001oh seven oh there's no muter user okay all right hold on one second please it's gotta be michelle i would assume who's who's controlling the entry into the meeting is it okay only because he had that issue last time sometimes i will act as um an ex-official member we have um louisa um al and myself so that's three of us um and our first order of business is to select a committee chair i'll open the floor for nominations you're on you ow i would like to make a motion that uh louisa britton this is britain uh for the position of chair sites and facilities second oh seconded by michelle all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed motion carries congratulations lisa thank you i will turn it over to you okay
002well this is my first time please bear with me this is unexpected tonight so thank you so much for putting this much uh confidence in me i i appreciate it thank you and we're here to support you so thank you so much be talking through the agenda i'll take notes absolutely so um let's go first order is tonight mr wallston oh i'm sorry luisa thank you i i was delayed on my side that's okay so good good evening everyone and congratulations on the appointment um i will share my screen so everyone can see the agenda um we have um dr mike selig here this evening dr casemiro rich jabber john spang dr ann mead on the call and then specifically for this committed committee mike and rich will be working with me in terms of
003providing updates and then we may need john's expertise maybe not for this meeting but um certainly subsequent meetings so this evening i i want to and you'll you'll note um let me share the screen uh we have a a lot of updates to provide the board i wanted to find an opportunity to give a broad overview of the various projects that are going on in the district to the board and and then in our subsequent meetings we'll be able to provide a little bit more detail in addition there's been a lot of work um happenings going into this summer to get our schools open and so rich jobert has an update for us as well so let me just start with an update and discussion beaver book admin center office space wanted to make the
004border where we are um and i don't believe um eduardo miranda is with us right at this moment uh but we are paying um a significant um we are leasing um a number of different facilities across the danbury community carris curriculum group of courses on beaver brook road across the street beaver book office is at 63 bieber brook and then most recently we have a facilities department right down the road also on beaver brook all in separate buildings in many cases certainly to facilities requires driving back and forth then the curriculum office certainly not an efficient way of doing business there across the street the board in the community might also be be aware that we lease space currently for our reach and endeavor program in adult ed and then of course we're also leasing
005i want to say it's sacred heart where our registration and early childhood classes are taking place and so we have a number of different leases that the district is paying for right now of course this does not include the grantville site where our pre-k programs are at the moment and so i'm not including that as part of this discussion um but we are beginning to see if there's an opportunity for space where there could be a significant savings for the district um see if we can find a space that not not to mention more efficient for us as a administrative team but see if we can find a leasing space that makes more sense just in terms of efficiency and productivity but also financial sense and and we're exploring those things now through our financial
006finance office um and exploring um to see what the options are out in the danbury community and so we haven't found anything concrete to report out but as part of this discovery um we just wanted to make the board aware and see if there is something that that is that is viable enough for us to even have a worthwhile discussion about so in subsequent meetings we'd like to provide some more real numbers for what we're paying and then what kind of the options are out in the community the second one and i provided this update last night on the brookfield site i'm sorry danbury primary school in brookfield for our new board members specifically you you may or may not be aware we removed 11 sections out of our elementary schools three from south street
007kindergarten sections four from sadly rough and then four also from ellsworth elementary school and this was in our effort to provide social distancing maximize the social distance and opportunities in our respective schools we've we found like this would be a good strategy in that effort we give in that ellsworth at this time and i'll and i'll be able to speak to that in a couple more bullets later but the ellsworth elementary school is currently under construction to have four additional classrooms specifically for kindergarten to open up space at that campus and while they were under construction and that that facility was actually compromised in terms of space it's playground space compromise in the beginning of the year cafeteria space although that was eventually open but the outside space was compromised and ellsworth probably has the
008smallest cafeteria in the district i mean so um many members and and certainly rich jobert on this call cara also was part of these visits we eventually led at the brookfield site which we named renamed danbury primary school certainly you know we made significant investments in the site subsequent meeting i'd like some help from john in my finance office to provide some updates on what the actuals were in terms of upgrades that we made to the site and then also the projected upgrades we would need to keep that site open not to mention the additional transportation costs um and the kindergarten the the the aids on the buses for the kindergarten students uh which was um north of three hundred thousand dollars um alone just for that just for that investment uh so so we've
009decided at this time to come out of that lease of the facility and begin to get and get our teachers those 11 sections of kindergarten back in their home schools for the 22-23 school year um the next area and and i think the ones i think the board is i'm going to be really excited about antonio from the director of facilities from the city of danbury has agreed to join us sites and facilities committee for the next meeting to provide an update on these last three bullets one to danbury career academy um i don't believe um this committee certainly not the full board has seen uh the plans and the designs which the city has you know starting to get feedback on the designs for the career academy and kara certainly i think coupled with
