001so hey good evening I'd like to call today's msad 51 school board meeting to order um it is Monday October 2nd although I was just saying it's already felt like a week and it's only Monday um so welcome everyone here today um it's great to see uh some of our middle schoolers here um so I'm looking forward to our recognition section of the agenda so going in order on the agenda though we're going to start with a recognition of Greeley PTO and Foundation 51. I am just thrilled to be recognizing two organizations who play such an integral role to the success of the students in our district and provide incredible support to our schools teachers and communities we're going to start with a Greeley PTO and I believe we have Gina Hayes and Jenny Burnell
002here to talk about the PTL oh oh okay okay yes do you mind coming up to the podium I I mean I can I have a few words that I was going to continue to read and um but you can please you're welcome to the podium okay I'll continue talking well well you go up so thank you okay great thank you um so many of you may be familiar with some of the the incredibly events that the Peto puts on the upcoming Grand Event um at miw kindergarten coffee poetry jam and the incredible staff appreciation days that they have hosts throughout the year um and so yes we just um wanted to give a special recognition um to all the work of the PTO and we thank the members who are here today so yes
003if you if you don't mind saying a few a few more words and I welcome is this on yes oh it is okay um thank you so much for having us tonight and for recognizing our organization and the work that we do um we've got a lot of exciting things planned for this year and we have a fantastic energetic really creative group of parents and teachers on our board um we like you said we've got The Grand Event coming up um October 18th which is always a really fun event and our biggest fundraiser the parent power appeal is also coming up in a couple of weeks we'll be launching that uh this year last year we raised 18 000 excuse me eleven thousand eight hundred dollars this year our goal is fifteen thousand dollars and
004we know we can do it um really excited we increased our enrichment budget this year to twelve dollars per student and we'd like to increase that as well so I'm really excited to opt for more field trips and enrichment programs and opportunities for the schools I guess are one of our goals this year is to really try to get the word out more to the community that the people what the PTO does we're trying to make note of it more on the field trip permission slips so that all the families know as well that the money that we raise goes back to the schools it sends the kids on field trips it's you know buying equipment for the playgrounds and stuff like that so like Jenny said twelve dollars per student is the goal that
005we have for this year we want it to be higher next year and the year after that and we need everybody's support with that for all the fundraisers and everything so we appreciate it thank you so much [Applause] so the second organization that we're recognizing tonight again such an incredible impact I know I was at their fall fling on Friday night that was quite a fun event in North Yarmouth um it's an independent funding that promotes student development and Innovative teaching methods that Inspire creativity and passion and encourage social responsibility and we're really lucky to have Heather Godot here um on behalf of foundation 51 and um yes thank you Heather's going up to a Podium I'm sure she has some exciting things to say especially about the event on Friday thank you so much
006for having us it's our pleasure to partner with the PTO as well as you guys um we have we are a sister organizations so we do something a little bit different we're most well known for awarding Grants and grants come from innovation technology and different facets to enrich the students in our district anyone can apply for a grant it's actually Grant season right now so anyone can apply through October 15th we do suggest or highly recommend means that your Grant be connected with a classroom in some way or some way of enhancing the student's learning we also lesser known have two other arms one is our Innovative partnership so those are things that you might see around campus that aren't necessarily through a grant but through a one-time Community organization like combination together as well
007as partnering to remove barriers to accessing education so this is where we work behind the scenes we call ourselves like the ninjas so you don't hear about this very often but we work behind the scenes with social workers and we work to help students who can access education in different ways so not like through an IEP but perhaps they don't have the financial means or they're missing a basic part of what other students take for granted so we work underneath to help them get what they need you are welcome as a call to action we just had our fall fling which was fantastic we don't have our numbers yet we're pretty sure that we did raise over five figures which is wonderful on Friday so thank you for everyone who came out to participate and
008celebrate what we do if you are interested in participating you can keep a lookout for an online auction that will happen this winter as well as any time you can go to www.foundation51.org there is a donate component there and you automatically get your 501c3 charitable donation letter immediately back into your inbox so thank you for considering us thanks Heather [Applause] all right so um we have one more recognition this evening and I love looking out at all the little faces here to help um celebrate our gms45 Green Team and I I may have heard you guys have a little presentation and I'm going to welcome Carol up to talk about the Green Team great so I just have a few words to say I'm really pleased to have some representatives from our Green Team here
009to speak with you tonight and share their work uh clubs at gms45 are just getting underway so this group is highly motivated and already making a difference in our school we've had a green team since around 2016 and I feel really lucky that we have staff members who have continued to carry that torch over the last seven years to keep the Green Team fun fresh new and something that our students who have environmental stewardship look forward to joining and and taking part in uh so I'm going to welcome up Monica Moore who is one of our fifth grade teachers in the club advisor and then if all the students want to come up as well they have a little bit to say yeah come on they have a little bit to say too yeah okay
010good um thank you so much for having us and I wanted to say that these ladies are wonderful and very brave and they are a small representation um in a very big way of our whole green team which is approximately 40 students right now between squads four and five and they are very enthusiastic and can definitely make a difference they're going to tell us a little bit about why they joined the Green Team to start us off I did this last year and I love to come back because we do amazing activities that help the Earth and I wanted to be a part of it again this year hi my name is Myla and I joined the green team because it's a great way to learn how to keep our environment clean hi my name
011is Lily and I joined Green Team because I wanted to learn different ways to keep the earth clean and all the fun activities that we get to do hi my name is Audrey and I joined Green Team because I'm excited for all the fun crafts we're going to do this year hi my name is Beezy I joined Green Team to help keep the earth clean hi my name is Josette and I joined the green team because last year I really liked helping our earth grow and making a difference so I wanted to do that again this year hi my name is Mackenzie and I joined Green Team because it's a good way to make um friends and socializing skills and it's also a really good way to keep the earth clean they're gonna tell us
012a little bit about the activities planned this year in September we made Bountiful boxes that we are going to present today in October we're going to make applesauce with local apples thank you in November we're gonna take pine cones and cover them in um peanut butter and then put bird seeds all around it and then feed the birds in December we're gonna make a gift um from recyclable items in January we're gonna make an educational video in March we're gonna plant seedlings and recycle containers in May we're going to maintain the gardens in the front of the school yes this is our September project thank you thank you for helping us what is a bountiful balls a bountiful box is a box that we put food in that we didn't eat like this apple okay
013someone didn't eat it they would put it in about the football because if you throw it away that would be a waste of food why would we use bicycle because if you yeah throw away food that you don't eat it's a big waste okay cool cool here are some examples of things that can go in the bin bananas can go in the bank oranges can go in the bed I hope you'll put them in the bin pick one this is something we would like to you to put in the box why you would put that in the Box well it's easy to it's not open and it's not and it can't be moldy because it has it's close when you put the fruit into the box make sure it is clean and not damaged we
014want to make sure it's healthy for other people to eat them we also accept fruits like apples oranges and bananas and pears and stuff like that this is something that you probably that you should not put in see it's open and it's empty almost so that won't help anyway s cool recycles nobody ever throw any paper in the trash [Music] [Applause] they're just going to tell you a few words about the Box they created and while they were creating the Box we got some video clips and put all that together to educate the rest of the students it's about the Bountiful boxes are used for things that people don't eat like goldfish or apples or bananas so they don't go to a waste we want to make sure that we put food in this Bountiful
015box so that if kids don't have food um that they can always have that they can always get a snack so that they're not hungry Bountiful boxes are for so we don't waste and so other kids can have food to help them not be hungry through the school day like if you need food and you forgot your lunch then you can grab like goldfish or an apple from the box the Bountiful boxes are a great great way to keep people from throwing out things that don't need to be wasted also when a kid puts a yogurt in the teachers put in the fridge the Bountiful blocks can be really helpful because we're not wasting money that the school uses to buy the kids food thank you for having us can I can I put my
016Apple in your box I just happen to have an apple that could hopefully if somebody wants to eat thank you so much for coming here today and your commitment to keeping our earth green and this this gives me so so much hope I can restart every board meeting with a presentation like this thank you truly and I hope you um bring this message back uh to those uh who couldn't join you tonight and I really we so appreciate everything that you are doing as students and the support that the teachers and staff give to make sure this programming continues to happen so thank you so much we really appreciate it and I hope to see you guys again soon so thank you good luck [Applause] good great thanks everyone thank you thank you okay um
017so I think we're going to move to approval of minutes can I get a motion I moved to approve the minutes of September 18 2023 as presented a second thanks Megan any questions or comments I know Annika had submitted a few corrections but I think have been made to the notes that are in your folder all right all in favor of approval great unanimous all right so now we're moving on to public comment um so the board welcomes and recognizes the value of public comment and to ensure public comment is fair and orderly we follow the procedures outlined in our board policy bedh and we ask that all members of the public do so as well we follow this policy to help keep the meeting civil respectful and productive we also hope that this allows
