BOE Regular Meeting - November 25, 2025

001Let me go. Let me go mute the >> It's just you. Your mind's done. >> Okay. >> Whatever. >> Yeah. This one second. >> Let me >> Okay. You're not in yet. Do you want to get in or you want to >> get in? What did this take? >> It did. It took you. >> Okay. Thank you. I'm so glad you were here. It was somebody else that would have cried. >> That was so weird. >> It's just like when you came up today and you're like, "It was there. It worked." >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, we're >> we're ready whenever you guys are. Are you ready? Okay. >> Five seconds. Thank you. >> I'd like to call the order. Today is November 25th, 2025. Sorry. National Honor Society induction ceremony over at Terion High

002School. 91 students were inducted, including our very own Ryan and Kylie. Congratulations to all the students and to Ryan and Kylie. This morning I joined the students and faculty and casts as well at Fitch Academy for their traditional Thanksgiving celebration known as Fitch Giving. It was a great way to connect with the wonderful Fitch community this morning and we had a really good time and some good food too. This afternoon the inaugural Gravy Bowl was held at Darianne High School. Junior girls played senior girls in flag football with the seniors winning a thrilling game by a score of 2114. And this was such a great new tradition. Uh I hope you'll all come next year. Early this morning, I dropped off four turkeys for the Darian High School band turkey collection. While the collection will

003help many families in need, it also added a bit of competition versus New Kanan. Darianne donated a total of 170 turkeys and prevailed in the competition. New Kanan's band performed our school's fight song while their drum major wore our football jerseys. So, congratulations to the Darian High School band and to the New Kanan band for collecting incredible amounts of food for the community. And finally, I'd like to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe Thanksgiving. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you, Dr. Burn. Um, student representative reports. >> Yeah, as Dr. Burn mentioned, our uh 91 of our upper classmen were inducted into National Honor Society yesterday. So, congratulations to Kylie and all the other upper classmen. Uh along with that, our senior girls compete against our junior girls in a

004gravy bowl, a flag football game, which I think was amazing for all the students and faculty that were there to watch this afternoon. So, hope to keep that tradition going. Along with that, our boys football team is traveling to New Kanan this Thursday for the annual Turkey Bowl. So, hope for a big win there. And uh last Saturday, our girls field hockey team actually won state. So, congratulations to them and all the players and the uh coaching staff for a great win there. Um yeah, so we just had the November band concert where I saw Dr. Burn there as well. Um as Dr. Burn also said, we had the turkey drive which was very exciting. Um DHS band one um against New Kanan which is a lot of fun. And then we just finished the

005play Almost Me. There were three amazing shows this past weekend and looking forward to another month of musical fun. >> Thank you Kylie and Ryan. Um we'll move on to presentation, discussion, and possible action. Um the presentation and discussion on October 1st district enrollment report and projections. Uh Mr. Rich Rud and we have Mr. Michael Zuba from MP Planning Group. >> Good evening everybody. Um so for tonight's presentation, I'm going to touch on the highlights. I know um right before the holiday, it's a busy week. everybody's trying to work through things, but I know we gave the full report, too. So, if there's any questions on anything, even as a follow-up, I'm glad to be able to address those when you have a chance to really kind of dig into it. Um, so we always

006begin with enrollment drivers. I think that's always a big key. Um, I picked out the two most key drivers for Dairne. Um, as you can see in the chart on the left, um, birds have been up over the last several years. Um, birds have stayed elevated. Um no big surprise there that that's going to lead to some larger kindergarten cohorts in the near future. Um but home sales have been down. So ever since peaking um right around the beginning of the pandemic. Um and we've seen this in many of our Duray client communities and really kind of throughout the northeast um we've seen home sales drop off. What that is leading to is less turnover, less churn. Um you know all very familiar with your own community, pretty built out in Darianne. So, if you're

007not turning over existing single family homes, not a lot of new single family homes being built leads to a little bit lower immigration overall um within the school community. Getting into um construction activity. Um every year we reach out to the town planning and zoning department. Um they wealth of information. Um they're wonderful in getting us all the details that we need. Um this chart represents the latest and greatest information that we've gotten from them. So what we track is we track recently completed projects. We use those for two things. We see how far along they are, how many students are being generated out of them. And then later on down the road as they become a little bit more mature, we use those to develop our school specific multipliers for Derenne. So as we

008get new projects coming on board, rather than just relying on some of the published multipliers, we have ones that are specific to your community. Um so that's shown in the upper top portion of that green bar. Um we're also tracking those that are partially completed. Um so those partially completed are also feeding into our student generation models. Um those are projects that um either a early phase was completed um and now we're moving on to phase two um since the Corbin project um or they're projects that are just getting kicked off now. And then last but not least, we have our pipeline projects which those are approved but construction has not yet begun. Um so those are ones that we're really keeping an eye on. We're looking at what the potential yield looks like. And

009for those projects is where we really start to be able to add our student generation multipliers. So for each project, we want to be able to understand where they're at, how they feed within the elementary school communities themselves, get an understanding of how many children are coming out of them currently, and then what the future yield looks like. We also recognize that within the community there's other smaller developments. Um all those projects um do add children to the community, but they get captured in our baseline modeling and our baseline projections overall. So the ones that we're really kind of tracking and keeping an eye on, we have Nurotin Heights, um the shopping center project there. Um that's going to be one of the ones that we see future students being generated out of. Um Corbin

010district as well. Um the phase two of that phase one one I believe is only 38 units. Um phase 2 is 80 units overall. So a much larger component of that project. Um Parkland Drive um a fairly significant project there just under 60 units. And then Traml Cove at about 175 units overall. Um three of the four projects feed into Tokenique Elementary School. Um so as a kind of little spoiler you'll see later on we're seeing some of the enrollment at Tokenique driven up by those student multipliers rather than um demographically driven. And then the top project in Norton Roen Heights is feeding into Royal. Um so for all these projects um we're estimating that if there was no other development in town, we'd have about 86 students generated. Um but based on an average

011baseline of about 160 units, um that have recently been completed. We have to go through kind of a deduction, right? So we're trying to square it up a little bit um because baseline um because you know growth net is always occurring. So you want to be able to deduct that baseline growth out. Um so we're seeing a total of about 50 um total students being generated um from the school age um from the developments for school age children. Um about 20 of those going into the elementary, about 14 into the middle, and just under 20 going into the high school overall. Getting into our student migration highlights. Um so over the last several years, as you can see on the chart on the right, our net migration has been up in Derenne. I'm seeing positive

012immigration after years of having some fluctuations there. Um but by and large some out migration especially at the elementary level. Um this past year we saw no net migration in and actually a little migration out. Um really due to that housing turnover or lack thereof. The chart on the left is our new to district students. Um, so what that is is we use the state SASID ID and compare from one year to the next to be able to see if a student was part of Darian public schools at a point in the past and if they weren't. Um, we tag those as new to district. So that really gives us a focused analysis on our immigration. And what you could see overall is after you know a typical spike that we saw early on um

013in the pandemic, that number has been going down over the last several years. And that number kind of mirrors the total housing sales within the community overall. So that total housing sales and that activity in the market itself is a really good proxy for those new students being able to come into the district. Um and this past year we saw a net out migration of about 1.3% which was the highest going back about 16 years. So we haven't seen that level of out migration um since right after the right after the great recession where we had you know really subdued housing sales overall during that same period. Getting into our overall enrollment projections, um we developed three different models. Those models are fed by our three different birth models as well as our different modeling

