001for bridget are you able to see all the attendees uh yes so i will keep checking to make sure i don't miss anyone who comes later but i think i have everyone thank you perfect okay great okay all right so let's start off um we'll move it right over to the agenda let's get going and i will turn it over to kevin to start us off tonight thanks luisa and good evening everyone and happy thursday evening i have a agenda um i will put that on the screen shortly but i want to take this opportunity to thank our partners from the city um dan petrovic and antonio anarella want to thank them both for their partnership and stewardship throughout this process and we'll be walking you through um a number of things on the agenda
002this evening give me one second see if i can't share the screen with everyone and so we have uh four agenda items um two of them quite frankly one of them real big juicy agenda item uh talking about danbury career academy um an update for everyone regarding danbury high school facility and accreditation update um just some overall discussions that um dating back to i believe um early 2019 and talk about some k5 enrollment growth and possible solutions and we have our city partners this evening to talk through talk through some of those um and then last but not least an enrollment study update for the committee and then i'll provide the same update again um at our board meeting so i just wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to walk through those things
003but i think it would be great to start with we have danbury career academy a couple of weeks ago we had an amazing and exciting press conference with the mayor antonio um mayor esposito um our board was there we had bought representation um and uh very happy and and proud to be there on behalf of this exciting project um danbury career academy itself um we've had people working on the city side uh moving this work forward and two of those gentlemen are here this evening joining us i mean i was hoping they can be here and we can share some of the exciting designs of the new school many people of the public didn't have an opportunity to have access and some board members did not have an opportunity to attend the press conference that
004evening and we we'd love to give it up up close and personal kind of review and update danbury career academy i know everyone on the committee has heard the update and the academic programming plan for the site but may not have had an opportunity to see up close and personal um okay not personal but up close uh version of the architectural plans uh so we'd love an opportunity to do that with you this evening antonio before i before i shared the plans did you want to say anything first before we get started if not i'll jump right in uh sure kevin i no thank you for the introduction and uh um i'd just like to say that uh although we've been talking about this project for a while i probably talk to you or your
005staff every single day um we um have this project to a point where it's gelled up and seems to be um in a state of format where we can actually update the site and facilities folks uh with some real information you know what looks like a real project so um that this is why we're doing this today and we're providing this update this will be one of many updates uh that we will be providing you as we move the project forward um you will along with the rest of the board of education will be intimately involved in approving ed specs that were uh in a draft form right now and ultimately the design development drawings for the entire uh new career academy so um again i want to thank you for uh inviting us tonight
006kevin and uh we're ready to kind of kick it off and and give you a quick presentation of what this exciting project looks like antonio thanks so much um which one would you like to start with sir well i i think maybe we start with the career academy um it is the focus of our presentation tonight and then we do want to touch upon a couple other projects that uh we've been working on while we're developing the career academy so uh uh you we we've been working on board of education needs and facility needs and projects um consistently while we've been developing the career academy uh project so i thought it was a good update a good time and a good uh format to give you an update on those projects too and do you
007want to start with the order in which dan sent them in terms of the aerial review and then we'll get to the pretty pictures at the end yeah why don't we kind of i just like to i like the uh the folks to kind of understand the overall site logistics of the plan what we're actually purchasing we also have some uh incredible opportunities first first right of refusal on a purchase of another parcel which is immediately adjacent so i think it'll be good to share that okay all right wonderful good good all right so antonio i'll keep going through ariel and then once i'm done with the area i'll let you know what's coming up next or you can just tell them yeah that's perfect okay sounds awesome thank you so much so um the
008the parcel one that you see in front of you is really what is consistent of the existing cardis site it's uh a building of 270 000 square feet um just over 1300 parking spaces 24 acres of property uh and it's all usable property it's relatively flat it's a gorgeous parcel and it's perched up nice and high overlooking the western side of danbury our airport uh it's just a beautiful facility so uh parcel one is is the entire cardis purchase that the city is moving forward with um in addition to that purchase we have first rider refusal uh on a parcel right between one and two uh which is the uh that is the uh logic building is that right here antonio that is correct so that currently is actually owned by the same person that
009owns parcel one and uh with that corporate partner leaving danbury that parcel is readily available or will be available at some point in the next year or so to actually be purchased so uh that's a phenomenal opportunity and we secured first right of purchase on that parcel to provide an opportunity for the board of ed to expand what would ultimately be a strong presence on the western side of the western side of the uh city um so uh kevin if you could go back to that map absolutely i'm just gonna there's some additional benefits to the purchase that i like to just cover with you um immediately over to the right perfect you'll actually see a parcel number two uh parcel number two is going to be a gift to the city including the entire