010getting feedback from karen around the vision regarding the career academy in terms of academic programming um and then tied with or coupled with the designs of the school and the blueprints of the school i think is going to be an exciting evening for us there were some challenges because at the state office there was a change in leadership which potentially could have certainly stalled the project or potentially compromised the project i'm happy to report through the leadership of our mayor's office we were able to meet with the state finance group and able to move this work forward and and most recently i think there was an approval by the zoning committee so it looks like we're all you know things are still moving forward with the danbury career academy and stupid still a couple more
011hoops um that that needs to be jumped through and antonio will walk us through some of those kind of next steps um because there are some changes um to the not changes to the design but changes to the project in terms of cost and so we'll be talking about those things at the next meeting the ellsworth annex ellsworth elementary school we've added four kindergarten classrooms in addition we'll have a new registration center associated with those kindergarten classrooms and i believe it's three or four early childhood classrooms as well so we're really excited about um what's going to be um you know an amazing design and welcoming center for new families coming into the district as well as making sure we have an appropriate um classes for ellsworth that continues to be one of our elementary
012school that has grown faster than at least in the short time i've been here has grown as fast as any elementary school in the district and i think appropriately we were able to add four additional classrooms to that school and then last but not least and i'm not even sure if rachel remember and some of our other sitting board members recall but at the same time we were moving forward with ellsworth project and danbury career academy there was also talk about great plain great elementary school and potentially adding um additional classrooms to that site and at that time that that plan was parked um it was not part of the bigger project with ellsworth and damier career academy but it sounds like not that there's necessarily a definitive plan but certainly an update that's necessary
013to provide the board regarding the plan where we can potentially add more classrooms to the great plain elementary school campus which would certainly relieve some of the attention across some of our other elementary schools across the district and then rich you have your powerpoint that you you're gonna share the screen yes uh let me see if i can share that and lisa if it's okay um rich's presentation is not too long and if we can then end there and because i would imagine there might be some questions and um open it up for discussion i assume the committee will have some questions absolutely all right thank you okay can can everybody see the uh facilities projects great um so this is work that we've uh some of the work we've done this summer uh other
014the work we've done uh during whatever shutdown periods uh we created a quarantine room and king street intermediate uh that freed up an additional office space that they needed um we installed a wall at king street intermediate to separate the media center from the classroom space and give um you know a little privacy to the classroom we painted the pembroke gym over the summer which was well overdue there was some significant rust and and water stains on the ceiling from before the pembroke roof was replaced so we were able to take care of that there's a picture in this presentation which shows how nice it looks [Music] one of our social media uh one of our mitigation strategies was distancing of desks so as a result we needed to remove three knee walls that's deadly
015rough so we could space out the desks a little bit more and there was some cabinets at park avenue that we also had to uh pull out and um we were able to repurpose those uh knee walls and and cabin as to to put them in other places where it wouldn't affect the the spreading out of desks um we als so uh installed the ada accessible sidewalk at haystown elementary school for those of you that have seen in that sidewalk it was treacherous the past few years so it was nice to get that done we also at the pembroke school created office space between two classrooms this was just right down right during the holiday vacation we did that um just you know there's a picture on the left of the uh the painting of
016the uh pembroke gym and then on the right the haste down sidewalk we have a wheelchair student at hayes town um so there was really no good way for for the building to go to the lower um so now they have a nice sidewalk and we're we're in discussion with public buildings uh to see if we can get an elevator in haystown as well which which really would make a difference security updates we installed two additional cameras and one additional card reader at milrage primary uh the video recording device was replaced at stanley rough but that broke down and then we also added a camera we uh installed a burglar alarm at the sights and facilities warehouse we've also added card access at the boardroom entrance so we can control security a little bit better
017when we start to have visitors for public meetings we installed two additional card readers at great plain school we're also converting to avigilon camera system at ellsworth school in the magnet school this avigilon camera system it has some uh pretty good features it makes it easier if you're going back to to track an event to to try to find that we're also installing additional cameras at moore street um public building improvements uh they've actually public works they've got quite a bit of work done for us this school year they replaced the front entrance doors at rogers park [Music] elevators at broadview middle school and and two elevators at the high school have been replaced uh sea building at ue building um they're just finishing up the d elevator replacement and it it should be scheduled
018for completion by the end of this month i think they're just waiting for the state inspection uh they've replaced three water heaters at the high school and two water heaters at broadview middle school um looking to this summer they're also replacing oil tanks they're gonna go with above ground oil tanks at broadview middle school rogers park middle school king street intermediate and king street primary and they're also getting a quote to replace the elevator at rogers park so after this we should be pretty good with the elevators um i had a chance to speak to the construction superintendent uh this week tom hughes just to give updates on the progress of ellsworth annex uh ductwork is being hung for the hvac systems the fire system piping has been run uh electrical is roughed in and