014on immigration within the community. Um so we looking at the last six-year average as kind of our benchmark um where we're picking up some of the highs of the early parts of the pandemic and we're also picking up some of the recent lows with uh that reduced housing turn and and uh turnover overall. Um so the high model is um above that six-year average which was just.3%. Um the medium projection model is slightly above that at 4%. Um and then the low model is below that. So really we have an optimistic model, a model that we think is going to be the best fit which is that medium model and then we have a pessimistic model for that. And as you can see our cone of uncertainty there on the chart on the right. Um

015within the first five years of projections are always your most accurate especially at the elementary school level. As you get a little further out, um you could see where that uh cone of uncertainty between those three different projection models starts to span out a little bit wider, that's where it becomes a little bit more assumption driven. So those assumptions on BERS, those assumptions on in migration and housing turnover and what the market's going to be able to look like at that point in time in years 5 to 10, um those are unknown. So we're modeling different conditions there. Um but overall you could see that that red line representing the low model or the pessimistic model is showing fairly flat enrollment um out over the next 10 years. Whereas the green model which we see

016as the most likely um is showing modest growth early on and then more moderate growth in those years 5 to 10. And then the high model which is just the slight stack above that um is mirroring that medium model um showing that continued growth throughout that 10-year projection horizon. This is a disagregated look looking at a stacked bar chart um of the total projections for that medium model. Um we're seeing that K12 um overall is going to remain fairly stable um and then modestly increase um by about 2% right through the projection midpoint. Um our elementary projections are going to increase by about 9% um over the next decade. Um getting growth up to that high 2275 or so um range towards the back half of our projection horizon. U middle school projections are going

017to remain fairly stable over the next several years before reaching that mark of about 1100 students towards the back half of our projection horizon. So when you begin looking at that, that's really kind of years 8 to 10 of that projection. And then at the high school overall, we're projecting a decline to about 1,250 students getting, you know, right around the projection midpoint. And then we see some stabilization right around that 1300 student mark going forward. Getting into the individual elementary schools, we have homes growing at about 4% in that first five years or by about 40 students in that first five years. Um we have Tokenique um being driven by some of those new developments. Um is the largest growth there at 42 students overall. Oxbridgeidge at about three dozen in that first five

018years followed by Royal and then Henley at just 16 students over that same period of time. For the elementary school projections, especially the individual schools, we like to focus on that first five years. We have students in seats. We have known BERS. um those are really our most accurate. As we get out in years five to 10, especially on the individual elementary schools, it becomes much more small area and assumption driven for those. So really kind of that midpoint in our projections is really the limit on the individual schools themselves. And then last, I'll just kind of recap some of my key takeaways. I know I touched on a bunch of these. Um but over the next 5 years, the elementary schools increase of about 8%. um middle school stable and in that next five

019years high school declines by about 6% and then beyond five years is where we see enrollment um especially at the middle school averaging about 1100 students. The elementary stabilizes at about 2,275 and then the high school rebounds and averages about 1,285 as we see some of those larger cohorts that are currently in the elementary and middle begin to work their way up in those last years of our 10-year projection. So, with that, I'd like to turn it over to the board. If they have any questions, I'm happy to be able to address those. Thank you. >> Thank you for the presentation. Um, one question I I do have is how have your projections over the past couple of years, um, you know, ended up coming out versus what we had anticipated. >> Um, so overall,

020we've been really kind of benchmarking at about 1% per year. Um, what's really kind of thrown us off a little bit has been K. Um K was always really not easy to project, but we were really good at it until the start date change. So now in year two, we were off a little bit for that, a little bit more than we would have liked. So um we've been doing a deeper dive and looking at what the breakdown of those age groups are for the kids that are entering kindergarten now. And I think by year three, that'll really tighten up that projection overall. Um but typically we do about 1% per year per grade on our projections. And with the new developments in town, which I think are also a large factor here, um particularly

021the ones that have not started yet, such such as the I think it's the Thorndale um 175 units. How are you >> putting that into the projections? >> So with that, we get information from the planning department on when they think that they're going to have substantial completion of a project based on the develop it's the developer information, the construction schedule. Um, so we're constantly adjusting that as we do our updates. Um, so we get that when they look to be able to complete the project substantially and then we factor in a little bit of a buffer time for when certificates of occupancy are going to be issued and then ultimately it takes several years for that to become matured. So, as we look at those developments, we'll start phasing it in. And the one

022you gave an example of, um, 27, 28, but really it becomes more of a midpoint in our projection where we're actually going to see students really into that. Um, because it it just takes some time um, for those to mature, get families into them, and get the school age children number up for those. Um, but it's more of an art than a science because the timing of those projects are really under they're they're under the control of a construction program. Um, and it's private development. It's not like it's school construction where you're on a much more public construction on a rigid schedule. Um, so market factors, materials, labor, that all comes into play there. Um, so that adds a little wobble to our numbers overall to be honest with you. >> Thank you. Are there

023board questions? Oh, Joanna. >> Um, so I don't know if you can answer this or maybe um Dr. Burn or Rich can answer this, but um you said that the retention rate for eighth graders is, you know, hasn't been this low since 2007208. Is that like a national trend or a statewide trend or is that a Darianne trend? >> It's a really good question. It's we're seeing a little bit of a similar trend through some of our other duray communities in Connecticut um over the last couple years where we're seeing students look for other opportunities between that 8 to9 switch um and it's been um picking up I'll show that that has been picking up over like the last year and a half to two years in the numbers we're seeing in some other gurg

024communities. So, um, we we pull the data together from our other clients to be able to look at it because it gives us a a larger sample. Um, but it's something that we'll definitely watch as we continue to project the high school enrollment out. >> Thank you, John. >> Um, just going back one slide to slide nine. >> Sure. >> Obviously, we have the breakdown of student projections for all the elementary schools. Is there a way to show what the capacity for students within those schools are and what percentage of the capacity that would be for each school? Um, if if we you may already have the capacities. What I would do is I would marry it to your capacities and then you could show it as a percentage. I don't I'm just doing the

025enrollment projections. I don't know the capacities of the building, but I think the architects behind me may know the capacities of the building. So, I would say take this information, tie it to the capacity, and then you could kind of look ahead and understand what it means from a seat count and an overall utilization standpoint. That's a really good question. >> Something we can follow up and take a look at. Just these numbers alone there's just no context. >> Yeah, we could definitely >> because it seems like we're overburdening token. Yeah, >> that's gonna be my next question too. Tokenique already has the Avalon units which are the opposite side of town of from Token, right? So kind of goes against the whole neighborhood school vibe and then >> Yeah, they I think they were

026placed there because of capacity back when this was a number of years ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. I just following up on that. I think it based on your projections, Tokenique, Oxridge, and Holmes were the top three over the 10-year period that would have a significant influx. So, I I do think that is something we could probably think about. Katie, >> um, thank you. I wanted to ask so given the the swings on the elementary schools and where it could potentially um be an issue. I did want to ask kind of comparing this projection here on this slide to um the slide that's it's numbered for in it um where the projection performance says that the biggest ones that were off um were also Oxbridgeidge and token. So, how how can we think about kind of