010road right away which is in red that is actually part of the purchase of the uh the 24 acres which consists of parcel one so if you could start to imagine uh the opportunity of this western campus it becomes pretty uh it becomes pretty exciting uh where we could really use uh not only more additional property but we could really kind of at the first time in a long time look at expanding without being under such tight constraints as we have been pretty much from the time i started here i've been here almost 17 years we've always been struggling with limited area limited space we've maxed out most of our schools for additions this is the first real opportunity to provide a campus that would give us the potential future expansion in addition to that
011as i mentioned to you while that that corporate partner is going to be leaving they actually own the other parcel uh which is directly south right there yep right over to the left a little bit this way no to the left um right to the right where the red and the green me okay oh no not here i'm sorry no it's okay it would be if you go to parcel one okay and come straight down with your pointer a little bit now over to the right a little bit more that parcel right there is owned by the same company that is looking at pretty much uh um moving on from danbury so what i'm trying to mention to you is we will also have an opportunity to potentially purchase that uh that parcel is in
012separate ownership um but the corporate company will obviously uh be be very interested in potentially selling that to us because um it it it provides great opportunity uh for us for future expansion obviously all of this would have to be negotiated out but if we're lucky enough to secure all these parcels we would have a western campus of over 39 acres uh so it's just an incredible opportunity in addition to that if you uh kev if you go to the far left you'll see a bunch of red arrows where it says city of danbury we actually own those parts of the land already uh and when you combine that with all the other items that we just spoke about all the other parcels uh you will see uh you know we really have a site
013that could uh accommodate future expansion for a long time um so that is the existing uh uh site that carter sits on and some of the really great opportunities that we have uh to position ourselves for future expansion and um so uh kev you could go to the next slide okay and tony i have a question about the two acres right here um six four six point four eight six point four that's parcel two my apologies and so i remember i mean we've been over to this i've been over to the campus a couple of times now and and as you enter the campus it actually continues to elevate is this flat land right here no it is sloping it's sloping land and uh i mean we build on sloping land all that that's right
014that's right take a look at the back of the high school that's right three years ago that addition was uh built right into the hillside but yeah there there there are some limits on that 6.4 acre site um uh but it's it's it's a uh it's basically a gift we're not paying anything for it yeah okay that's awesome that is great news i didn't realize that was part of it i'm happy to hear that okay i'll go to one dca floor one pdf yeah awesome okay so uh what what this is showing is some of the very preliminary conceptual space programming and we go through this exercise to make sure that uh whatever kevin and his staff envision for an educational curriculum that we can actually uh that we we can actually fit it into
015this building and what we found was that we very easily can fit that curriculum in addition um to providing an opportunity for the first time ever for the board of education central office staff to actually be together um so um there is there are two small additions that are programmed into uh the 270 000 square foot of existing uh building and that is the gym which is uh just up from the point or where you are there is a brand new gym it is a high school uh sized gym and then just to the right there is a small addition for pathway project that we are providing and that's just to the right a little bit more right in there those editions are approximately 16 000 square feet so in the end we will have
016about 286 000 square feet to accommodate two schools this would be a middle school and a high school um as as uh anticipated by the preliminary uh ed specs that kevin and his staff have been working on which ultimately the board will be presented and will be asked to certify and approve uh that's next as we continue to move forward um but uh it was such an easy fit to get that program into the space that uh you know we were used to the challenges provided over at the summit that this was uh oh my goodness it was such a an easy task for us to kind of work through um of the 286 000 square feet there is about 30 000 square feet that it will be dedicated to the central office staff the
017central office staff will have its own entrance it will have its own dedicated elevator it will be isolated to the public uh yep thank you that would be the main entrance it will also have its own separate parking spaces and what we want to do is allow the staff to be able to go into the educational space if they want to but lock the pub public down so the public can't can't do that the public will actually have to go through a vetting process there is a security checkpoint uh there is a security lockdown area and uh only after a person has been vetted out will they actually be allowed into the uh board of ed space and uh it has its own dedicated elevator uh so it's just a it's really a perfect scenario
