make sure all the students get Equitable access to this new curriculum and new style of teaching thank you Mr LaRosa uh just one quick adjustment I think you said 16 or 17 Labs so we have actually 18 Labs planned for for modernization great thank you um and that includes 17 kind of prep storage uh work room spaces I know there's some some sort of greenhouse features and some of those uh prep areas with the hoods as well too so all that's going to get um going to get an overhaul yeah we're lucky that that our science classrooms um do have have prep space for teachers um so that the work that they're doing to set up
035some of these activities these Labs can be done in a safe controlled space and then we also have uh they call them like Grow rooms they're not really greenhouses as much as their designated rooms um for for staff to utilize as a working spaces for students to again do more long-term project stuff so the students are working on some of these long-term um real world problem-solving activities they can set them up and kind of keep them going for weeks or weeks on end versus utilizing um the same space that they have to share with all of the other classrooms thank you John um and just a reminder that then this goes for the Granville um piece too we will have artwork as these projects develop there's some very very preliminary sketches um that you know
036come to the table and we say no this isn't enough space or you know these are islands they need to be uh peninsulas you know there's all these different conversations that are still happening and um as we said earlier the the Ed spec is really just a sort of explanation of the logic of the project the need for it um and what we want to do and then as as that sort of gets formulated the design comes into uh you know a you know a clear picture sorry we said do you have a question I'll wait till after Al if I make I thought as I understand it there's going to be some new additional classrooms is that correct Mike so this one won't really add classrooms um this is really just a refurbishment of
037the existing okay and and subdividing some space for Grow rooms um yeah and I think a lot of those rooms are are existing right now there's sort of those in between rooms in between classes where there's you know like a desk and then maybe a hood for for demos and things like that my question was and you've confirmed it existing square footage is going to be reutilized thank you yeah currently all of the spaces Mike talked about the prep room the The Grow rooms the classroom space they're all the walls are already there um they're just extremely outdated so this would be refreshing them to make them usable um for kind of the new way of teaching I think it's much more effective and and you know the other little piece of this too is
038you know some kids are going to be going to you know the new building um the the west campus for science um so you know it's nice if kids feel like you know they're they're getting a new experience too for those who will be taking you know their classes at the high school so it really is about an equity issue as well I've heard of science Equity now I know science Equity okay Teresa questions talking about the new way of teaching so you're not going to cut open gerbils anymore but what will you be doing in lieu of to get my head wrapped around this new system yeah so some some of the programs still do dissections the typical frog thing but the different style is again if you remember um doing a lab in
039science you you did step one and then you did step two and then you did step three and then you recorded did it turn blue or red and you wrote it down and then you went to step four there wasn't a lot of problem solving on the student's end it was more of can you follow directions as if you were baking right you've got to do this step then this step and this step write down your observations um nowadays it's a lot more real world problem solving so an example is we just I was lucky enough to go and walk through and witness one of our aquatic science classes or really all of our aquatic science classes they were working on water quality and specifically looking at the still River here in Danbury and how
040Danbury High School and our watershed area affects the still River so students were given the task of how are you going to improve the the water runoff at Danbury High School that will inevitably improve the still River and the students had to come up with real world problem-solving Solutions on how could we better handle the water at Danbury High School when it goes down into storm drains to hopefully produce a healthier still River so that was a a project that they did there was no no step one to go to step two they had to really come up with what is their problem what possible research they had to do to figure out a solution and then they had to um do some activities that went along with that before they finally presented to both
041staff members and outside agencies about their proposal on how to fix a problem with the still River being polluted from Danbury High School I I was able to join and do the walk through those presentations as well and I have to say I was really impressed some of the solutions Dan and Tom I'm gonna make you guys come with me next year because I think they've got some ways to keep the water off those steps as you go down behind uh behind the old gym there so just one more thing um just to note um so everyone um is aware um this project is also very um closely related to uh the um meask uh report um that was issued uh for Danbury High School um so this was one of the comments as far
042as a a modernization of the science classrooms um or an improvement of the science classrooms to support and modern curriculum so I just want to make sure everyone's aware of that that this project is dovetailing into that um the ask report yeah thanks and that's when I was speaking again of some of the facilities within the classrooms not working and the Equitable issue of how each classroom is quite different and we were teaching the same courses and very different setups um that did come right from our nearest report as they walked around and thought on these 1962 classrooms no longer meet the Need For What Science Education is what's the best case scenario as far as when this would this work would begin because I know that you know we had parent come out and
043talked or a teacher I think come out and discuss the science lab and inability to be able to utilize it so what are we looking at for a timeline we would be looking at a construction start of the summer of 20 24. um so the way the project timeline is kind of rolling out we're applying for our state Grant application Again by the end of June and um over over the months of the summer we'll be doing design plans and specifications um and then it's it's going to be kind of gathering everyone around the table um and um John in in his high school administrative team and um saying okay how can we make this work because as as everyone's aware um there really is no swing space at Danbury High School um to handle
044the classrooms that would be taken out of commission during construction um so that that is one of the biggest challenges of this project is the construction timeline and in the in the period of time that's available to get the work done um but yes it would not be starting until the summer of 24. and it would be two summers right down yeah that's what we'll be looking at so are we looking at no water then in that in those classrooms currently for the next definite year plus two as far as I I mean I would say the the conditions that are in in the labs currently uh will be in place uh for another year but as far as I know I mean I don't think water has ever been an issue um in the
045Rogers Park issue yeah I'm sorry okay question as far as far as funding this is 100 Grant funded or what is the city or do we have a current part of our current uh bond issue of 208 million uh correct so so um funding for this project was part of that um Bond referendum last year as well um we would be seeking our uh our typical approximately 63 64 reimbursement from the state uh the remainder uh of of eligible costs would be City funded okay thank you second part of my question is to Teresa Teresa's kids at bio 102 had frogs you did you really have gerbils yes we did I would draw the question yes we did I had honors biology I didn't but come on so moved all right I think sorry Michelle
046okay anybody else have any questions discussion Bridget nope all set thank you I'm good thank you so if we're ready then we're going to be looking um for the approval of the education specification for Danbury High School science lab Improvement and um is there a motion then for the sites and Facilities committee to be renamed to the board of edu to be excuse me recommended the Board of Education approval I would make that motion so all those any opposed okay motion is passed right thank you that's all we have okay thanks so much everybody for coming tonight appreciate your time and uh we'll see you soon