027reconciling the the ones that didn't hit their targets this year and now are expected to be like the big drivers again? >> So, what what we've been doing is we've been looking at um home sales. So, we've been getting home sales by address and matching them up and looking at the trends there. Um but what we're still finding is that um K has been challenging for us and lower elementary right now has been challenging for us to be able to kind of tighten those up a little bit more especially with the uh lack of turnover that we're seeing in each of the um in each of the attendant zones to be honest with you. Um it's something that we're we're seeing the same trends in many of communities, but we're also seeing enrollment fluctuating. And

028we know in Darian, you get a couple home sales and you have a family move in with some young children, all of a sudden you're at plus five, plus six students over what you have projected just because of where the market is right now. >> Thank you. Are there other questions? Sarah, >> this is for Dr. Burn and maybe Rich. Um so I think Mr. Mr. Dunn was alluding to the the big bad our word of redistricting. Um just throwing that out on the table. Is that something that you think be this I mean with the new something we need to be thinking about or is that something that you know we think we can where? >> So I want to reserve a response until I do the analysis of the capacity first but uh

029we'll take a look at that and come back to the board with that. >> Okay. Other questions? >> All right. Thank you so much for your analysis and presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Have a happy Thanksgiving. >> Thank you. You too. Um, okay. So, we are moving on to Hold on a second. Okay. Presentation and discussion on Middle Sex Middle School facility study. We have um Dr. Mr. Kevin Manred and Mr. Eric Ker Ker, Mr. Travis Schnell from KG&D Architects. Thank you. >> Good evening. Hi, Eric Hire, KGD Architects. I'm here with my partner, uh, Travis Snell, who you probably know from the the Hinley Homes and Royal Building Committee meetings on a bi-weekly basis. We're here this evening to talk about the facilities assessment and master plan effort that has been ongoing over the

030course of uh the summer and fall and give you a brief update. But before going in there, really just wanted to do a quick call out. It was great last week. uh we went to the school board and superintendent conference. We got uh an opportunity to see a few of you there at that uh that school boards. It was great to spend a little bit of time with you. So, thanks for being there. And also a call out to our uh partners OMG and APC Construction who were also at that school board's conference. Uh they've been great partners for the Himley Homes and Royal projects. I'm sure you've all seen the the progress. Um but I have over the 25 plus years that I've been doing school projects, this uh project has been going as

031smoothly as any and the partnership and and and uh friendships etc that have been going on have been uh terrific. And on this Thanksgiving week, we were especially thankful for the Hindley Homes and Royal building committee members. Um, and especially to leadership from Chris Price and Jill Mccame over the course of that. They've the whole committee has been really thoughtful and powerful leaders in this whole process, not to mention the the school administrators, the principles that I'm part of it. So before turning this over to Travis who's going to review the facilities assessment portion of this presentation, uh I just wanted to uh compliment uh Kate and her administration team for their assistance and as part of this and for the facilities team led by Kevin Monet who's in the back of the room here

032for the excellent maintenance of Middle Sex in all the the school district buildings. They do a great job. So this really was sort of a pleasure to go through the buildings because of the conditions that are currently existing there. This facilities needs project and process is not about challenges there. It's really about 25 years of facil systems that are getting to be antiquated at this point. And as you just heard with the last presentation, uh when this project was done 25 years ago, it was for 900 students and now we're in the range of,00 students. And so with those additional students, it requires additional classrooms and labs and and other spaces associated in the building. So that's what this is really about. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Travis. Okay. Good

033evening, everyone. All right, let's get into the facilities report. Um, so just to give a brief overview of the middle school campus, you have one main academic building. You have natural grass playing fields, you have parking spaces, 120 spaces, and a full-size bus queuing. Your total building area is 195,000 square ft. And the age of the building originally the uh exist the original portion which is up front was 1925 and then you had the balance of the work was an addition in 2000 um with the gym that was also um dated back in the 60s. Total campus acreage is 16 plus years and replacement value for inind is ranges from 190 million to $200 million. So going into the facility's assessment in more detail. So generally speaking to give you an overview when we go

034into a master plan, the first thing that we like to do is to do a building condition survey. So before we look at your five-year plan, we see what your current facilities are like. That means meeting with the administration and the the staff at the building, seeing what the current issues are, and then taking our team, which consists of architects, engineers, and a roofing consultant. And then we go around and we do a visual review of the facility. So generally speaking, the good news is there are no major issues at the middle school. It's in generally con good condition and there's no immediate life safety concerns that need attention right away. But considering that it is 25 years since your last major work, a lot of systems are aging out. And that's what our report

035generally shows. So we we generally group our observations into four priority levels which we have also broken into two different categories. So priorities one through three we're putting in category A which are actionable items that are part of our assessment and planning. Um priority one as we stated you don't have any of these issues but those would be immediate life safety issues. They might include failing structure, minor roof um leaks, and uh building envelope um issues, and if you had like fire alarms that weren't functioning. Priority two were items that are health and safety, health and property related, but they're not like immediate issues, and there's something that could be treated over the next five years. So, um that could be non-functioning HBAC and outdated roofs. Priority three is more age related items that just

036need to be replaced. They've aged out um worn finishes, outdated HBAC, and we're lumping into this also critical program needs that the school needs to function. These should be addressed within the 5-year period. And then category B, which we're not really focusing on, these are deferred items. These are kind of nice to haves. They might be outdated finishes. they might be non-critical um program needs that can be addressed within 10 years. So, a good chunk of the work here and what we're calling priority 2 work is roof replacement. Again, your roofs are past their useful life. They are out of warranty. There are some minor roof leaks, but nothing major. the last um round of roofing that occurred, your retunda was done a couple years ago under emergency project because you did have leaking going

037on. So that was replaced and your slate roof continues to be in good condition. Um slate roofs last a long time and you're good there. So the schedule replacement is everything else. So that's a balance of 79,000 square feet of roof that's beyond its useful life. And so when we do that replacement, we'll also be increasing the insulation to meet current energy codes. We'll be changing out the skylights. Um, and in addition, we'll be doing an any associated masonry work. And we also have some masonry work where you have some spot repairs on the facade to just button all that up. So that we're lumping into priority two. Priority three, we're including interior upgrades. Um, so at your library, you really need new furniture and you could replace the flooring. Again, these are all recommendations.

038And we've also the bigger item here is that the library is not efficiently functioning for the needs of the current program requirements of the school. Classrooms, corridors, and cafeterias again generally in good condition. We're calling to replace the ceiling tiles. That's what ACT is, acoustical ceiling tiles. that coincides with lighting replacement work. The auditorium is undersized right now to fit a full grade plus. Um, so we'd like to we recommend increasing seating count and it really could be a spruced up space. The finishes are very outdated. So we're calling for a full renovation. The offices uh are all solid doors right now. It's good for security and vision purposes to replace those doors with uh vision panels, windows, and they can use ceilings and flooring as well. Toilet rooms are in good condition. Um, and

039we would just replace right now the uh ceiling. And then a couple of non-compliance items. You still have old wire glass doors and windows that we would call to be replaced with proper and updated uh fire resistance rated glazing. And then the main entrance we would add a canopy and provide circuit security and welcome office. Then in the priority three work continued in the MEP portion of this is the HVAC HVAC system which is nearing its the end of its useful life is outdated and does not provide a buildingwide air conditioning. You're also supplementing that with a lot of window air conditioning units, which is not an efficient use of your energy. Um, so that's the majority of those bullet points are all items that deal with upgrading the overall building's HBAC units. Also, your

040building management system that controls all of that is outdated. It needs to be fully replaced. Um, and your kitchen currently is still running on propane gas and it needs to be converted to the natural gas that is now serving the facility. And there's an old oil tank that you no longer need. That should also be removed as part of the assessment. And to continue into the electrical work upgrades here include the electrical rooms should have their own dedicated cooling systems to keep that those areas functioning properly. that equipment tends to get hot, needs dedicated equipment, and then you would need an electrical service upgrade to account for the added load due to adding air conditioning and upgraded HVAC throughout the building. Um, scheduled replacement for electrical also includes lighting throughout the corridors, classrooms, and offices.