018uh to provide for all of the board of education staff the academic folks uh and the balance of the the administrative folks to all be pretty much at the same campus and really the synergy between uh those folks all being there should be so much more productive for them um and and that that is an opportunity that we never had uh over at the summit um so overall as i mentioned to you a total square footage of about 286 000 square feet there's two editions 16 000 square feet and out of the 286 we'll have about 30 000 square feet dedicated uh to uh the central office folks uh kevin and his staff and and tony i just wanted to share with the committee um at the top would be and so for board meetings
019the board room space would be here at the top and made the entrance for the board side would be over here with the district office but as you come up that driveway which you saw in the aerial view which was here just trying to orient myself we would be coming up here and coming into the campus this becomes the main entrance for kids and then that looks like this so you would drive through the campus as you're coming in you would park over here somewhere and right antonio this still becomes the main entrance coming up these nice stairs right here that is correct we do have two dedicated entrances one for the middle school one uh for the uh high school that's right the high school right right yeah and and then the third entrance
020with the primary entrance will be the one we just described which would be for the central office and uh the layout that we're showing you allows the public to come and attend one of your meetings without walking through the entire building right you ready for the next one yeah let's let's go to the next one so now we're getting deep into uh the programming for the next uh floors so let me just go to my sheet here i'll give you a quick overview on what that is antonio how current are these drawings uh these drawings are the drawings that we actually used about a week ago and uh they're about as current as uh they stand but they uh they're constantly changing based on uh in uh input that we're getting from the board of
021vet staff yeah so as you will see you have a number of general classrooms on the second floor um the space in the middle is a space that connects the the two schools together uh it it basically the high school is predominantly on the uh right side i'm sorry the high school is predominantly on the left side which is four stories and the middle school is predominantly on the right side the spaces in the middle are shared space only on the second floor so you have you have sort of um you you have some common spaces that can be shared but still it keeps the two schools uh uh independent uh and separated which is one of the key elements of having one school inside of another um and then you'll actually see the second
022floor of the board of ed space which is to the top there yep thank you so the 30 000 square feet of the board of ed space is about 15 000 on the first floor and approximately fifteen thousand on the second floor all right and we could keep going kevin wonderful so as we get to the uh to the next floor you'll you'll actually see that um the center area stops coming up that's the roof of that common space that i just described to you which would be used for uh potentially by both um schools the middle school and a high school and now we're really into some pretty hard academic spaces for both schools the high school and the middle school and um we are installing some additional stair towers uh you'll see them
023piggybacked up against the existing yep thank you there's one there's another one in the far bottom right um right in there those uh additional stair towers provide the capacity that we need in order to safely allow our children during a potential hazard of fire or something of that sort to be able to effectively leave the building in a safe manner uh that is part of the project right now and antonio i don't remember is that a single stair now and we're making it a double i don't know that's correct yeah it's a it's a single staircase and we're gonna be adding to it where it'll be a double staircase so it provides for the capacity that we need in order for our children to effectively exit the school in a safe manner okay thank you
024sir and for that yep we'll go to the next one next one's predominantly going to be the high school okay so the high school side is the only building that actually has the fourth floor and you'll see this is where we're programming a lot of the pathway uh classrooms very specialized classrooms to accommodate the academy curriculum and you'll also see this is where we're going to have a pretty exciting greenhouse top of the page in that area there and we're going to accomplish that by cutting a section of the roof out and actually building a really nice uh greenhouse in in that area and as i mentioned to you um there are the school is going to be built to accommodate two of the academies and each academy has um sorry about that each academy
025has um pathways the two academies that we're working on and programming into this school is the academy of science innovation and medicine and the other one is the academy of global enterprise and econo economics and there's several pathways underneath that which we have provided specific educational space to accommodate that curriculum and that's all working in working with kevin and his staff to make sure that we're able to accomplish that all right kev probably the next slide hopefully we get to some pretty pictures there we go all right there we go uh that is uh just a very quick honestly this was put together in about less than 36 hours but it is a just a quick uh um picture of what this stanbury career academy could look like as you approach it uh we wanted
026to have a nice strong presence or business presence something that is elegant um uh nothing gaudy but something that has a sort of a la life lasting view and the danbury career academy as you see it here really i think provides for that a lot of glass a lot of innovative space when you pull up to this area you will actually see a lot of the children working on projects in those special academies uh that's all provided for right underneath where the danbury career academy lettering is and to the left of that is the main entrance all right kev we could go on to the next one this is just a different view um a different view of uh the future danbury career academy as we envision it at this minute um again you see