018for all community members who would like to speak to be heard we ask that speakers use the designated Podium when making their comments and speak into the microphone if you're interested in speaking please wait until you're recognized by myself the chair comments by individuals are limited to a maximum of three minutes at a meeting a clock will be visible on the screen to help keep track of the time and after three minutes the timer will go off and comments should be wrapped up please state your name in town of residence before beginning your remarks residents and staff members will be given priority over non-residents within the allotted time our policy allows for 30 total minutes of public comment although it can be modified at the discretion of the board as a reminder public comment is
019not a time for discussion q a or debate among the board and speakers rather as a chance for members of the public to express their opinions on school and educational matters the board will not comment on remarks made by speakers during the public comment period please know that this does not mean we are not listening and it does not express any agreement or disagreement with your statements lastly please keep comments respectful and civil we are neighbors here I hope we can all be kind that includes member of the audience please do not interrupt or respond to a speaker's comments we also ask that comments are addressed to the chair so please do not direct comments at or about individuals in our schools or community I do want to note that I will stop any comment
020that is contrary to these rules and the individuals who disrupt the meeting may be asked to leave okay so I'd like to welcome I know we have some members of the audience still here um and if anyone would like to be welcome to the podium great thank you hello everyone my name is Jen janako I live in North Yarmouth I have two students in msad 51 one at ghs and one at GMS uh I wanted to share with you tonight that recently I read a book called Trans in college it profiled a number of trans students and what it is like to live in a space that is not designed to be welcoming um one concept that the author highlights is the idea of quote coming into community so that you can quote come out
021to your community so that got me thinking a little bit about how we welcome students and how we want people to come into our community and feel comfortable being who they are one of the students that was interviewed in this study said quote the internet is my hometown because this person's Hometown was not a welcoming space for him I felt like this is one of the saddest comments in the book because it made me wonder do we have people in our community who feel this way and so I just wanted to bring this up because I want to highlight that I think that the work that we do I'm looking to that the work that we do here should be in the effort to help all of our members come into community so wherever you
022are whoever you are I think we should value those members and as I was looking at the agenda tonight I think this also fits really well with our strategic goal of Wellness um and so when we want to be well-rounded students and staff we need to be able to understand different viewpoints we need to be exposed to different viewpoints and we need to be feeling welcome in Sharing who we are thank you great thanks hi my name is Jill O'Connor and I'm a Cumberland resident and the parent of a middle schooler I'm just here in support of teachers and Librarians and their right to teach the books that they feel will push our students helping them to grow and question and to purchase and add books to library collections that reflect the widest number of
023viewpoints and perspectives so the fact that I'm here on the second day of banned books week which is happening nationally talking to you about the fact that there are adults in our district who call for the Banning of books from libraries in our schools feels like something out of a dystopian novel for me you know the history of book Banning brings to mind pretty horrible images of of book burnings in Germany during the 1930s the types of books they wanted removed were often things that were political and dealt with gender and identity so the books of course were fictionalized a couple decades of the book burnings sorry were fictionalized a couple decades later in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and in it seems amazing that we're back in something like the out of
024that a novel like that and it feels like maybe fictionalizing it made us think it wasn't still happening but of course as most of you've read and know it is happening and they're using the same tactics they're using fear-mongering you know did you know your child is reading this book they're using words like pornography to go along with that fear-mongering they are using just certain scenes that deal with sexual abuse or sexual exploration instead of looking at the entire story and the very important voice of the person who is telling the story and and therefore disregarding the worthiness for the of the rest of that book the other thing they're doing is conflating curricular texts often with library books it's one thing to say I don't want my child to read that book it's another
025to say I don't want any student to be able to have access to this book A book that could answer questions a firm identity and save lives a library is a place of voluntary inquiry no one is forcing people to check out books in a library I know this because I work in one and we never ever ever make somebody check a book out they usually there of their own free will looking for a story that's either a window or a mirror right sometimes you need a book that looks that tells a story that someone that looks like you and sometimes you need a story that gives you a window into someone else's life this only grows empathy so uh you know it's also putting some of these parents at odd with our teaching profession
026these people we trust these people we've credentialed these people we we let work with our kids and uh and so um it also they also often say that we need safe spaces for kids but safe spaces is not always mean comfortable spaces and that learning involves growth and growth involves stretching and changing and it's not always comfortable so it's productive and it's necessary and thank you so much for letting us come up here and these stories are so important thank you thank you I was going to say the Bell does go off and it is a little alarming so now you know um would anyone else like to come for how about comment mm-hmm hi everyone my name is Shawna Mueller I'm a parent in the district and I'm also the a recent new Community
027member representative on the diversity committee and I just wanted to say I was here a couple of months ago for the principal's presentations and the to kick off this new school year and also attended the Middle School six through eight parent night recently and I just really appreciated how the principals and the teachers are emphasizing building a classroom Community right from the start of the school year it ties into all the communities goals and strategic initiatives that that this board is talking about too and really allows for students to feel like they are in a place where they are trusted and that when there's conflict that arises they can sort that out for for themselves and with their trusted teachers and it's all um it's all just really an important part of of why I
028feel comfortable with my kids in this classroom in the class room also just a shout out to the mountains sixth grade team because I'm sitting there thinking this must be fun to be in these classrooms all day with these people so I just thought I'd offer that so thanks so much anyone else okay I think we're gonna close public comment thank you so now we get to move to presentations I'm really excited to hear about the summer facility project update from Scott bring this up on the screen here we go magic of Technology yeah so the presentation this evening will be on uh the summer projects that we accomplished this summer in about seven week time frame also while this isn't inclusive of all of the projects that we did there were a lot of
029minor ones this will give us um you know kind of an outline of what were the major things that happened this summer in terms of what we had uh budgeted Capital funds for one of the first projects that I wanted to share with you is uh in Mabel I Wilson School while we also had the school revolving renovation funds that we received to do ventilation work upgrades we also expanded the cafeteria due to space removed the stage expanded the cafeteria and you'll see the two windows in the first picture that are that are now at the end of the cafeteria to provide light into the cafeteria we repainted the entire cafeteria new floor tile and there are some while not visible in this picture there's some new cafeteria tables in place so so significantly brightened
030it up and also the ventilation and also air conditioning will be in that facility as soon as we get the unit on the rooftop from the revolving renovation funds another area of Mabel I Wilson school that was in need of repair was the parent entrance and that area had quite a lot of the pavement was broken up and presented a trip Hazard also the drainage going down towards the building was not draining right and so we would get ice and other things built up in that area so that was leveled uh the the drainage improved and new Paving put down in that parent entrance area we also had one of our most major projects was the move moving of the 10 room portable cluster and also adding a 12 room portable cluster to the complex
031and you'll see the number of pictures here the stairs and the ramps were all in made with roofs on them and partially enclosed so that they would shed weather from students entering and exiting the buildings a lot of great work was done here around the site to improve some of the drainage and a lot of the paving put in place to also help us clear that area during the winter of snow and ice continues with pictures there's a basically an eight inch high six to eight inch high gate all the way around the facility now along with you know security systems on the structures in the building you can see the ramp and one of the pictures and you can see the fence lines and some of the area of how these were laid out
032across this area one of the problems that we had was the grading of the site there was about a five foot difference from one end all the way to the other and what we found when we were moving the 10 room cluster out of the way there was upwards of 12 blocks holding the modular up so we had to significantly build this site up in order to make sure that we didn't have that number of blocks underneath the 12 room cluster which would have made it unsafe so we made sure that we made it as safe as possible some of the other areas that we worked on was we installed a brand new playground thank you to our facilities crew who have been working tirelessly on that in fact this weekend they put in about
03320 hours there's two panels left to install and this coming weekend there will be the rest of the wood chips put down and the fencing taken down and that playground will be open for the start of school on Monday okay the following week just give everybody an update on that you'll see there's also the ship um over in the second picture from the top I don't have them from the Titanic on there like you did there Jeff so our facility staff but uh we had a couple of our facility staff that were up on the last picture but um this is for our Pre-K area and so the Pre-K students can now come directly out of the building and walk out onto a play facility area there's also the coverage structure very similar to the
034middle schools cover structure down in the lower right hand uh and that now has picnic tables underneath it and it's a wooded shipped area so it provides shade and um also protection from the weather at this point out in that area can be used for small small group spaces and uh play and other things you'll also see way over to the right you can see a lot of the other work that we had to do in shaping that area of the uh the site and I would say on this while I'm gonna have a lot at the end of this presentation Story Brothers was a huge help in getting this accomplished in that seven week time frame so more pictures of the outside uh shaded structure the playground obviously as we went around looking at