041It would include upgrading the auditorium lighting and sound system and a complete replacement of the outdated uh public address and intercom system. All right. So, with that, I'll turn it over back to Eric to go into the master plan portion. So what we heard the school is designed for 900 students and now the class sizes are approximately 360 students each uh closer to 1100 than 900. And what does that mean? It means that we don't have enough classrooms or labs or special subject spaces. Uh so as a part of this master plan, it's planning to have additional um classroom space as well as faculty workspace which when it was a 900 student school had faculty workrooms but all those workrooms were taken over over the course of the last 25 years to be utilized as

042classroom space. So creating new faculty workspace would be important. Hear Travis mention the auditorium. uh this master plan is going to look at two different options. One is to renovate the existing auditorium and the other is to replace and provide a a new auditorium for the middle school. The library really should be reimagined today. All the furniture and um and bookshelves etc in the room are all relatively fixed and heavy. It should really be looked at as furniture that can be uh rearrangeable. so that the space can be used for multiple purposes over the course of the day. Creating more uh technology rich space as well as around the perimeter there's a lot of potential spaces that could be converted into collaborative u spaces that uh currently are used for other purposes and storage and

043things like that. So this would be a great opportunity to really rethink the library which is in a a perfect location. It's right in the middle of the building. It's a big wonderful room, lots of natural light. How do we use it to its best purpose? And then uh the cafeteria. This year is the first year that we've tried you've tried having the cafeteria having the entire grade in there all at once. It seems to be working, functioning okay, but the cafeteria also should be renovated in terms of the lighting and finishes and furniture in there. That would be wonderful to to do some work to there there. And as you heard from Travis is uh the lobby security right now. You have the welcome officer and desk that's directly in the lobby. It doesn't

044have a a private office and so to to to do a little work at the at the lobby entrance would be important. It doesn't want to move. Okay. So before we did the facilities assessment, we started imagining what the different options are here. And so we started on on the left two renovation and addition options. So in this case, everything you see in purple is the existing building and anything that you see in blue is new construction. So the f the left two are two different locations where you could potentially put an addition. One is off to the east side. Why put it there? Well, currently the building is kind of surrounded on on the other three sides with program that's relatively fixed. On the south side, it's residential. On the west side, you have

045the original 100year-old building as of this year that is stately sitting up on the hill and it's it's a wonderful sort of first image as you come onto campus. And then on the north side you have two different circul vehicle circulation patterns. You have the parents and and and parking and you have the bus circulation pattern. So it's it's a very easy location to put it off on the east side. There's some there's some property and space there to put a an a small addition over there. If you put it on the north side, you can see that that starts to take over where the existing bus fac and and queuing areas. So then we'd have to do some work rethinking how that circulation is. The other two were sort of initial out of the

046box what if this this building was was taken down or mostly taken down and replaced. And as you heard from the earlier discussion, this building does not need to be replaced. It's in good working condition for the most part. Obviously, there's some systems that need to be upgraded, needs to be expanded because of the population, but it really doesn't need to be replaced. And you'll see at the end of this presentation, we do put some dollar amounts to that. We also put a dollar amount to a replacement building. And so, uh, whenever you're looking at additions and alterations, you should look at it in comparison to other options. So, we'll we'll talk about that at the end. So the two options are really sort of derivatives of the same uh option and and so one

047has uh a new theater and the other does not and that's the real difference here in the the two options. So what are we looking at? We're looking at constructing a 12 lab addition on the east end of the building. That would be a two-story edition. And it basically is flattened level land right up to the tree line. And then once you hit the tree line, the the the site falls away. Once we do that renovation or that new construction for the 12 lab addition, then we can renovate the existing science labs in the building for other purposes, classrooms and work rooms primarily. You have uh boys and girls locker rooms which are underutilized at the middle school level and we're seeing that consistently in in other school districts as well. This is a great

048opportunity to gain some space for additional fitness rooms. And then other sort of major spaces that we're looking to renovate include the the existing auditorium in this case, music and art, the ALC and special ed on the second floor, the library commons, and the cafeteria. So sorry somehow this got cut off but u sorry uh on the right there you can see the in blue is proposed twostory 12 classroom science lab addition and then in purple are the renovated the ren the existing building in dark purple are the ren the major renovated spaces which include existing science rooms the existing library. Um the ALC classrooms on on the far left that's on the second floor. You can see the uh auditorium that's in the middle on the left. On the top left is where the

049security vestibule is as well as where the locker rooms could be converted into PE studios. And right in the middle is that beautiful library which uh could use some renovation and reimagination. The second version of this includes a theater. And so the real only difference between uh option 1 A and what option 1B is this theater. And I'm going to jump right into this theater, which again the addition shows a 12 classroom lab edition, but it also includes an auditorium. That auditorium is stepping down the hillside because the hill falls away. And you'll see in in the next slide, one of the wonderful things about having an auditorium that steps down is that when you have little voices and they're they're talking straight out, they don't project their voice as well as when you're looking

050up and you're projecting your voice. So when you have a raed auditorium, you have a wonderful opportunity to hear the performers that are on the stage. And when you have great sightelines, you also have great hearing. So there there's a real advantage to having an auditorium that that that steps like that. And so the only difference in terms of the renovation would be the transformation of the existing auditorium into other spaces whether that's art or maker space or other purposes to be discussed. Here's just a couple examples. So the one on the left is is a one of these raked auditoriums that we designed and again um if you see and you you can hear and so it's really a wonderful opportunity to provide a larger auditorium. Again, current law in terms about 400 seats.

051And so, uh, you know, we're not saying exactly how many seats this this would be, but probably twice as many seats. And that would provide ample seating for the the majority of the students on campus. So, while we were in this meeting, we actually uh um built this. And so, you can see in this photograph right here, this is from Dr. Burns helicopter provided by the school district. Looking down on the building itself and on the left you can see see the proposed a 42,000 ft² addition twotory and it has an entrance there between the auditorium and the cafeteria which could be a special events entrance. So you could actually close off the majority of the building uh when you're having evening events and open it up so that you could utilize the theater or

052the cafeteria or the gymnasium independent of all the other spaces in in the building. So of course this is what you're all been waiting for in terms of dollars and cents. Travis talked about a lot of the assessment. So, he mentioned roof replacement. There's about $7.5 million worth of planned roof replacement as part of this master plan project. There's also $20 million worth of mechanical electrical plumbing, which also includes the replacement of all those acoustic ceiling tiles and the lighting associated with all the classrooms and quarters and office spaces in there. There's an additional 11 million plus or minus dollars of interior renovation. And that's some of those spaces that we mentioned, the library, the auditorium, the locker rooms, and the lobby vestibule. And then for uh the planned addition, which is for the science

053labs, that's a $36 million um uh amount for that, which is a total of about $75 million for the option 1A. When we add the theater, the $36 million number turns to about $50 million to add the theater and music addition to that. And that total brings the overall project plus or minus a $90 million number. These are our internal numbers that we're sharing with you. We would recommend that and we had discussions with OMG APC about this. They'd be happy to to look at these documents as well and do a second um a version of um doing a takeoff here because it's really good to have a second opinion as to the numbers. This is a fairly close number to what we would assume uh with these both these projects somewhere in the 75