027the entrance there you'll see the gym edition uh right in that area so you can see it's a pretty substantially sized gym edition which would accommodate a high school uh uh uh program and uh in addition to that um there will be some flex space there where we can actually utilize it for a gathering area and it's it's uh we always try to design flex space into all of our schools because we we never want to lock kevin in with a staff we always want to provide the biggest opportunity they have to change their academic program in an area that works for them and and that's what we always strive to do thank you sir [Music] and this is more of a upper image uh again you'll see the main entrance with the edition you'll
028see the gin and this one you'll actually get to see the uh the greenhouse which has been cut out of the roof of the three-story portion of the old cardis uh site um so um it's uh it's the phenomenal views out of that greenhouse i'm gonna tell you uh you're already up in the air there but the views coming out of that greenhouse are going to be spectacular they really are they really are and and i just want to share with the committee um the buildings is kind of bridged in the middle here and so some of those barriers um that antonio was referring to you begin to see those as you're walking through the campus and as the remaining part of the building continues to go up um and antonio talked about those common
029spaces um right antonio they happened kind of right here in the middle because they're right in between so basically a nice barrier between two yeah so what the cardis building uh as it sits today is really the product of several large additions that were done by the existing owner uh the ibm folks originally actually were in that four-story building and then through multiple additions they created a beautiful cafeteria uh which is uh phenomenal i didn't even mention that to you guys but we have a cafeteria in a kitchen the kitchen is better than anything i've ever seen it's a commercial kitchen walk-in freezers walk-in refrigerators it's got really high-end uh cafeteria servery units the equipment is phenomenal everything in this building is so incredibly well maintained uh that it's uh it's just fascinating uh to
030see you know corporate obviously corporate folks have money to spend on buildings and they're not always begging the taxpayers for additional money but this building is incredibly well maintained and in great shape kev we could probably move on to the next one all right good we'll talk a little bit about about sight circulation um it is intended that the buses will all predominantly approach from the left side uh right in uh yep that driveway kev right in there and they will make their way around you'll see where there's there'll be a drop a bus drop off area there and then there'll be another uh bus drop off area sort of towards the front and we also have a dedicated apparent parking drop off that will occur uh we have an outside classroom area that we're
031programming in that seems to be a really um a popular theme in a lot of different school districts to provide an opportunity where an outdoor classroom could be held and in a safe environment so this is just a preliminary look at how we can integrate parent drop off middle school high school drop off obviously middle school and high school will be dropping off separately so there isn't a clashing of time um but it seems to work easily with just a minor relocation of some islands to be honest with you and and tony i believe that's it for the academy for right now that should be it um if if kevin if you want i could just talk a little bit about uh because this is the new career academy i think it's important that we
032talk just a little bit about where we were we're at the summit some of the constraints i've already spoken to you guys about uh in programming that space and some of the benefits that we actually have here um so we are paying about 57.2 million dollars for the 24 acres but as part of that we are getting an additional six acres and we're getting the right of way uh for the road which allows us to control control it forever and the other facility we're actually doing a condominium purchase this we're owning outright this is a direct ownership uh kevin doesn't have to worry about programming additional costs for uh what would be condominium association fees uh none of that exists here so although the purchase price is a little bit more than the other one
033you are actually owning land uh here where you were not owning land there directly um and you're also controlling everything on this site we don't ever have to worry about going to a condominium association if we want to change uh anything that we do in the in what used to be the old three pods that we were purchasing so in addition to that one of the things we found out is working with kevin and this is the reason why uh kevin has been working hard to modify the existing ad specs is there's such a greater opportunity here to enhance the ed specs that we figure we take that opportunity head on and work with it so that's what we have been doing and we have a what i think is a final draft of some
034really good expects that uh we're gonna eventually uh uh forward to the board of education and present to you uh one evening as we get closer to uh consolidating them into a final draft so kev i think that's pretty much uh uh the presentation on the career academy um and i'll take any questions that that uh your site and facility many folks may have before we move on all right antonio thank you dan thank you um i have a couple of questions um the main entrance to the academy that's going to be separate from the middle school are they is high school going in the same that main entrance is going to be for the both schools so yes the main entrance will be predominantly for uh the the two schools um and we're working