035that and also you can see some of the grading improvements in the far right hand side and how that lays out on the site um we have the pergolas which are in the entry areas at the Bus Loop around the kitchen area and some of the other areas around the parent entrances all of those pergolas were were pretty rusted and pretty uh pretty bad shape so we had all of those uh the rust removed we had them properly primed and repainted in order to preserve them for the future one of the other projects that took place and Dalton's construction has been extremely helpful in this along with the cafeteria area Mabel I Wilson school they were also extremely helpful in recreating the office up to the high school as you know we had security issues
036up there where you couldn't see the main entrance and up the hallway of the other area of the other entrance and what we've done is taken the secretaries from their position that was back further more towards the windows towards the back and move them up further in a behind a counter which allows them to see more of the facility and more of the open area for people coming in and out of the building again all new tile all new painting and of course the Greely maroon in the background on the wall along with the maroon countertops and maroon tile and white floor it also we moved one of the doors further up so that the and also the main entrance area coming in there's actually a hand in window where people can hand stuff in
037through the window rather than having to enter in through the building so so it was a major security upgrade to that area and also there's a doorway in the first picture you can see there that was to separate the confidentiality of the administrative space from the open space out front so that that area was more conducive to confidential conversations we did a lot of paint work up at the high school and again doton's construction we thank them for their work on this uh you can see that the maroon stripe in the hallway also along with the white striping in the hallway pretty much throughout the major hallways of the building there was a lot of paint work that was done um through the high school which really freshened up the building a lot one of
038my favorites The Snack Shack so when we had to turn the a section of the field house into a weight room uh we took a section of the booster area and also the old Snack Shack we found we needed bathroom space out by the field area because the porta potty was not working um all the time they weren't getting picked up on time and they were being vandalized so we added three bathrooms uh at the end of the field house and this is to replace the Snack Shack area that used to be available and it's um It's a Wonderful building I mean it's uh if you look at the outside of it you can also see we put a heat pump in it for heat and AC in the structure you look on the top
039of the roof in the center piece and you'll see there's an exhaust there now for being able to cook inside and if I continue on well first off I'll point out the serving window which faces the track and there's also open windows on the other side you can see which face the field area and as we look at the inside of the building you can see that the floor is a tile coated floor with traction to it there's also plenty of countertop space second photo from the right shows that there is a grill installed now so there's an actual griddle inside the building with an exhaust Hood up above it and you can see that there's cooler space a sink and this whole facility now is heated and aced and is uh basically a year-round
040building at this point that can be used by our boosters and our community so one of the last projects is that we did an entire um phone replacement system in the district to voice over internet and that was a huge upgrade and I'd like to thank technology for their work around that Dirk vancuren was integral in the bidding of this project and a group that consisted of you know working with connectivity point this is what the phones look like now quite an upgrade and we really had some security issues around the campus where certain phone systems weren't working properly phone systems would go down and we wouldn't have people be able to call in and out so the voice over internet if there is a problem and internet goes down or power goes down it'll
041swap over to the copper lines so that we'll still have phone service in the buildings in addition to that we took a lightning strike at the middle school which wiped out the intercom system so we've had to put in a new intercom system and that should be pretty much up and going shortly I believe but we had a lot of intercom areas we did a short-term fix right now we're trying to get that taken care of through insurance I'm not sure how much of that because it's about a 20 year old system so I'm not sure how much of that will be depreciated but we'll do our best to get what we can from that so so that was one of the other upgrades and the only thing I'd like to end with is just
042a special thanks not just to the vendors that are listed here but our facility staff our technology staff and then truly the building administrators Corey and Mallory and their help at that building you know also Carl Francis at the high school for his work but Dalton's construction amazing to work with we work with them a lot of Summers and I'm I'm simply amazed at how much they can help us get done in a seven week period and they're used to working in schools they do a lot of work for Falmouth and up in Windham as well Story Brothers you know really pulled it off for us as we found out that grading problem that we had on the campus and just getting all that done including helping us get the playground in space scabby modular
043leasing they built those modulars delivered them all the way from you know way out of state uh way way down south and brought those all North and um right down to the wire we were waiting for the heat AC and ventilation units for those each one has its own unit and we were right up against the start of school and they pulled it off and got it done for us right up against the start of school and they pulled it off and got it done for us connectivity point on the phone system in the intercom system they were great to work with and then googan's electric was also amazing their vendor here in town we found that as we were adding the second 12 room cluster or the the 12 room cluster to Mabel I
044Wilson school we found out that we didn't have enough power to come out of maple eye Wilson school so we had to put in another Transformer run lines work with CMP and also work with um uh googan's electric and they were very helpful to pull that off so thank you to all our vendors who helped us get that done in about a seven week period so that's uh the update that I have thanks Scott and and thanks for your oversight of all of this work and I know it's how important it is for all these relationships um that you have to be able to get the work done in in seven weeks it's really incredible and I was glad we could kick off this year with a recognition of John Foster and facilities and yeah
045it's incredible what went on over the summer any questions about any of the the updates for the summer projects Scott you missed that little detail about the windows that Overlook the field in The Snack Shack do you want to explain those uh the two windows it was a nice nice touch yes we uh yeah let's go back real quick okay so the two windows on the right hand side of this uh building over here the far right hand picture you'll see that prior you really couldn't look out onto the field if you were in The Snack Shack working so what we did is we made sure that we added two windows and increased the height of the fence so that those were working in The Snack Shack and tried to raise money could also see
046the game on the field so so having worked in The Snack Shack and for those who have thank you very much and it is amazing because um you know all like I said all this work has to happen in a relatively short period of time you know we don't look for the Target to be September one right we're looking for the Target to be two weeks before that because we have staff needing to get into the facilities classrooms that have to be set up so we're really our Target isn't right before the start of school our target has to be basically two weeks before that so any other questions no I'd just like to point out that for the last several Summers like seven six or seven Summers there's been a huge amount of work
047that's been done on the campus um for enrollment mostly for enrollment purposes and just maintaining and and keeping our facilities um in the in good shape and I want to give Scott and Dawn another shout out because they it's Scott you're kind of The Mastermind behind all of it and get it all done in a short period of time and I I always kind of Marvel at um and Dawn is the kind of on the ground making sure it does happen from day to day the two of them together get this done and so thank you Scott for all of your work this is huge amount of work that gets done in a very short period of time big charts on the walls yeah yes Tom so yeah I just want to Echo that this
048is a a really impressive productive Summer from a facility standpoint um and some really much needed work that's been you know coming for a while now um also I've heard rave reviews about The Snack Shack I think it's a really nice addition [Music] um and then um the question I have is um so we've added a lot of classroom capacity through the modulars at Mabel I Wilson um are you able to say how things are with the more common spaces like house capacity for like the gym and the cafe like the cafeteria has been expanded but we also have you know 800 students in a 550 student building how how sustainable is this it's not sustainable what we've done is created classroom space the largest problem that we have right now is common space your
049libraries your cafeteria your gymnasium pull out spaces for students in just general space so so the common spaces are a problem and it's it's not sustainable as we continue to go this is just a temporary fix and in the short term it's just a matter of like scheduling getting kids to at lunch at different times or in the gym at you know as as or do we do we have to cut back um in like on like gym schedules or things like that so many of our Gym classes share the gym at the same time so we have two PE teachers at least half of the week that are working out of that same room so we have a you know it's a small gym to begin with and then we've got a uh a
050carton or a divider so we have two classes some of the classes also team teach so we'll have you know 40 students in the gym at the same time with two teachers depends on you know the scheduling of of that space But it is quite crowded and first for a small gym you know to have that many students with PE are some the assemblies at that school cannot be done as a whole school so that was just continued I don't know two or three four years ago and now we have half the school comes in at a time and then the other half right after that well and if you look at it there's I mean we've added 22 classrooms on top of all of the space Renovations that we've done over there over the
051course of the past what eight years Jeff probably eight to ten years trying to make new space and carving out every space we can the cafeteria while we expanded it still isn't enough to you know basically reduce the number of lunches that we do for now for you know for example it just creates more space to address the enrollment that we have yeah at some point I I don't want to say this too loudly but at some point we'll probably end up doing what we do at the middle school we have we run four lunches at Mabel Wilson right now we've run five lunches at the middle school which means we're starting lunch or think around 10 45 ish it's off a few minutes every year depending on the schedule but um and then we