054to90 million depending on which uh version you look at. So uh the only uh change here is it also shows at the bottom if we were to replace this building. Travis said at the beginning 195,000 square foot was approximately $200 million project. If we're replacing this, we're also putting an addition on to to to accommodate the extra 200 students. That replacement value for that building is about $240 million. So when you're looking at this, you kind of really want to compare the renovation in addition to what a replacement value would be. With that, I'll open it up to questions. >> Thank you for the presentation. Um I I just have one question and we'll open up for board comments. just if you could also address the capacity planning piece because I know we did I

055think it was in 2015 reach peak enrollment of about 11,000 1100 1170 students and the 10-year projection shows us getting to that same level which is about I think 100 more what we have now could you also describe how these two versions would address would it have the needed number of classrooms to give us additional flexibility in both of those options and one of them contains a cafeteria expansion and the other does not. So the reasoning behind that as well please. >> So addressing the second part first in terms of the cafeteria. So in both options we do have a a lobby space or an open space that's adjacent to the cafeteria. So even in the second version, the thought here was that that lobby would double during the day because you don't need a

056whole open space there. It could double we would have a large storage space adjacent to that. We could have tables and chairs and that could be expansion area for the cafeteria if necessary. I think that uh in option one a the size of that commons probably would get scaled back as we examined this farther. When we started looking at this we knew that the cafeteria we were going from uh multiple cafeteria periods per grade to everybody from a single grade in the cafeteria all at once. And so this was the first year that we were testing this. And so at first we were thinking that that cafeteria was going to need to expand more to accommodate an entire grade of 360 plus or minus students at at one time. And what we're finding out is

057that they can be accommodated in there. The real challenge is in a day where it's raining and people can't go outside is how do you accommodate all that all those people when they finished their lunch and where did they go? And a lot of times they go they use the library. They use open um uh quarter space. They might be able to go to the gym and the gym's open. So we're we're trying to provide a space that they can go to during lunch period that's outside of the the confines of the cafeteria itself. in terms of of yes back in 2016 the I think the uh enrollment was was capping out at about 1150 or something to that r that range and so we are below that and we're creeping back up to something

058close to that. This is about the difference between year 2000 when you were at 900 students and between 2000 2016 it grew and there were sp basically it grew without the building growing. And so the way that you as a school district addressed that is you took spaces over. First of all, you did a great job of utilizing all the spaces that you have, but you also took spaces over that were used for faculty and other purposes and and converted them to classrooms so that you could educate the the additional 200 kids that were in the building uh that the building grew into. >> Thank you. Um questions from the board. Katie, >> thank you. Um I wanted to ask more about the cafeteria. So, I'm bit unclear. Um, it looked to me like the

059difference between 1 A and 1B was that there was like a cafeteria edition and 1A and then 1B was the theater edition separately. But as you went through it, it sounds more that there, while it's mentioned in the slides, there aren't really plans for any sort of changes to the cafeteria other than the sort of mechanical upgrades. Is that correct? So the the cafeteria is all the finishes. So it's the floors, ceilings, uh lighting, as well as um we were looking at the servery and how flow of the the servery works because when we go from half the class being in there at one time to the entire class being in there at the same time, you need to flow um twice as many students through the cafeteria at the same time or through the

060the serving lines. So that was probably going to address expanding that servery so that you could accommodate more students in the same amount of time so that they're not all standing in line for the majority of their lunch period. >> So that's the reason that the um line items um four don't um the interior renovations that they don't change from 1 A to 1B. >> That's correct. that they would be the same in both of those. >> And then one final question about that is what conversations were had about incorporating the district sustainable kitchen initiative into the middle school. >> Oh, we definitely had that discussion. U you know, this is master planning and it's not schematic or full design services. The thought is that that sustainable uh food service would be incorporated into this,

061but in terms of putting dollar and cents to it, uh it was just basically a line item that we provide an allowance. But that would be there would be considerations made for that in terms of the electrical implications for additional dishwashers and those types of >> So there as Travis mentioned earlier there's a whole new service associated with mechanical systems. So those mechanical systems would include the the systems in the kitchen, >> right? I just want to make sure that the sustainable component is is a part of that and not an afterthought because if we're spending a lot of money to update mechanical in the cafeteria and that's not a component of it, it would be a missed opportunity in my opinion. >> John, we included a quote that Kevin >> that Kevin Monrett gave

062us from when you had your food service um team give you a price to include like a dishwasher. And really is what you need is a dishwasher to handle the load of the reusable dishes. So that is in there as part of the renovation number for the server. >> But again, we would have to do further design to understand the actual measure. >> Thank you. Other questions, Dennis? >> Yes. So, this is more a question, Eric, I think, of since we have new members and a public, can you walk through what the the plan would be if we wanted to go down this road and what the what what how this works to for a building committee and went way too far ahead, but how do we get to a building committee if we wanted

063to do that? >> That's a great question. I'm gonna ask for a lifeline with some help from my colleagues because I I have it written down. Um, so if there's interest from the board in pursuing it, the next step is we'd have to draw up EDS specs. Um, and so the EDS specs would uh scope out what you want in the the project, sustainable kitchens, the roofs, etc. Um, any academic uh items that you want to change and we are working with KG&D on starting those. The board would then have to review those EDS specs, decide whether or not they want to approve the EDS specs. Then if it approved the edspecs, the board of ed would have to request a building committee to uh be created by the board of selectmen. Uh so if

064the board of ed votes to uh request building committee for the middle school, that would go to the board of selectman. The selectman would have to decide either they're going to have a building committee or they're not going to have a building committee. They choose to have a building committee. Then they're going to have to obviously solicit members of the community to join that building committee. Um, and at that point you're probably getting a little bit of seed money from the board of finance and the RTM to look at creating like architectural uh documents and construction documents based on those ed. >> And just to clarify, the administration recommends the EDS specs to the board and then we approve them. >> Correct. The nine of us are not agree. >> Correct. >> Other questions, Bill?

065So in terms of the auditorium and and the one depicted here, how does that compare? Do you know how it compares to the existing high school auditorium? >> Is it similar size? Is the high school bigger? >> I believe your isn't your high school, 1200? >> Yeah, I believe your high school is 1,200 and this would be probably about twothirds that size. It's hard to to uh put do an auditorium for all the students in the school because you use an auditorium fairly seldomly compared to the rest of the spaces in the building. So you usually design except for the high school level which often is designed for the entire school body usually at the middle school level it's usually designed for about twothirds the school body >> and it's a little bit hard to

066tell but the elevation for the science classroom wing that you've put on the back there is that below grade from the the roof line of the existing building. >> So the existing building's three stories and that would be a twostory addition. So, so it's it's one level lower than the existing building. Part of that has to do with the the width of the courtyard between the two is about um 40 ft. And you really want to bring natural light in. And if you have two, threetory buildings with a fairly narrow courtyard, you're not getting a whole lot of natural light in there. And so those classrooms don't receive the natural light that they currently have. So we're we're at at at the same same time we don't need a third floor. We could obviously design