035through that right now we just had a a really nice change that actually uh improved uh some of the common areas on the first floor uh and we did that by just shifting some of the high school um offices uh that were located on that first floor but yes that's exactly right there'll be a main entrance and that predominantly will serve that okay and the common area the cafeteria that's also going to be shared by both schools that's correct we we would be and we would end up the cafeteria is great because it'll accommodate about 300 or 340 students 360 somewhere in there so the one single wave of middle school children can be they can we can feed them in one single wave and then obviously uh the high school uh could be two
036two waves possibly three if we need it but that would be another common area that we will share there's also sort of a really nice existing uh uh workout area uh we call it a sports and human performance pathway that will be there that could be shared and the other really interesting common area is if you go towards the gym kevin you'll see uh yep over to the right to the top of the right uh the gym edition yeah you'll see we actually have a presentation area there that uh exactly perfect yeah that a lot of the children could present their projects and what they worked on um and we utilized the gym as a seating area to accommodate those presentation performances um so that is what we were talking about as creating flex space
037is have a gym that not only works as a gym but after hours could be turned into an area for doing some really unique presentations almost like a black box theater type of a format and luisa thanks for asking that question about the cafeteria um the original size of the cafeteria where my cursor is right now i believe that beam ended about right here we've asked the architect to push that back over a little bit so we've actually taken a little bit of this fitness center space away but it was really important to us that all of our middle school students can eat in one lunch weight and so to antonio's point this cafeteria can accommodate 360 students which allows us to have four lunch ways in a school day to make sure we can
038accommodate one way for the middle schools and then three for the high school right so they the middle school and high school won't be having lunch together that's correct that's correct yeah that's right and the other benefit is the patio area that you see there is actually a fenced in outside dining area and there's multiple cameras this building has an incredible security system right now that exists far better than anyone i've ever seen in our school and that area is heavily surveilled it has heavy surveillance um that patio would be a great opportunity to provide some outdoor dining for kids and allow them to do that yeah at least at least half the school year we our kids can eat outside and by the way there's an outside fire place just just for a little
039icing on top does anybody else have any questions uh quick one the new gym area is that going to accommodate both the high school and the the middle school children that's correct ellie yeah it's set up to be able to facilitate both both uh school needs and the greenhouse did we also have a greenhouse program on the summit project we did uh and let me tell you it was no easy task getting a greenhouse into those three pods but we did have one uh this one's perfectly orientated the other one uh the orientation wasn't as good as this one but this one has got the southern exposure that we so drastically uh seek in a greenhouse um scenario and and the purpose of a greenhouse i wasn't well believe it or not there is a
040strong focus on uh as one of the pathways in the academies to do greenhouse utilization and we're going to actually be doing additional raised garden beds out on the site to facilitate that academic program so um might be able to get some fresh vegetables out of these kids that's right that's right okay they'll be creative anybody else kate gladys no thank you okay no thank you okay okay we can move on okay all right so the next agenda item let's just see if i can get it back up here sorry give me one second i'm working on a couple different screens here is dhs facility accreditation update and so just wanted to make the board aware there are a couple of facility items um as part of the accreditation that we need to work on
041as a system and one of the big ones bigger ones is i'm sorry i'm trying to pull this up bigger ones is an update of our science labs at the high school in our nest report it's um projected uh to be completed by this summer of 2023. um tony i believe that is the biggest project of all of them kevin that is the heart of uh the project that we're actually proposing securing some funding for um and we've already gone off for an rfp for design services um part of the the bond language that we proposed uh to the council last week includes the funding of uh these uh upgrades that you're describing okay all right and i i led with that because um it was my understanding and that was the biggest um kind
042of the biggest project as part of the accreditation update um it does say in the accreditation update um that this city has partnered with danbury public schools uh would be looking to secure funding um to help realize the 2023 timeline and so um it sounds like if we secure the funding in 2022 antonio is it reasonable in a year we can have that update um completed well kev based on uh the availability of funding which is pretty much uh what drives our project completion dates um if the council moves forward with recommending both uh bond um for referendum and we secure uh the funding there there would be no opportunity to get that work done this summer remember upgrading uh school laboratories is very uh it's very destructive i wouldn't want to do it uh
043during an occupied school it would some it would be something that i would start just before the children are out of school and then work through the summer even if i have to do double shifts so as we stand right now based on availability of funding this project is starting to look like a start of 2023 and work through the summer of 2023 would hopefully completion when the kids come back august to 23. okay antonio we're saying the same thing i i was saying not 2022. yeah my question was if we secured the funding in 2022 do you think we can complete it in 2023 yes and and the the only challenge that we're we're seeing right now with some very long lead items on specialized equipment through to the supply chain uh issues that