052and they keep going until after one o'clock so um it's a little early for some of the kids to be eating and Mabel Wilson you know at some point is going to be yeah five lunches were at capacity so with the the expansion of the cafeteria certainly helped it was just sorry it just felt like being in a room with sardine you know just kind of cooked up like this when you're in there but it's a little bit more breathable being in there but it's still very very challenging uh thanks the last thing I want to mention is when I said I was when I told my daughter I was coming here tonight she said are you going to talk about the playground so I'm glad I can report back yes we've talked about the
053playground and it looks awesome you'll find uh like I said it was 20 hours worth of work this past weekend and um uh fortunately uh Don and his family are on a well-deserved vacation starting this week and uh the next upcoming weekend they'll have things wrapped up and so people will be able to enjoy the rest of the playground it's probably also been fun rolling out a bit at a time too yeah it's been kind of a you know surprise every time something comes out well the language also didn't come in English so all the directions had to be translated as the as they were going forward so um came over on a cargo ship with a different language so missing parts broken parts it was fun any other thank you so we have one
054item for Action this evening it's the annual approval of the district emergency plan can I get a motion please I'll move to approve the MSD 51 emergency plan as presented can I get a second second great thanks Jeff would you like to give a little sure sorry um so I'll just actually this is a summary that can be found on our website uh Maine school administrative district 51 comprehensive emergency operation plan has been established to provide for the safety health and security of our students and staff this plan addresses mitigation prevention preparedness response and Recovery with respect to a variety of emergencies that may occur within the school unit and within the schools this plan incorporates the Alice safety approach as its primary prevention strategy this plan was developed under the direction of the superintendent
055and it just required Safety and Security committee headed by chair Don Gray who's an administrator here at the high school includes two board members several school and District administrators Teachers Association representative social worker school nurse the police chief and police captain of Cumberland both Fire Chiefs both school resource officers and a representative from the District Attorney's office this plan acts as the umbrella for all school-based emergency operation plans additionally the district maintains a relationship with the U.S Department of Homeland Security School protective division along with our local first responding agencies in the event of an emergency or a violent incident the initial response to an individual School building is the responsibility of the school building Emergency Response Team upon activation of this team the superintendent or designee an appropriate local emergency response officials will be
056notified depending on the nature of the emergency County and state officials will also be notified the district refuses to tolerate violence or threats of violence on school grounds and by implementation of this plan will make every effort to both prevent and thwart violent incidents from occurring mscd51 will provide the appropriate Authority and budgetary resources in support of this effort violence prevention is the responsibility of the entire School community in participation by all individuals is encouraged the plan requires the prompt reporting of all violent incidents or threats and assures that victims or reporters of violence will not be discriminated against in accordance with state law all district and school emergency operation plans are confidential and are not subject to disclosure in order to reduce the potential for Planned sabotage so we do have 22 plans that
057are out right now these plans were completely overhauled and revamped over the last 18 months by the Safety Committee and then the 22 binders that are out go to our First Responders our administrators the board of directors has the opportunities to look at that and I know a couple of board members came in to review that and I know others have done in the past but just to let you know this is a new Emergency Operations plan and it is lined up with Homeland Securities practices on good practice so we replaced our plan that we have we take it very seriously the security Safety and Security committee met every month last year to develop this plan along with implementing Alice and continues to me this is a regular committee that meets on a regular basis
058with our First Responders so I want to thank the Cumberland Police Department Cumberland fire department they've been in every single meeting North Yarmouth fire department every single meeting our sros and our entire team for working on this and taking this incredibly seriously for the protection of all of our students and staff and visitors here and we also are rolling out a new effort in January called the Sandy Hook promise which is essentially an anonymous tip reporting line that Sandy Hook promise actually operates for us and then it connects Us in the administration and First Responders to an imminent threat and then for threats that are not imminent are provided to the administration at any hour of the day um so that is something they've they work with thousands of schools in the United States we
059got on their list and we're approved it is free to our district through the Sandy Hook promise and we're excited that we'll be rolling that out to our community school community in January questions or comments Jeff what sort of I don't know obviously you can't tell us what the plan is but given the number of Portables um that was a big concern of a lot of parents with the incident last fall it was last fall um so did there have to be amendments was there someone that you could talk to about what to do when you have Portables on a campus to keep everybody safe just curious how that so that's a conversation we constantly have with our First Responders the police department the fire department in both communities have helped us a lot with
060that our sros one of our sros has an office in a modular so just to let you know that we have two sros now in the district and one of them is now situated in one of the modulars as the office for that officer so that is that is a primary concern with the safety Scott worked a lot with the safety after us to make sure we had everything in place that's why we replaced all the fencing for extra security around the playground that's always been a concern of mine even before we had the modulars that was something that we had talked a lot about and so we got a lot of advice on that Safety and Security committee was very much involved in making sure that we've got plans for that but I think
061having our you know one of our sros stationed there as their office for between the Wilson school and the middle school has helped a lot in just kind of giving the eyeball a look at a lot of things and then Homeland Security did a full audit of all of our facilities back in 2000 I think it was 19 now but in that part of that report we continue to implement those recommendations and one of them was around modulars we had started having modulars on site at that point so we have made lots of upgrades to our security on the modulars the old ones we had and then the new ones we've had and adding a lot of features hmm um I did have a chance to go into the central office and take a look
062at the safety plan um and I appreciate the amount of work that went into it there it um are a lot of thorough details in terms of responding to different types of events um for um that would you know would cause us to be the best prepared that we can be I mean obviously in a crisis situation there's always things that we're not going to be able to do because of the nature of a crisis um you know you can't predict everything but I was wondering um there seemed to be maybe some information that still needs to be added into the documents and um when that can be anticipated to be added I made some notes that I'm happy to share with you yeah and that'll be that'll be helpful because this that was one
063thing I wanted to mention what you're approving tonight is not the end version the committee will continue working on this plan all year that's been the plan from the beginning we wanted to draft approved by the board all those situational um we have about 20 of those in the plan for different things that could come up those are going to be subgrouped by the committee and continue to review them with our First Responders to make sure that they are most current we also have some things I don't remember I don't know when you came in but we've already added we've already added several things to the plan and I think the one you looked at if I remember which we have a binder that we held does not include those new things yet um and
064those are things that we already we've been working on and we just added those in but we'll continue doing that um and that plan has to be by the plan itself written right into the plan it must be reviewed by the committee annually at least this year it will be you know continuous before it ever goes to the board for approval so that's our protocol and then by the First Responders obviously in helping us with those details every year we have to adjust it thank you can I ask one last question does it also include sporting events uh theatrical presentations safety outside of the classroom it does I think that's an area we want to we want to dig into a little bit more in the Safety Committee did talk about that so the athletic
065director I was obviously has one of our safety binders and we are reviewing all those safety procedures with each administrator as well but yes those are that is absolutely part of our plan call for a vote all in favor of approval great unanimous that was our only item for action and now we get to move into our workshop and I was waiting to open my Excel sir okay so um we're really excited to have uh Tyler barter here with us from Oak Point I think probably his work on helping address our enrollment growth has certainly predated my uh term on the board and probably most others we have been working um sense you know late I think 2018 I I've been following along we have this really great website about the new school project with
066the whole history and um some of the interesting time points is 2015 is when miw exceeded its 550 students and in 2018 we got some updated projections that continued to project the increase in enrollment that we've we've seen over the past five plus years and so we have continued to recommit through six five or six board terms every year other boards and other committees have been working to put forward a solution to address the enrollment growth and today is another step in that process um obviously with a failed referendum in November we wanted to look at a lot of different options and opportunities looked at other sites what was available what could we do and as you you heard maybe through our last meeting of the prior board in June and the first meeting with
067this full board um that we went back through all the information and recommitted to 80 Gray Road as a site for the new school and now we're really looking at okay what can what can we do different what opportunities do we have that could both address the enrollment growth but address some of the cost concerns and so what we're going to be seeing in tonight's presentation is an estimate submit an updated cost estimates and Designs unfortunately since time has passed some of these costs have have gotten larger so even just looking at the same thing that was put forward last time re-estimating that unfortunately I don't know what the percentage is I'm sure Tyler and others know exactly what percentage the growth has been since our estimates last year but to just do the same