067this for a third floor for the future, but right now we're we need approximately 12 lab spaces for science and technology. And so this building was designed for six labs per level with three prep rooms associated with those six labs times two levels. And and when you design that, would it be even if you don't build a third floor, would the I might not be able to answer this, but would the construction bid change significantly if you were designed a building with the ability to add a third floor at some point or half of the floor? >> If you plan for it early, it's not a significant difference. Um, it's very difficult to on your existing buildings today that you have in town, very difficult to add a story on top typically because the structure

068wasn't designed for it. >> And even if it was, over the course of the last 10, 20, 30 years, the codes have changed. And so the structural loads and seismic loads are different today. And so even if we had designed it for that purpose 30 years ago, today we probably wouldn't be able to put that third floor on. So you have to be a little bit careful there because codes are going to continue to change. If we're designing this for a third floor, you'd have to think that okay, in the next 10 years, we're going to plan on putting it. Otherwise, you shouldn't do it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> Sarah. This is more maybe for Kate or for Kevin. Um, I'm trying to think of some revenue stream here. If if

069we were to build a larger theater, um, you know, I know back from my my days of doing the home's age factor that, you know, it was hard to find dates at from the high school because the high school auditorium was used often from outdoor outdoor outside groups and other things. Is there a possibility that having a second space would be worthwhile to the district? Is that is that something is should that be part of our >> I I think it could be worthwhile to the district and the broader community. >> Right. Exactly. >> That's certainly what the you know with that size you know you have events or organizations within the community that need an auditorium for 800 >> but they don't need an auditorium for 1,200 and as we all know getting access

070to the high school auditorium because of how many events are there is really challenging. So it it would also probably become very well used by the elementary schools for lots of programming. So it would be a valuable resource to the entire school district and and beyond to I believe the broader community and certainly potentially I mean I'm not sure once you start using it all over the district what the availability and and how much revenue could come in from the outside but it certainly could be a stream of revenue. 14 million >> not 14 million >> Joanna. >> Um so one of the reasons that we started or you know one of the reasons that we started to talk about all this is because we do have all these um you know the 25 years

071of the um age of the building um and especially the roof in our original capital plan was supposed to be um like 17 million almost over two years. Um I see in your um uh estimate that um it's only seven. Um so just you know if we were to go down this path in anticipation of people coming back to us and saying you know why were you uh recommending we do this huge project when it would only cost 7 million instead of 17 million to replace the roof. Um so maybe this is more a question for Kevin. Um why are these estimates so different? Sure. I I think the easy answer is you have a large economy of scale when you're doing a project of this size versus just a true roof replacement. Uh the

072roof on the ratunda was damaged two years ago. We use the square foot price that we paid at that time to calculate the estimate for the roof that you saw on the capital plane. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Other questions? Dave. >> Hey Kevin. Um quick question. I don't know if this is a suburban legend, but I always heard that when the addition was done that this sort of phase 1A uh was planned for and there's some conduits and piping and maybe some things in place. I don't know if that's true. >> It is. It is. Uh working closely with Mr. Shriner uh on the Oxbridgeidge building committee. He oversaw the expansion of this building 20 something years ago and he he clued me into a lot of that infrastructure that this was

073a thought way back when. So I know we're not at the we're just in the master plan concept there but I think when we get to costs I would assume that's there's some advantages to going to that eastern spur. >> That's exactly right. >> Okay. And then just another question and I guess I two questions probably for the master plan you know just thinking that through I guess one is did we think of doing anything with the elevation to maybe increase the green space on the lot or was that outside the scope? I I'm I don't understand the question. >> Underground parking doing things like that. >> Oh, underground parking. >> I'm just I'm just because there's a lot of changes in elevation this land and we've actually had some of that happen in Darianne.

074So, I know if that was part of what we were thinking through was the master plan concept. >> Uh typically in schools, we try to avoid underground or structured parking. Uh parking uh that's in the structure is about 10 times as expensive as grade level parking. They could >> in a in on a campus where you're out of space, sometimes it's necessary. And so sometimes you have that underground parking and on top of that you you put playing fields and things like that. Uh again, from a a safety point of view, we also try to avoid having um you know, gar parking garages on on school campuses. >> Okay. >> Uh if we don't have to. >> Got it. Yeah. I was just trying to get how broad the scope >> you do have a

075lot of property here because you have you used to have a school that was down the hill and so you have that property that could be utilized for a number of different purposes whether now or in the future. >> And I guess that was the other thought. We haven't thought about a traffic study or anything like that in that plan. This is not considered that in scope. >> So this isn't really about um expanding the the school population. And as you heard from the demographics report, the students are already there. The teachers are already there. The buses and the cars and every all the traffic that's currently there isn't planned to change for the next 10 years. >> Got it. If we stick with the rebuild options. >> That's correct. >> Yeah. I'm just trying

076to think how broad the thought we we we saw an option here tonight where we actually added in the foreground there where the bus facilities. So, if you were to add there, then yes, you'd have to rethink how the buses are are coming on campus, where they're queuing, how they're coming off. Uh, you probably wouldn't want all that traffic on Hollow Tree, but that would be something that you would start to think about. >> No, I I I don't think anybody would. Um, all right. So, I appreciate that. Yeah, I was just trying to understand as you were thinking through, you know, how far you were going uh from moving away. And I guess the only other question I would have and probably too soon in the process and I can't say that I'm sold

077on an auditorium by any stretch but just the cost differential from getting the entire school in that at 1,200 versus the 800 would be curious to know. I heard your recommendation unusual to go above the 2/3. I'm just conceptually be curious how big a difference and I'm not putting you on the spot if you don't know right now. >> The difference was like $14 million from from >> Yeah. So the difference was about $14 million from from not having the theater at all to having a theater. So if if we're just extrapolating, it's probably another56 million. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> Um I think Greg had a question. >> Yes, thank you. And sorry if there's background noise about the airport. really just more very similar in terms

078of the question that Dave asked in terms of the scope of the uh the work that's been done here. Um I had the same question around parking traffic flow. I I recognize that everything's happening today, but there are often times where the parking lot is completely full over capacity traffic is is very terrible inside, you know, at in the parking lot around the school. And then separately, yeah, in terms of the scope, is it also the exterior grounds? Have you thought about the utilization of the fields, both the upper field and the lower field? I know the upper field oftentimes is used or unable to be used due to overuse and irrigation issues. Was that part of the scope or was it really just focused on the building? >> That was a little bit beyond

079the scope of of this project. We did in a couple versions look at if we were to completely change the school and the school location. Obviously, we'd be redoing all the playing fields. Uh there's obviously an opportunity here to go from grass fields to uh synthetic fields, which would get uh more use. School district has a lot of turf fields already, so that might not be necessary. And you also have some opportunity down the hill there, which is also your property, to create an additional field if you so uh wanted to. And if you did that, would that mean that you'd have an opportunity to expand your parking or or a drop off area would be a possibility? Whether it's up above or below depending on the the best location for fields and parking. >>

080Eric, field use could become part of the EDS specs conversation as well, correct? Absolutely. In in the EDS specs, we cover all of that. >> Other questions? Joanna, >> um if we um went forward with a new theater, um what would you recommend for turning in the old music rooms and the old art rooms that because the art would then move to the old auditorium? Do you have any thoughts on how do you utilize those rooms? So, this is a draft report and I think uh we're going to spend more time with Kate and the administrators to really plan out how to best use that. Uh there's again as as we grown from 900 to,00 we don't have enough art space. We don't have enough music space and so there's great opportunities there. we really

081don't have technology maker space type labs uh to to the size and and enumeration that we we probably should as well as the ALC program that's on the second floor as that gets renovated does that expand into so there there's a lot of opportunity for that space and because it's a double height are there programs that would like to take advantage of a double height space blackbox theater. May maybe we have a a mini theater here and and then as well as the regular theater and the mini theater has a multiple um potential uses and it'd be really becomes a more of a a multi-purpose space. >> Right. So there are a lot of possibilities that the edspecs would drive. >> Dennis, >> do we in in the concept 1A where you renovate the auditorium?