044we're having that is creating a major issue with any all construction projects school construction projects throughout the state uh but we would have to be very uh conscientious to that and we'll have to see what we can do uh with getting those items sort of pre-bid pre-ordered so we have them when we need them but um and and kevin the other uh the other uh project that is part of that accreditation update uh program is the nurses area we are looking at updating the entire um nurses station um and that is part of this uh uh capital request um and i tell you if you you know we're talking about almost 11.5 million dollars with the works so uh in addition to that we're going to be updating some bathrooms uh we're going to be
045doing a bunch of other related work that uh we feel would uh be in the compliance of the accreditation report that was submitted to us a year a year and a half ago probably two years ago now yeah antonio what's your understanding on why um the nursing um kind of suite needs to be updated and so interesting enough the entire discussion was about privacy they just feel that uh in the nurses area there's limited privacy and uh and that seems to be a driving uh um it seems to be a driving question for the accreditation committee to make sure that there's plenty of privacy when children come into the nurse's station if they're being held for a while or evaluated that it's done in a private environment okay thanks for clarifying um and i i
046wanted to um and i don't know if there are any questions about the accreditation update um so uh louise so i'll pause before i move on to number three i just i just flipped three and four i just thought it was better synergy that way sure um any questions on the accreditation okay okay and antonio i just flipped three with four yeah i want to update the community um and and make them aware and i believe i mentioned this at the last board meeting as well we did partner in going contract with a a demographer who will begin the enrollment study for the district it is my understanding a new enrollment study is required as part of the submission of the danbury career academy project but some of the board members might recall we had
047one done in 2019 we had one an updated study done in 2021 during the pandemic and those numbers both are not exactly the same given the pandemic the state has asked for an updated study on the other side of the pandemic now and i don't know antonio if you need to add anything but i do want to share with the committee um the demographers shared that he would like to have we would like to have uh that that report done as soon as possible he's assured me that we'll have it no later than the end of april and hopefully closer to the middle of april yeah uh kev the important thing uh to bring up here is that my danbury career academy a lot of the future projects one that i'm going to be talking
048to you about soon as part of uh agenda item number four are all driven by having an updated um enrollment study uh so the way the state works is you qualify for state education school education grants um by showing a need the way you show the need is by having updated enrollment studies and then an evaluation of existing spaces and you can then drive the need and show the need for additional academic spaces that need to be built and constructed once you show that then the state will actually participate and provide school grants for those types of projects so it's it's probably the most important item for a board of education district to uh update on a regular basis especially one like ours where we're doing so much work all the time you always want
049a nice updated enrollment study and it was uh requested that we provide um as part of the danbury career academy application to the state an updated enrollment study and kevin jumped all over it and and got it going so thank you thank you thank you lisa i don't know if there are any questions about that any questions on the enrollment no people just want to hear antonio talk i totally all right let's keep going right and so the next one is um and antonio i feel like this was late 2018 early 2019 while mayor mark was here and there were a lot of discussions there were pre-k discussions and trying to address that solution there were conversations about um at that time danbury career academy didn't even have a name um and so there were
050conversations about what what what what's going to be the plan for the high school solution and then another thing that came up was you know how we're going to handle pre-k growth how are we going to try to provide some space for k-5 enrollment across the system um and some ideas were shared and i will revisit those with this committee and if you can walk us through that would be great sure um and i might have the the dates wrong but i think you're you're uh correct and dan um dan has a younger mind than i do so he probably picked the date right up but i think it was right around 2018 20 2019 there was a group uh that was working together board of education folks city folks and we were just trying
051to get our hands around the enrollment projections that had pretty much florida's we couldn't believe uh the projections they showed a significant growth um that's what drove us actually going to another consultant to perform additional enrollment projections and we felt we needed to sort of address the entire enrollment issue for the next eight to ten years and we work together to come up with specific projects and opportunities that involved studying existing schools looking for expansions to existing schools looking at her high school looking at her middle schools and out of that came a what we call a preliminary school enrollment management plan um and that took all those ideas that came out of the board of ed and the city working together and we presented it uh to a couple groups the board of ed