019near completion uh same thing for the plumbing that's near completion uh stationary windows have been installed on the second floor uh the first floor windows are probably about two weeks out with delivery and i'll just i think they were pretty smart with this project all the electrical and security equipment were purchased months ago to manage the supply chain issue um i think tom was saying they ordered a lot of this in july and august so we could get it ready for the start of this coming school year furniture is expected to arrive by the second or third week of august um the one thing that they're recommending is no summer school at ellsworth this summer because they still have work to do on the grounds and in the mechanic room um so that was the
020recommendation maybe we could find a alternate school for for one more summer and that's that's what i all i have are there any questions um [Music] rich thank thank you and i i i don't know if the committee has any questions but i i certainly do um because i i am wondering how you got all of this done this summer um because i i remember calling you almost every day on your way home uh to bristol every day and i again i just want to thank you for helping us get our schools open this summer and and thank you and your team for all of your hard work really appreciate it thank you now i need to figure out how to unshare my screen i guess there's a button that you go right back to
021that green button but you should be able to okay should say stop sharing in the middle that red bar right the top uh somehow okay i gotta so like where it says you are viewing and then it should be a red bar up there oh got it okay thank you all right you're welcome so um louisa that is that is it for uh the presentation um however i i do also understand that there may be some questions i could put the agenda back up just in case there are but that is in terms of the update okay does anybody have any questions kevin if i may one quick one absolutely thank you convention to great plan um where did the funding come for that right so um antonio will be able to speak to this
022better than i can um but apparently there is construction money available to help fund this i don't know the the specifics mr russo um i can tell you we don't have it um and but it's probably best to come from antonio to speak to where the funding would be to to fund that effort thank you absolutely as you can tell i'm having difficulties with my video same here same here so uh i'm and while everyone is thinking about any follow-up questions um again just a reminder these last three will be the focus for our meeting uh with antonio next week um i believe our city and um city architect i think dan's architect on behalf or city engineer dan petrovic i think is also joining a meeting but the danbury career academy is very exciting
023they're prepared to show those plans electronically so we'll be sharing them on the screen also some of the designs as well typically when any of our principals their school is under construction or they're opening up a new school the principles play a major role in the planning and design of the building and this one has been really exciting because cara and dan you know their their fingerprints are all over this building um and so you know cara from the perspective of uh making inch helping to ensure alignment with the academies that her melissa and trish and you know our curriculum team has helped to put together just in terms of academic experience for kids and then as a principal dan just making sure it's meeting the needs of all of his kids and his staff
024and so it's been a it's been a great uh collaborative process um antonio has been an amazing facilitator also working with our architect as well glenyakel who has worked on some projects here before the team has already done some amazing work and we're looking forward quite frankly to energizing not only this committee but our board and the greater danbury community so we can begin to communicate the great things that are going on around this project and what it's going to mean for kids and families in our school district then of course the ellsworth annex antonio will be providing a update there as well i i don't think i know that full board has not seen it but i'm not sure on the sitting board members had seen the design and so i'm hoping antonio can
025also have some designs for the ellsworth annex project as well again on the expectation is they they're projected to open as scheduled uh they if you have driven um down osborne street recently um you continue to make projects you go by progress um at the site and every month you know that i drive by there that you know something new and developing is coming along um and and given all the progress at the site if i i don't know where we're going to go rich for summer school if we have to go somewhere else uh but we i think we can figure it out for one summer given all the progress and if that means we can open the doors for everyone in september and last but not least the great plain elementary school conversation
026in terms of expansion i think getting some clarification on funding mr russo is a great question but just in terms of options and providing additional space for elementary classrooms across the district i think this is a great conversation for us to have as we continue to experience growth across all of our schools so again that that's it for me in terms of the agenda but if there are any questions i'm having a discussion i'm happy to join in or answer them if i can yes kevin actually thank you um i think once i get familiar with a lot of the plans and the projects that are going on i'll have more questions so if they could provide that that would be a huge help for me so i can kind of get familiar with those
027um those but the ellsworth and the danbury career academy in particular would be great okay and and i will um i believe it's going to be mike c league who's going to be the point person for this committee so typically luisa i we would want to speak to you prior as we develop the agenda and make sure you have kind of a heads up going into the meeting and make sure collaboratively we can develop an agenda that meets you and the committee's needs um so that we can communicate appropriately so we'll make sure that you have that that backup going into the meeting perfect absolutely you're welcome when is the next meeting you mentioned something next week um no i believe on the schedule for later in february february 17th 17th yes that sounds right
028so that would be the next meeting where antonio will will be yes okay updating us great yes okay that that is it for me um for our reporting update all right if nobody else has any questions we'll get a motion to adjourn so moved second i'll second okay meeting is adjourned thank you have a good evening