082Does that what does that get us >> just gets you a really updated and still 400 people? >> It gives you a really wonderful 400 seat theater >> for one class size. >> It gives you modern comm uh sound systems and lighting and stage and curtains and rigging and things like that and and better seating. Today you have two columns in the middle. So it's like going to Fenway Park or something. >> Hey, I'm a Red Sox fan. So >> So you understand the one time I went I'm a Yankee fan. The one time I went, they forced me to sit directly behind the column. >> Sarah, >> I'd love to um I'd love to hear from Kate a little bit about your priorities and you know what your thoughts are all this. >> Yeah.

083Um, well, I think it's a really exciting conversation to be having. So, first of all, I appreciate all of the work that the team has done and for you all for taking the time and all the thoughtful questions. Um, and hopefully the ongoing dialogue that we get to have about this. Uh, one of the most important words that has come up for for me in our conversations has been flexibility because um, there's so much opportunity for curriculum to evolve over time, for the needs of our students to evolve over time, for instructional models to evolve over time. We've seen the number of teams change over time. And so it is important to me that as we think about what Middle Sex needs, we're both very thoughtful about the students and the curriculum in our building

084today and the capacity for change over time because this is a long-term commitment that we could be making. Um, you know, Dennis, to your question about not just a nice a nice upgrade to the theater, our current stage is not big enough to fit an entire ensemble on. So, as an instructional space, that theater is also limited in capacity in terms of what um you know, my whole musical cast can't necessarily fit on the stage to do a choreography number together. Um, all of our ensembles have to go up to the high school to rehearse and to rehearse as a full ensemble for their concerts and then perform up there. So, I think that is a really exciting potential for our building as we consider the really incredible K12 music um and visual arts that

085this district has. I think about our library. You know, um when I was having conversations with our wonderful librarian, Denise Ryan, leading up to these conversations, we talked about how the library is sort of a welcoming space for everyone in our building. And um we lovingly called it kind of like the academic living room of the school because it's available to everyone and it needs to be flexible. It needs to meet academic needs. It needs to be a space that people can collaborate that people can have quiet time that there can be um all the different dynamic learning um and community collaboration. To me, I think about our vision of the graduate and the opportunity for us to engage in ways that are truly building communication and curiosity and creativity. When I think about those

086learning lab classrooms, um it's not just that we need more science labs, and we do need more science labs, but we need spaces that are able to um evolve as instruction and assessment practices have evolved. Uh our our current classrooms, as they alluded to, we have um some of those classrooms were designed to be book and work rooms and so they're pretty petite and you can't do a really strong thinking classroom model with students collaborating in a room where there's not room for all the students to be up and walking around. And so there's things that we could be improving in our instruction and our assessment and our learning and our sense of learning community together through this project. Um, I also think the opportunity in the ALC program is a really tremendous to continue

087to meet the needs of those learners. We've talked about um how beautiful it would be to expand the life skills instruction capacity of that space right now. Just as a concrete example, the kitchen space up in ALC right now is really um more of a a tiny little what you might have in the back of an office. uh there's a fridge, there's a microwave, there's a tiny counter. There's not a space for 8 to 10 children to come together with the appropriate adults to do integrated learning around uh how to operate different things in a kitchen. So, I I believe that there is such opportunity for us to continue to grow. Um and that's exciting to me. >> Other questions? Sean, >> you mentioned the not being able to fit the whole ensemble in the

088auditorium. What other um impact would a big auditorium have specifically for the Middle Sex? >> Absolutely. So, currently if we want to run um an assembly, so for example, we for we're fortunate to have Tanner Clark a few weeks ago. We had Victoria Jameson, our author visit. Anytime we do an event like that, we have to run it three times over the course of the day because we can't fit. Those have cost impacts. Every time you run an assembly, there's an additional cost to run it that third time. So, we would be able to do those things um in a less disruptive way to the school schedule, not pulling three different groups, but also not repeating things um additionally, I think that we use our auditorium for community events like the eighth grade awards ceremony

089at the end of the year or other opportunities when our parents come in for fifth grade curriculum night. It's a little packed in there. Um it's cozy, which we love. cozy community is good and um it uh it'd be great to have enough space to really fit everyone um in a a welcoming way. Um I think that you know today we had our team day in the auditorium for our sixth grade teams and congrats to the orange team on their victory. Um and again the you could hear the cheers erupting through the building which was so lovely in its own way. And um another auditorium might give us a better opportunity to hold those kind of events in a in a productive manner. Other questions? >> Bill, >> if you could please. is the proposed

090addition of the classrooms. Is that enough space for you so that teachers can have their own classrooms and are are they switching classrooms frequently now as the schedule is demanded? >> So, it's a tricky question to pin down a definite answer to because there's so many variables in the scheduling um and so many ways that what courses our kids take could evolve over time. Um what I can say concretely right now is that we have um many of our world language teachers sharing classes right now and we have many of our some of our science teachers sharing classes right now. Uh people who are sharing rooms are sometimes across multiple floors and with our very short passing period that's tricky. um and not best instructional practice in terms of keeping things set up when you

091um because we are in a grade teaming model. Our science rooms in particular, you have sixth grade and another grade in the same space. They don't share the same equipment materials for their curriculum. So that is difficult and I think it would be one of the benefits of being able to have the additional science spaces that those spaces could be protected in the instruction and doing that would create the additional classrooms. Um, and my hope would be that we could get most if not all of our teachers in their own spaces because I do think there's benefit in that and it's a nice to have and it's going to depend on size over time. >> And in terms of the layout, having all the science classrooms in one section, >> yeah, >> how how would

092that affect the change of class, say going from English class to science, you have to have across the building? >> That's a really great question. And I think it's also going to be important for us to think about the team model in that because we don't want our science teachers to feel disconnected. What I would say is right now our kids are not only on one floor all day. So even though they might have their sixth grade classes up on the third floor in the penthouse, they're also still going downstairs for gym and downstairs for music and the cafeteria is downstairs and eighth graders going upstairs for art. So people do move across floors and that's manageable. Um I wouldn't be and because um as Dave Brown alluded to not only is the urban legend

093about this uh electrical piping etc things I don't understand the hallways are numbered 40s and 60s so that there'd be room for the 50s. So um it was you know that section of the building is so adjacent to where so many of the instructional materials take place that I do feel like it would work for our kids. >> Thank you. >> Are there other questions? Okay. So, >> one last thing, one just a point of information. Eric mentioned the library reimagined. We did we did discuss this at facilities maybe five or six years ago libraries reimagined and we punted because we realized we would have to do some work at Middle Sex and we not do some but we thought we may have to do some work and we didn't think that putting a library

094in re reimagining a library and then doing work and having the library construction >> affect the construction. So we hunted on doing that until this >> decision. Yeah. Sarah, >> sorry. I'm just looking more closely at the drawings and I'm you're talking about the accessibility and this is not for you, Kate. Um, oh, you know, I'm moving kids around the building. I'm noticing that the new wing is not connected on the south side to the old. Is there reasoning for that or >> you can't see? >> That's the bridge. >> Uh, that's a detail that might change. uh right now was shown open on the south side with probably a gate so that the facilities people could get in to uh access that courtyard. But ultimately it might be determined that the best course of