052uh uh board of education at the time we presented it uh to i think even a public roll out uh remember rogers park we actually had a pta i think we we had a pta rollout um so uh we're working off that plan and in there is uh not only the uh what used to be the old career academy which is now the i'd like to say the new career new better career academy but one of the other driving uh projects that came out of that was a new pre-k center we saw your pre-k center was growing leaps and bounds uh a great service by the way that you guys are providing to that real young [Music] educational student and what we did is we we found a way to get into a lease in
053order to accommodate that growth and we took all of those pre-k programs predominantly out of our uh grammar schools which provided the space that we needed to accommodate the growth that we had in elementary school but these leases which are around four or five years uh are very costly to the board of ed so one of the things that we figured we would do is we would actually develop a centralized standalone pre-k program and we looked at several sites the one that actually worked out really well was at great plain so the great plain um now you ready yep dan is this area is this the area of you you're right yeah that's an aerial it's a very preliminary looks good okay it's a preliminary look at uh an opportunity to actually eliminate those costly
054leases that i just described to you which are really located in two facilities uh which the board of ed is actually supporting as part of their you know their their ask if you will for operating costs and it would accommodate the displaced pre-k program that came out of predominantly haze town and great uh and um it would provide for what we would uh what we would call it an early childhood academy center um and uh it's two floors uh it provides for approximately 16 classrooms uh you can see it's a pretty good sized building almost 25 25.5 000 square feet and it's perfect because it actually is adjacent to the cafeteria it's got great opportunity for cross-connection into the existing school but yet it's a separate uh standalone uh pre-k academy and now antonio i
055i just want to mention real quick um for the committee members who have not been to great plain if they have been so this is the main entrance this is the main entrance to the school and driving in currently there is nothing here but parking and the proposal is that this would go in where the parking currently is and we create a new additional parking lot in front of this area so i just wanted to and then this is the cafeteria antonio was referring to and it looks like there would be a bridge here to connect the buildings yeah and kevin one of the things that's important to note is um the school's old septic system was pretty much located right underneath where we're showing the new addition it was a pretty substantial septic system
056and that's the reason why that area can never be used so uh what i did is um around 20 of i kind of looked into connecting the school to the sewer system and after investigating it we were quickly able to put a design together and that school is now connected to the city's sewer system which created this opportunity that we never thought we had so uh it was great little ingenuity um a little quick thinking and it really worked out well now we can actually capture that large large septic area and use it for an addition all right let me go to the next one antonio sure the other one's just a cleaner copy okay you want me to show this one or the other one uh there should be one more left kev i
057think maybe not i think it's different yeah there's one more it's just um it's the same plan just not overlaid on the aerial imagery um so the the plan that you have pulled up now gives you a good idea of what's actually out there the other one's a little cleaner to look at but if you don't pull it up it's got the same layout kevin okay so great great playing with ariel or great yes great plane it'll be great playing the one with ariel is the one you just you just uh presented i think there's a great plain concept pdf kevin okay there we are great i'll show it now i think i have it do we have any idea quick question what we're going to be doing with the old uh beaver brook building
058if if district office is moving to career academy we we have not gotten into any discussions about that but it is something that we're gonna have to kind of uh take a look at um down the road how we're going to repurpose that it's a city building right now but um yeah well it's definitely something to to to look into yeah kev if it doesn't pop up it's literally the same as the other one but it's just a cleaner version yeah this one is saying great plain edition concept is this the one dan this is the one that sits titled concept can you see that that should be the one yeah yeah that's the one okay kevin while we're waiting for that to come up with beaver brook possibly be large enough to house that
059reach and endeavor lease that we're doing on crosby street um it it it would it definitely would um and it in fact i think it could um accommodate both adult ed and region endeavor um i i think some conversations we would still need to work out uh with the mayor in the city is uh you know currently we have in antonio we haven't even talked about these things because again things are moving so fast but you know we have i.t in that building currently and the move i.t and that central system would likely come at a cost and so that's something we would have to talk about and then essentially we're going to move it i would imagine that would come at an additional cost because that's all kind of central i.t system for the
060district and some of the early feedback i'm getting if we move i.t to the west side of town it might cost us more money to be connected to the rest of the district which is on the other side of town so i don't i don't know those realities but um certainly something i think we'll need to talk about yeah it definitely sounds like uh we need to have a lot more conversations about it i i think my uh highway garage is actually routed through your building too yes yeah i believe that's correct i believe the city's infrastructure is also running a lot of is run for us as well yeah so time wise um the early childhood academy center um we're looking to try to have that fully occupiable for like the 25 26 school