068work the construction costs and so really trying to take a hard look at what other opportunities we have um and who can look at the cost what are all the different ways that we could look to put this project forward for something for our community to to address these issues and so I am excited to see Tyler's presentation I know we've worked over the past few weeks to look through okay what what are the options for for areas that we can reduce and so I I'm happy that the board gets to also then give this a hard look as we we don't have a vote on anything tonight this is informational this is a workshop this is where we dig into the details and then after tonight we are going to continue to work with
069both of our towns to better understand what the potential tax impact if we were going to move forward with what's being presented this evening and our next meeting is actually a joint meeting with both the towns when we're hoping to have updated growth numbers have some more time with the talents to look at the the cost estimates and what the projections are for for the tax impact on individuals and so we just you know this is really the the first next step I guess in looking at what the options are for 80 gray roads so Tyler thank you I don't know if there's anything else I think that's it okay foreign two screens going up yeah so thanks for the introduction this brings me back here to continue talking about those projects yeah as you
070had mentioned we came on board and the fall of 2019 so it's been a solid four years starting our fifth year of work on this project there's been a lot of a lot of effort invested by a number of boards and community members throughout this process to get to where we are right now so what we did over the past month or so is we've taken really a kind of a comprehensive look at the total project and we've really dove into all of the different cost elements where the money is spent we took a look at some of the program elements we went back and Revisited some of the design elements you know kind of a fresh set of eyes it's been just about a year now since the last referendum and the work that
071was done previously and we wanted to make sure we were kind of testing a lot of those assumptions those design decisions that had been made through that process we have a number of things that we'll talk about in a little bit that we've brought forward as as options they have implications across the board whether it be on a little bit on capacity we tried to minimize impact on on student-centered learning there's a little bit of impact on the sustainability side Energy Efficiency so we have some balancing to do as we get to talk about all these costs and where this project goes from here so a quick overview just as a reminder of where we were in the fall of 2022. overall the plan really hasn't changed what we're bringing forward for the final solution
072so we know that there's a challenge at miw that challenge is going to be coming down the road very shortly at the middle school and that really was was some of the driving forces behind this final recommendation on grade level reconfiguration in your buildings is to try to address those two core areas where you're experiencing that population growth and limited resources and try to address it with one project that kind of you know checks the box for a number of different buildings so Moving Two grades out of the Middle School allows us to to do some population control there for the future and setting you up long term with the biggest changes coming at Mabel eye so Mabel I currently be in the K3 Moving Two grades plus excuse me three grades out to 80
073Gray Road in the new facility really gives us an opportunity to address the capacity at mableye and the Middle School while he's still giving you a fantastic long-term flexibility at a new a new building on the new site overall what we were looking at capacity wise we had essentially a lot between 11 and 10 classrooms depending on the individual grade levels and that gave us a total building capacity of 736. long-term flexibility was always one of the the goals in there is making sure that you didn't move in and all of a sudden you know be right back where you started so we've continued to work in Flex classrooms spaces that are set up as collaborative work areas pull out spaces that could be converted with no construction effort in the future to grade level
074classrooms so as you have a bubble that comes through we've got some capacity built in there that's what those three Flex classrooms are so overall this sets the district up for for a long term the enrollment projections that we've had to date this building will address those going out for the next 10 plus years with additional capacity long term so at the time the last referendum was broken down into two columns so we had the new primary school and then additional work at Mabel I Wilson at the time the primary school was estimated to be 71.5 with an additional 2.4 over at Maple eye one of the things that you're going to see different tonight is the removal of Mabel eye from the project budget recommendations and some of this goes to a lot of
075the work that Scott talked about tonight a lot of work has been done on playground infrastructure changes to the cafeteria we've been able to address a lot of the ventilation and HVAC concerns in some spaces with programs through the state revolving renovation fund and with a recent expansion of that program There's an opportunity to continue to harness State money to address some of those smaller programs changes that are required in this building such as finishing up the remaining amounts of Windows accessibility challenges in bathrooms so we're really trying to tap into as many other funding sources as we can as those become available and they're identified so if you remember the revolving fund a million dollars worth of Windows they've reimburse you for about 500 forty thousand so it's a fantastic program the rest is
076loan free are interest-free so we continue to look at those opportunities so you won't see any talk about Mabel eye tonight in the cost going forward so for a budget update um I think everyone's felt it recently between the supermarket the gas pump if you've gone to Home Depot for construction materials things haven't gotten cheaper since November of 2022 and I think that was really expected we've construction industry wise we have seen at the start of a leveling off which is fantastic we're really kind of crossing our fingers that that things have kind of kind of flattened that we're getting back to that three to four percent increase after a series of years where it was anywhere from seven to nine to ten percent depending on which specific trade that we were talking about so
077as I mentioned as we looked at all of these different costs our civil engineer reached out to all of our subconsultants we started to you know ping our resources in the construction industry we were checking all of our material costs and that goes across the board and we did notice some some pretty significant upticks um you know it was alluded to before so as we get into this um we're going to break this down into the total building project so this is the one for one comparison November 2022 to now so this is straight construction escalation resulting from you know that 18-month difference in the start of construction and that's really where we're starting to kind of use as our Baseline for these budget numbers so where that brings us is to just over 83
078million dollars it's pretty significant uptick from that 71.5 it works out to somewhere between 15 and 16 escalation over 18 months to 24 months depending on when this actually hits the ground so understanding you know the cost is obviously a very significant piece for the for the community it's going to be a something that's going to be you know probably the most sought after information it's going to be a lot of discussion points so as we took a look at some of the things that were mentioned before what were some of those different program elements changes to the building that we could take a look at to overall reduce that cost give the district a fantastic long-term solution still meet a lot of those sustainability goals but maybe ease up on some of them all
079along trying not to as I mentioned before impact the student centered learning so making sure that we're providing the program spaces and all of those different components to make this a really successful educational facility so our primary effort was around taking a look at circulation secondary spaces reconfiguring some of the Wings and we'll talk a little bit about that as we move through we knew capacity wasn't something that we were going to be you know really interested in recommending a reduction on that long-term flexibility is really important there's not a lot of extra space in the core pieces so removing classrooms really wasn't wasn't an option and then also taking a look at what scope elements could potentially be funded through other sources so grant writing Partnerships with other community agencies you know potential you
080know government allowances through inflation reduction act there's a lot of other programs out there and then also looking at what other parts of this you know may be able to be uh to pulled in through some of those funding sources down the road so doing some good long-term planning as we look at the bid documents after after this moves to the next phase so Sarah and I spent I know the better part of a few days really just diving into the overall building floor plan we've had a number of conversations with with the district and we identified a few things that kind of set off a little bit of a domino effect one was eliminating one Pre-K Flex classroom from the wing in the upper right hand corner and what that did was it allowed
081us to kind of start pulling some of those Allied Arts in the in the bright green area that you see highlighted on the top left into the building a little bit more which had just a couple different concerns for us one was Safety and Security having classrooms directly at the front next to the parent drop-off kind of pulling that those grade level classrooms into the core of the building so a lot of those things started to give us some opportunities to take a look at the shape of the building and give us a little bit of some efficiencies the other piece that we looked at you know we had turned the if you see in the bottom right hand corner we had turned one of the classroom Wings it created a little bit of interest
082in some different program spaces inside but we took a look at how after moving some of the other classrooms around you know was there a way to kind of ease up on some of that circulation that was being used for both both student learning and circulation and see if we can make some some good reductions there between those two efforts we trimmed out about 3 500 square feet from the building so you've probably heard me say this at other meetings before is that the most meaningful reductions that we can make are in square footage so that was overall you know a pretty significant reduction as we took a look of what that would do to the overall building capacity by converting Pre-K rooms into Flex rooms gave us a little bit more long-term capacity there
083so the result is removal of one classroom that was dedicated capacity wise in the calculations as Pre-K turning the others to flex it actually only resulted in a net deficit of six students in your building capacity so overall still that great long-term capacity in the building by giving you an extra 100 students plus or minus in the different grade levels so still maintaining that that long-term flexibility some of the other areas that we heard in some of the public comments and we took a little bit of a deeper dive into where some of the outdoor play and learning areas that could be constructed especially since they occurred directly at the end of the project that kind of the last things that we do is we're backing out of the site and they're great opportunities for
084grant writing and other community efforts to construct you know Allison's not here so she'll you know be the first one to say that they're often the value management departments a lot of times they get cut but this is a great opportunity to kind of ease back on a couple of those things that could be funded later either through other sources or if funds are available through contingency at the end of the project the other piece that we've identified a lot of these came out of some pretty aggressive sustainability goals that the previous board had had set for us we had it really increased a lot of insulation both in the roof and walls and we had pushed toward triple pane windows these aren't something that you know we're super excited to give back because these