095action there would be have having a twotory connector all the way through and just having sets of double doors so that again if you have uh lawn equipment or whatever that that can go through the building. Thanks. >> Good question though because we had actually spoken about that internally a little bit. >> Any other questions, Dave? >> Just following up on Dennis's history lesson. When we were looking at the libraries reimagined, we incorporated some of that for the elementary schools, right? >> Yeah. >> And did we ever finalize it specs for the middle school or we just >> we we punted on the middle school. >> I'm just trying the library matching. Sorry. >> Oh, no. All good. >> The libraries reimagined were for HHR and that they were incorporated in those and and Oxridge

096as well. >> But we did we have overall principles that would just kind of roll in the middle school or we did we just kept it at the K? >> I think we have principles. >> I think we did too. I think we did. Yeah. Some of that stuff. >> Are there other questions? Okay. So I I am gathering that we have a consensus from the group that we would like to go forward with a renovation. Is there a consensus with the board >> the specs >> of the well I mean I'm saying should this go back to the facilities committee yeah >> for further detailed >> uh follow up with architects etc. >> Okay then we will is there consensus on that? >> Can you just say that again just so that we're all

097clear on what we're doing? Uh, I believe there is additional work to be done and follow up to get a little bit more detail on what we would potentially want and that the facilities committee would be the right group to follow up on that. Dave, >> so do you want facilities to go back and like aggregate questions and come up with stuff so we can reconvene in the board and talk about this? What next steps would be? Is that the thought or should we put this on for the entire board to read to to talk about this a little bit next step? What would the the facilities committee members >> How does it work in the past? >> How did it work with the other >> Well, we didn't have I we didn't do a

098we don't have a I think the main concern for me as a facilities former facilities chair because I'm not the facilities chair now because we haven't elected a chair but is what what what do you want the facilities committee to discuss because there's three four different options. So I think we need to narrow the focus as to what the board wants the facilities to discuss, >> right? And that's why I say it's like people have questions and follow up and want to know next steps and we can organize like some stuff to come back to economize the board's time. That seems reasonable. People want that, but like we're a million miles from doing an edex. >> Yes. >> So Dave, I think that's a good suggestion. So, if if the facilities committee could come up

099with additional questions or follow up based on the discussion tonight and follow up, I guess with the architects if there were additional details that were needed um or to expand upon um would that make sense and then come back to the full board with >> Greg, if you're if you're uh on the line, um did you have anything in terms of scoping you would like to see follow up on or did you want to follow up offline for the facilities meeting? we need to discuss. >> I'm going to appreciate that. >> Um, yeah, I I I do think that we should understand implications and the scope as it relates to outside of the building, too. You know, I heard a lot about the auditorium, you know, being expanded upon. I'm interested in how many parking

100spots we actually have there. If it is expanded, can we even fit those folks in the parking lot? You know, how does the traffic flow work? Can we improve upon that? I think as the number of students have expanded, we've adjusted, but the adjustment I know is painful for parents and for students alike and for the bus drivers who have to get through there amongst all that traffic. And so I think understanding if that should be part of the scope would be helpful for the discussion as well. >> Okay. Um >> and what about field fields or potential there you >> so I guess maybe the question is do we expand the scope that's something we should take back to the policy I mean to the facility subcommittee. Was the scope inclusive enough? Do we

101want to look at the lower lot? Are there thoughts we want to do in terms of traffic? Get a more comprehensive picture so we can move towards thinking about a decision. >> Yeah. >> Does that seem like the work people want? >> Okay. >> I think so. >> Just one last question, Eric. The the you mentioned the lower lot where the the former school was and which became the senior center, I think, or Yeah. >> Is that is that town property or school property? It's >> town property. >> Town. Okay. Technically, it's all >> right. But you don't have >> There's one little parcel that's a private residence, >> right? >> But the majority is town property. >> And is that is that still in use now? >> Yes. >> As a not the private

102residence, the former senior >> the former senior center >> that was torn down, >> right? >> It's an empty lot. So, it's an empty lot right now >> because I'm looking at the Okay, I'm looking at a different picture. That's fine. Okay. >> If you go to Google Earth today, it's gone. But >> it's actually good to look at Google Earth, the history of it because it it shows when it was taken down. >> Okay. Okay. So, >> there's a lot more. Uh per David Brown's proposal, we can take this back to the facilities committee to ask additional questions, look at the potential scope including parking um potentially field as well or um the capacity or some of the different options between the 75 versus the 85 to95 million option. Um and then come back

103with recommendations to the full board and then we can discuss as a full board. And if I may, since as Dennis pointed out, we don't have a policy chair. Could we impose on UKcast to maybe aggregate if people have questions to >> you're talking about facilities chair? >> Facilities. >> They're okay. So, yeah, that'd be great. >> Okay. So, Cass, you can aggregate some questions as when they come >> when we do have a facilities meeting, but it's not in the very near future. It's December. We'll set up a a collection point through the weekly update for questions to come in. We'll put a a document together. >> Okay. >> Sorry. I I know I mentioned this at the facilities. I think we asked this. The only question I have is do do does the

104administration Kevin do you guys have the bandwidth to deal with this planning while we're still working with HHR and things like that? So yes, we we've talked about this potential projects for a number of years now and uh Travis and Eric's numbers are all projected out to fiscal year 28. So this is falling in line with what we've planned for the last four 3 four years. >> Okay, just making sure. Thank you. Okay, thank you all and thank you for the presentation and then we will um have facilities follow up when that meeting occurs and people will be able to a ask questions and send them through to >> we'll next week's weekly update we'll have a section for compiling questions. >> Okay, >> thank you. Have a great Thanksgiving and look forward to hearing

105the feedback. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. Um, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Sarah, do I have a second? Joanna. Um, in terms of the consent agenda items, we have the approval of minutes, October 2025 financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfers, board committee reports, and personnel report. Um, I would like Rich uh to talk about what the proposed budget transfers are if you could please. So we had two transfers. We talked at the finance committee. Uh the first is to fund electricity for 112,256. State of Connecticut did um approve a day ahead service initiative which has increased demand and supply rates. Um and so that is being projected out for the full year. Uh, and we are

106recommending taking the funding from delayed start uh to ESY and then some savings and building subs and then another transfer for $25,000 for HVAC repairs. >> Thank you. Are there other items that people would like to discuss on the consent agenda? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? That's Dennis, seconded by Sarah. All in favor? That is unanimous. Greg, were you a yes vote? >> Yes. >> Okay. All in favor? Um that is approved. Um in terms of follow-up action items, I have uh that Dr. Burn will follow up on looking at the capacity at elementary schools relative to the projections. I think this specifically was asked about Oxridge, Tokenique, and Holmes. Um once that information is put together, we potentially could would talk about redistricting if that if that was

107needed, but that's further down the road. >> way down the road. That is way down the road. So the initial the initial followup is looking at the capacity. Um the other followup then would be following up on the the facilities committee. Any questions from the board on the scope of this project that will be funneled over to Dr. Burn in the weekly update. Um, and those are all that I have for that and then we'll move on to public comment. We have no members of the public in the audience. Thank you. May I have a motion to adjurnn?