061year um we have programmed um what is about 20 27 28 million dollars for that project uh based on what we anticipate the construction costs will be uh in year 25 2025. um so all of this work that i'm describing you to you tonight in addition to some other work uh other facility work is all programmed into the two uh bonds that were presented last week to the council um so all i ask is if there's anything you guys can do to help us get the support uh to get the votes we need to pass uh these bonds it would be great would allow us to do the projects that we're describing here as you know these are referendums uh the voters uh have to uh vote and approve on a majority level to get
062this funding in place for us to do these projects and uh we're doing our hardest to not only advocate for you guys and and present these projects um but uh we're doing everything we can to address any issues or any any questions that people have so they feel good about voting for these projects and anything that we need to do kevin on your side of the house to help that along uh please let us know whatever it takes we'll be there my pleasure i appreciate it antonio so i'm assuming everyone can see this it's essentially the a cleaner version of uh the other the area of you um and tony i know if you wanted to yeah in the the back of the existing cafeteria area there is a loading dock area in there and
063as you can see we are reconnecting that area so it could be used for existing loading dock operation getting food in and out of the cafeteria so on and so forth so in addition your electrical system is back there which we want to have access to so this layout works out really well still provides that opportunity very simply done clean clean edition um and and it centralizes all your pre-k uh into one area so uh and pre-k as you know pre-k has to be on the ground floor first graders can be on the second floor uh first second graders can be on the second floor but the the ground floor will be mostly all pre-k classrooms and and tony before i take this picture down i recall although it was some time ago i recall
064some board members having some questions not necessarily maybe concerns but just unclear uh what the parking situation would be a great plane if we were to actually add more classrooms to the site um and i i see here i it's you know it's been a while since i had seen these plans the additional parking actually in front of the buildings um did do you feel like we have enough parking just kind of based on the estimate the discussions you guys have yeah kev what what we did is there was a couple spaces that were lost which we recaptured in addition to that we doubled those spaces and as you can see we probably have a little opportunity to squeeze some more parking if we really needed to uh again these are such preliminary drawings right
065now um as we get into detailed discussions like we have done with the uh the amber career academy with your staff will actually start programming actual parking spaces required okay all right how many total how many total classrooms are on that site uh dan you have the count i don't have it here was it 16 oh do you mean total in addition yeah in the addition how many addition yeah 16 in the addition 16 classrooms that's based on uh the groundwork that we did a couple years ago okay thank you anybody have any questions no uh could i just uh ask a couple of questions and first of all i want to thank antonio and his staff for always doing such a great presentation answering all the questions and and working excellent with the board
066over my time that i've been on the board and i certainly uh appreciate his service to dan bim and his special education uh and have this questions about great plane uh wasn't too happy quite a few years ago when this was brought to me as a board member listening to the addition to great playing school because i had opportunity of being there or taking my grandchild there every day dealing with the parking dealing with um uh some uh community people that were just saying that the traffic was bad over there so how could you think about bringing in additional numbers so as you have cleaned this up a little bit it looks a little bit different looks good you know i again that's a different area of game bear over there uh you know i
067think we might have to really sell it to the community over there to uh make sure that this goes through so uh i just want to say that and just you know anyone that has not been over there and been to the school been to activities over at great plains um it is the parking is horrendous over there so yeah and and gladys thank you for your kind words um we really appreciate them um all the work that needs to take place will actually look at all these uh all the comments that you've just made that is that would be part of our logistics on obviously how children get dropped off how the buses come in and actually accommodate pick up and drop off all of those items will have to be looked at what
068i just showed you tonight was a very kind of rough concept um that we had developed to show the opportunity to do something at that school and uh we have a lot more work to do we really do yeah thank you anybody else have any other questions no okay kevin do you have anything else no i that's all from from me louisa and um wanted to thank you for your patience and preparation for the meeting um i don't know if you have anything else but that is that is it from my side in the in the district side thank you i want to just thank everybody for um for participating in the meeting tonight and for antonio for coming and giving all this wonderful presentation as a new member of the board and to be
069asked to chair this committee this is quite an exciting time for me and an exciting time to be on the board and an exciting time to be on sites and facilities so i look forward to hearing back from everybody and updates throughout the process so if nobody has any other questions i will um look for a motion second all those in favor aye we are adjourned thank you have a good night antonio