085are all elements that pay for each other uh pay for themselves rather but this is something that if needed could be bid alternates if we get some great favorable bids one thing we would need to talk to you about is you know right sizing Building Systems that were not over building those you know if we are able to pick up some of those additional building envelope upgrades and the other component that came out was identifying the geothermal system it's a pretty significant expense a lot of wells and there are still some great Technologies out there that would give us some great building efficiency system efficiencies so that was something that we wanted to talk about this is one area and then also the addition photovoltaics that we've been doing a lot of research there's a
086direct Grant from the federal government to school districts through the inflation reduction act that would likely fund almost the entirety of this upgrade with some challenges of the you know how you get it pre-pre-funded up to the point where the rebate comes in so there's some discussions to be had here you know it's a system that would pay for itself long term in a in a general sense you know 15-ish years and you're going to pay that off and if you can get some kickbacks from the feds to pay that off sooner push your utility bills down so there's some really good discussion points here if the district is interested in pursuing that this is the full list of items that we identified and then how they trickle down through other lines in the overall
087project budget so as you look at the ones in the top you see the additional wall insulation roof insulation of the windows the deletion of the Pre-K flex room the other floor plan changes that we mentioned geothermal and then the outdoor planned learning spaces adds up to a pretty significant amount of money in the overall reduction the other ones that I wanted to highlight are the results of some changes in the guidance from the Maine Department of Education and how they build public school projects and those are around the movable equipment furniture and then the mobile Equipment Technology lines so they've reduced their recommended funding amounts a little bit about about a percentage and a half on what we would typically carry so we've included those as a recommendation to take a look at we
088can start to dial in some furniture estimates as we you know kind of get back into this to make sure we're in that that good Zone but we're feeling fairly comfortable that we can equip your school but not go overboard on on a bonded amount with the technology the other options there are some rebate programs e-rebates that we could potentially get some additional monies back from some of those rebates those aren't reflected here they're an unknown at this point but those are always things that we're tracking As you move down a lot of the other sections are directly a function of reducing the construction amounts so both bid and construction contingency as we reduce section A in the the budget that we've shown you it's directly a relationship to that so we you know take
089a million dollars out you save five percent so those numbers are straight percentages uh the same thing with the architectural and Engineering Services sustainability coordination and a few other things of those nature are directly related to changes that we've made in some of these recommendations uh the one big one that I would like to point out for discussion is the owner's representation that's something that the district has in the past elected to do in-house puts a little bit more of a burden on Scott and Jeff throughout the course of construction but it's a significant amount of money that could be reduced so all of these result in about 8.5 million dollars in potential reductions in that 2025 construction start period line so we've we've escalated out to that that period of when we'd be looking
090to bid so what that looks like overall is you take the the part A B and C that adds up to that 80-ish million dollar one that we talked about at the start of this deduct out the 8.5 and you're back to about a 74.5 million dollar process uh project cost overall based on a march to April referendum and that is the back of the napkin budget update so and and to that point we we not decided on an actual date I think we're we're trying to look towards the end of October during the joint meeting to have a board meeting to decide on that but we you needed something to work from yeah absolutely we needed a starting point and some of the other presentations that we've made you know that April March is
091really a great time for us you know industry-wise because it lands you bidding about 12 months after the start of the referendum which gets us into site work foundations in warm months and that's really one of the things that we're looking for the costs increased pretty significantly if you start into pushing foundations into October November December as the weather starts turning the productivity goes down the expenses go up uh the other thing if you remember you know there's some some back-end concerns as well about the long-term duration and when you would move into this building so those are some of the things that led us to use that that February March aprilish timeline anything in that zone works well for this budget so this is really our chance as a board to to understand what's
092being presented I know I've had some opportunities to leading up to today's presentation to talk some through some of these so I just really welcome questions from from the board on what Tyler's presented hi Jenny Tyler yes getting yelled at how are you um this I posed this question I'm not sure it made it through to you and maybe you don't have an answer but the question is the eui of the the building yeah I remember talking to you initially you said while this is difficult to predict until you actually get the energy Engineers into the mix but you were hoping for the initial plan to be in the 25 to 30 range yeah so wondering does that does this these these these changes you made does that put a big dent in the UI
093it will so we we've been kicking around some numbers we're pretty confident with the full you know unfortunately the 83 million geothermal lots of insulation in Windows that were in the the mid to low 30s uh we're thinking this starts to creep up into the 40s 45 so so 40 would be okay to be thinking about I think I think we could get there you know I think it's it's definitely something that we're going to have to definitely have our work cut out for us you know the the more a load reduction that we take out of the equation the harder it gets as you know to get to those lower numbers but but those are certainly things I think we strive for the reason I mentioned it is that one of the things we
094have going from a sustainability benefit is is the property itself and the 75 Acres of woods which are sequestering carbon yes and uh these are our own calculations but uh uh uh you you could call this building I think a carbon positive as long as the eui you know it doesn't go too much above 40. yeah and I think we will throughout the process also be looking at um how we're building this building so our Structural Engineers are going to be tracking the embodied carbon of the building through primarily you know foundations concrete is going to suck up a lot of that the steel and the overall building superstructure so we'll be tallying up that actually the program is called tally that we use to track that carbon sequestration of the building so we'll be
095doing that kind of hand in hand and we will be working to to reduce the overall carbon impact just as part of our standard design process apologize for the nerdy question and your patience and answering it you're speaking my language to clarify what eui means so it's it's an energy use intensity and essentially you add up all of the BTUs that you use so every thousand BTUs that the building uses is essentially one eui so the lower the number the better performance that you're building is is generating so the lower the number fewer utility bills so all of that you know the more that we can push that down the better it is for you long term especially with the fluctuation in Energy prices way way of comparison uh maybe like Wilson is 80 for
096example so this would be a substantially more efficient building just because of its age in the west yeah can I just go back to a point that you made which is um that you're suggesting a February to April sort of spring time frame for the referendum because it's advantageous in terms of cost because of the foundations yeah the foundations the foundations is the number one trigger so when we have to do winter construction we we've done a lot of it um some of the challenges obviously we live in Maine Frost is deep penetrating uh some of the things that we have to do is they actually have what's called Ground Source heaters they run big tubes all along the excavations they heat the ground they're putting blankets over it and it just becomes incredibly expensive
097the other component that goes to that is labor efficiency reductions so it's estimated that a concrete Foreman is going to perform person is going to do about a 50 efficiency on their overall work in a given day based on the weather so if it gets cold they'll get it done but it's much more of a challenge so that can add some pretty significant costs overall if we're doing the entirety of the foundations there what we'd like to do is get those foundations in start to see the steel go up and then they start to enclose sections of the buildings with light gauge metal framing and sheathing and then they start to put temper reheat inside you start to regain a lot of those efficiencies so if we can get construction start you know May June
098that's really a great time to to get going gives us time to get the access road in and get Workers to kind of the back side of the site thanks any is there anything else that goes into that time frame besides what you just covered are there any other yeah things that kind of go into that so this these are the two referendum uh timelines that we have put together back a little ways so February March April they kind of all work in a line here one of the things that we're looking for is that middle area where I've got kind of Circle Winter construction so we're keeping a close eye on the duration that we get before that the other component that you'll you'll see that I've got circled is moving so it's something
099that people don't always think about what it actually takes to move 700 kids from one facility the teachers all of the components in the building giving staff time to set the room up Furniture can't be delivered until the building's done so if you take a look there you'll see one of the things that that three months can do is it puts our 24 month construction duration ending in August which means that we're doing a phased occupancy of the building we're moving furniture in when the contractor's still there and really that's when quality starts to deteriorate you know things get get missed the building ShakeOut isn't done systems aren't up and running and we're doing that with staff and students in the building which is a nightmare so all of those things add cost to the
100project you know you don't want if we can avoid it contractors working with students there you know hopefully we'd be out outside doing those finish finishing things the other piece with that is it gives you just a you know three weeks to get furniture set up your staff moved in and room set up and I can give you the names of a couple uh a couple other school districts if you want to talk to what that experience is like it's a it's a real challenge so that's those are the things that we look at from both the functional and a cost perspective thanks you're welcome I guess just on the topic of the timeline since there is you know potentially a what some might see as a relatively small difference between you know particularly if
101we're looking as far out as April and if we were looking at June just um what is from your past experience um your level of confidence in in kind of these timelines and what um obviously there are often unforeseen things that can happen there are and you know there's always risk in these you know if we uncover some unsuitable soils or something that's not known that's one of the things that you see in the budget there's a lot of due diligence that goes into the that upfront piece the more testing that we do during design the less we're going to start to uncover some of those things as we get into construction which does a couple things it manages your risk for cost overruns and it manages the time and those are you know time
102is almost as valuable as we start the construction as that dollar piece you know if a contractor is delayed because of an unforeseen condition they add General conditions lot of other things that just incrementally get much more expensive so we're going to do a lot of due diligence during that design process to help mitigate those risks the 12-month design that we've got in there we're very comfortable with we've done a lot of these types of projects over the past we've factored in a couple of major permitting things you know right off the bat getting our main DOT traffic movement permit completed we've had pre-ab meetings with them we have an understanding what they're looking for and the other component to that is surprisingly about a six-month permit review time for the main dep this one's
103going to be a you know they're all they're all complicated they all take six months but this one will have definitely some some other components in it that we'll need to make sure are accurate really accurately addressed early on in our pre-application meetings and all of those things help again go to mitigate some of their time risk on the back end so we're fairly comfortable that we you know we can get this done design wise out to bid in a 12-month period hmm okay I'll ask some more questions yeah you don't mind so um looking at some of the other examples of schools that you've worked with I'm just wondering if you can give us a you know kind of how this compares to other recently completed projects or other proposed projects that you're working
104on yeah so we've we've taken the very the exact same approach as a couple of state funded projects that we have in the office we build our budgets exactly the same way uh the other piece is we have been provided the project budgets for I think five other schools that are either under construction or about to start and a couple that are are about six to eight months ahead of you you know ones that are have completed their concept design and budgeting and we're kind of like smack dab in the middle of them these are all elementary schools primarily and then a couple of middle schools the middle schools the cost creeps up a little bit more because you're building things such as locker rooms and science labs and larger gymnasium spaces all things that
105kind of skew some of those numbers that we're looking at but we're it right kind of smack dab in the middle some of that's directly related to just the the overall design of individual buildings are going to fluctuate somewhat historically speaking it's been a little bit difficult to kind of escalate some of our even you know three-year-old projects out because things have been so volatile we had one project I've mentioned up in Camden that I think when we escalate out gets pretty close to this which is great so we're feeling really comfortable about where we are especially compared to other projects with other firms that we've been kind of just doing that litmus test and making sure that we're not drifting too far that answer here I'm not sure it was detail enough well helpful
106to know I guess that based on these other schools that you've mentioned whether it's five different projects that were falling somewhere in the middle um and there may be more specific questions that we can ask there but um definitely appreciate that overview and you already mentioned that the middle schools because I think this question has come up too in terms of the grade configuration that middle schools would be more expensive to build I'm guessing high schools would be even more expensive but as we look at the grade configuration you know is this our most cost effective yeah I think you know the challenge when you start looking at middle schools and high schools are not just the cost per square foot but the number of square feet that you takes per student so an elementary
107school requires the least you know smaller kids they don't have as many specials when you start getting into middle schools that's when you're looking at competition basketball courts and other components especially with multiple teams practice courts so everything just kind of gets a little bit bigger so the state recommends about 140 square feet per student we're you know kind of close to that a little bit more based on unique programs here and then it starts getting up to 160 180 200 if you're starting to put in CTE and other programs like that in high school so not only does the cost per square foot go up but the building is just much bigger um and just a couple or maybe just one more um so you did mention the obviously what we can see from
108the numbers that the costs are rising and um that some of those costs hopefully as you said are leveling out to that three or four percent as opposed to maybe the seven or eight percent um but do you see is there anything that stands out to you as really the drivers of the cost increases that we're seeing um in the same project or where those costs have changed or risen most it almost depends on the month so a lot of times you know big big numbers that you saw in the differential between the site cost is going to be directly related to fuel so the site numbers are going to be diesel driven so as diesel starts to creep up those numbers creep up because it's Trucking soils and other things you know we're looking
109at material costs in the neighborhoods you know pits that are close by so those material cost is you know a little bit more stable but the volatility in that market is challenging especially when you look that a lot of the heavy got a mind of its own some of the heavy site costs are going to be things like Paving which is very oil dependent so you know those costs are at the very end of the project so there's a little bit of volatility there um you know two years ago was the price of lumber that drove everything I don't know if you've anyone had seen it at Home Depot and plywood had gone through the roof and she then had gone through the roof two by fours we're kind of expecting to see that creep
110back up over the next few months because of you know wildfires in Canada things that you don't really think about and they trickle down over time into the market we've seen volatility come down in structural steel for a while that was a big one you know the word on the street was that Amazon like three years ago had bought 60 of the long span joist comp um capacity in the country so no one could get joists for for months so those were things that were you know just unexpected and you try to build your budgets to to absorb those somewhere so you know we're kind of taking a look at all of the cost in order to give you some good long-term flexibility and security but not go overboard on what the ass is thank
111you you're welcome going down the line I guess okay sure um uh so Tyler I wanted to I just tell you that I appreciate all the effort that you and your colleagues have made to help us manage the cost of this project um I I have to admit it is really frustrating though that were essentially like the more we wait the more we are paying more for less but that's just the nature of the Beast and inflation um I was wondering if you could talk about a little bit more about the potential for Grants um and whether we could continue to bring the cost down through those or at least get reimbursed down the road yeah I think I think there's always opportunity and some of those those site elements that I mentioned you know
112we had I think a couple hundred thousand dollars of um of outdoor plan learning spaces those are fantastic opportunities for fundraising through the community the other one that I mentioned I think there's just a lot more investigation that we need to do we've had some conversation is that inflation reduction act it essentially works out to a 34 rebate cash rebate when the building goes online and what they look at is the total system cost it's not just that 2.9 Million Dollars of geothermal but they're looking at you know all of the HVAC costs for ventilation and heating and looking at the building power service they're looking at you know structural elements to support those so we did some kind of back of the napkin pieces and we're fairly comfortable that we could get a lot
113of that back but again these are all you know the kind of that managing the risk you have to fund that money up front to get it built you don't get the rebate until it comes online so there's there may not be an appetite to kind of take that risk you know we wouldn't know until we get bids from contractors the system starts and you know programs can change but you know the people that we've spoken to they don't seem to think it will so you know there's there's a lot of risk to some of those bigger ones but we'll continue to look at anything that we can find out there so that's really helpful because with the geothermal that's the biggest ticket item that could be reduced from the package but it also sounds
114like it's the most likely that we would get some reimbursement for outside funds yeah I I believe unless they repeal the program it's not a competition based piece so it's expected to go out 10 years uh the thought is that this is really driven as American-made equipment it's a reinvestment in manufacturing production jobs here in the country they're thinking that that's enough to keep that from being repealed because it's really going to go a long way to help you know unemployment in different parts of the country so again those are things you know I'm just the architect not the the IRA Economist but there are definitely some programs out there that I think we should have some conversations of that same cash back can also benefit the district for photovoltaics so if you're looking at
115a production site that's not a PP the true you know power yes sir all right so one that you own they can potentially get some money back from that as well thank you so Tom you touched on an exact point that we went back and forth on I was like of course the the most extensive item we look to remove is the one we think we can get reimbursed for right sure I mean and it seems like any easy decision like oh we can knock 2.7 million off of the sticker price of this whole project but we could get a return get that money returned in the future and the larger pieces is that we'd have to fund it up front so we'd have to figure out how to fund that somehow in order to
116do that so so some of the options that we played around with is is option like actual options on the referendum um and so maybe there'll be a choice with and without geothermal as a potential option and one of the things that we're going to continue to dig into is what the long-term operating cost differences are if we we have that or don't have that and so I really want to be able to provide that information to our our voters kind of on that topic the current design includes heat pumps correct yeah we will still use heat pump technology because you know one of the stated goals and I think it's not something anyone would recommend taking out is providing air conditioning to this facility so we would still utilize that we're still going to
117come up with a great efficient building it's just some of these things especially when you factor in Grants can save the district a lot of money over time on utility costs so that's that's kind of finding that that happy balance and is there any money back on heat pumps at this point I mean I know that there are State there are programs that are yeah so the other one that we're gonna we're gonna recommend we go after and we'll start tracking on day one of design is efficiency main has a rebate program for a lot of the technologies that we're going to be putting in here um it changes on a year-to-year basis but we're confident that there will be some amount of money back uh it probably is in the tens of thousands not
118hundreds of thousands but it's still you know something that might help offset additional insulation or some of those other costs that are going to again give you kind of that payback on the back side hey Tyler uh thank you so much for all this this has been I mean you're so impressive the way that you're able to answer these questions and uh present and work on the Fly even if you're not an Apple guy um so I've 9 000 questions but I'll narrow it down to a couple as I'm sure all of us are um first I want to start you kind of talked about the flex space and the way um I'm I much very much worry about getting rid of flex space I've been part of some school builds and knowing what it
119can provide you and what it can provide teachers is really powerful um but you kind of spoke about it as if you were like oh kind of relieved that you reassessed it and you saw some advantages to it so along that point are there recommendations here for cuts that you're like you know what a second thought it must make sense to eliminate versus some of the few there are a few things that that we could potentially recommend Some Cuts that they will start to have a negative impact on the educational side and that was something that we weren't comfortable bringing a lot of those forward without more discussions we could take a look at things like you know maybe reducing the size of an Amphitheater or the indoor that indoor space but when you get
120past that there isn't a lot of extra space in this building we really try to model this exactly how the state would fund it if it's a state-funded project some of the other things when I mentioned the flex space we've got some things like Allied Arts rooms that could serve multi-functions and when we get you know a little bit further into that redesign and we get some plans that are a little bit cleaner we can show you some of the things that we were able to do is kind of move an Allied Arts room to take the place of a flex room but we could still put the bathroom in and if you needed to move an Allied Arts teacher in there it still gives you that additional 20-ish students that's not reflected here so
121we're still trying to be cognizant of the fact that things change you know you could have a new Housing Development or something moves into town that causes a bubble so we're very very sensitive on the capacity of this building understanding that this is entirely a capacity driven issue for your other facilities it's helpful all right this is a little bit of a harder question it's more General okay and I understand we're not in House Hunters but let's just pretend that like you were you worked off of this off the existing plan right so did you find yourself a little restricted by that like if you and the team were to look back at this and just say you know what they only want to do it for x amount this is how we would design
122it based off of that now it says now we if we went back to the drawing board this is probably what we would do again and here's our plan so the site makes this an interesting plan because I'm not sure if you've had a chance to walk it yet and if not we should we'll get one scheduled for you um the site kind of has driven the shape of the building so you know we have an access point that brings us down to where the the parking lot's shown we've got some grade change that actually works out really well for that kind of multi-story piece in the back so it kind of drove us in the in the direction of the shape one of the things that when Sarah and I looked at this we
123just you know Trace is cheap we've got all kinds of this stuff on the floor and we just started kind of Wheeling it off and that's where we led to some of the things like you know rotating a classroom by going back in rearranging Allied Art Space kind of looking at that Center Corridor as a little bit more of a holistic you know piece um through that pizza I think we're pretty much there you know I think we can make some other small changes we'll keep kind of refining things as we move through design there might be a chance to you know wiggle out a few hundred more square feet but in the end so much of this is just just the math you have so many classrooms that's this specific size that we wouldn't
124recommend going any smaller on and that's really the only way that we're going to continue to trim square footage so I think we're kind of hitting that that balance we did change some things just circulation wise we moved some stairs around some other things that we're kind of like wow why didn't we think of this you know a year ago and it saved us a little bit of square footage and we're excited about that but you know we'll keep working on it so you say this is the floor but it's a quality floor but this would probably be the floor yeah unless you started making programmatic changes and the way that this building is going to function I don't see us getting much more than you know a couple you know we might be able
125to eke out a couple hundred thousand but we're really talking about Minor refinements at this point okay can you give an example of what a programmatic change would be something you know eliminating a flex classroom eliminating an Allied Arts room taking out the amphitheater eliminating that Flex we have a little bit of additional square footage in the cafeteria to make sure that we have space if those Flex rooms are built you know if you had to trim four or five or six hundred square feet out kind of those are the low-hanging fruit it's not stuff we would recommend it's going to really limit your long-term flexibility in the space where something like an Amphitheater is you know 1800 square feet but it's going to have a negative impact on the building program so those are
126things that I think the district would need to take a hard look at how this building is intended to function you know having that you know a performance space for young children in the building is really important you know you're not trucking them over to a large performance center for a for a book play something along those lines so those are the things that you know if you had to those are the kind of the areas that you'd probably start looking but they're going to have an impact on the on the function of this building channeling Tim there and recalling the meeting at North Yarmouth that you attended and I think our colleague was sitting right in front of you attended as well a person raised their hand and said and I did the number
127this is 1.9 million dollars per classroom I can't get my mind around how one class would cost 1.9 million dollars it doesn't I'm just I'm not asking you to answer it but I'm just saying I think our voters will will think in those terms and so Tim's question well we have some Flex classrooms there's three Flex classrooms there is that six million dollars if we eliminated them I know it's not but I just trying to get you in the mindset of what the audience might be trying to just relate to their own personal experience yeah this this one 375 thousand dollars so so the challenge I think no the challenge is when you start to factor in that the building is a lot more than a specific dedicated classroom you've got administrative spaces a mechanical
128and you've got a gymnasium in a cafeteria and all these other things that make a building and make those programs work so if you you know if you kind of just back it out and just look at what what one classroom is by dividing the entirety you've kind of not really taken an honest look at what's in this building yeah I know that I was just trying to oh yeah sorry what but people who aren't familiar or or just looking coming to the meeting for the first time would be thinking I'll go back and be quiet over here you might as well say that it's like an 80 million dollar gym you can't decide what do you want to divide it up into football stadiums is sort of beyond my comprehension uh yeah for example
129but it works for some people I wanted to make a point yeah okay so um first of all I really appreciate all the work you've done and I was truly fearful of how much you wouldn't be able to find so eight and a half million potentially is way more than I expected so thank you thank you um but I also want to reiterate a point that you made that the building because it's for elementary level it is relatively well definitely less expensive than it would be for middle schoolers or high school and I make that point because so many people have commented that this much money for an elementary for little kids but this is what it costs and we are reducing it um and I guess I understand correctly it would be more if
130it were for the bigger kids correct it would yeah okay who's ready okay thank you so I have a couple questions too thank you Tyler um good to see you although I wish that uh you didn't have to keep coming back to do this but um okay so first of all and you've addressed it but if you could speak to it in terms of what we're cutting in terms of Energy Efficiency versus what savings we might have seen if we had kept those in do you feel like you have struck the right balance there or I think we have um we're anticipating that the state is going to formally adopt the 2021 or something more stringent on the energy code it's going to push us to do a lot more of these things we had
131really made an honest effort to really push the envelope on the Energy Efficiency you know we talk a lot about you know we've talked about oil we've talked about gas prices all of those things have a direct relationship whether you're you're heating with those if you're using electricity if you're generating those on site all of those things are going to be expensive so we have to take a look at what the cost benefit is you know you're probably going to pay off wall insulation and roof insulation and maybe 10 to 15 years after that you just start seeing the savings so it's finding the balance you know what I trade those insulation systems to make sure we get get students into a safe appropriately built School absolutely but those are things that I think that
132we could take a look at some bid alternates and maybe buy those back if things come in well if the escalation isn't as far and then if it if it doesn't work out that we've made a conscious decision we've worked on a really great building system that's still energy efficient is going to give you some of that long-term flexibility so I think we've hit that spot we're gonna we're gonna still have a very efficient building you know the numbers that we've been talking about are fantastic so you know we'll push the envelope our Engineers love this kind of stuff they love eeking out every BTU here so we'll we'll be able to get you something that I think you'll be happy with in the long run but we could do a little bit more on
133on the Energy savings if that's where the priorities are okay yeah it's I know it's a it's a balancing act of how much to pay up front versus how much to save so thank you for that um can you speak or just kind of remind everyone as far as the permits and the fees for the land use sweatlands things like that can you remind us what that number is going to be and if there's any flexibility there yeah I'm just going to double check that number so so the major thing there's a number of permit fees that we're going to have in this project regardless so we're going to have a lot of applications through the Department of Environmental Protection dep uh dot rather Transportation those things are going to be the same whether we're
134doing Wetland impacts or not so those kind of are the same the big one is the Wetland impact fee and this is a direct relationship to the impact by square footage that number is right now sitting between 380 and 390 000 so it's it's a it's a big number we have been working on ways to kind of you know reduce that impact we haven't found a lot more than you know a few hundred square feet here and there but that's something that's definitely on our mind is to ways to minimize that impact I reached out to our natural resource protection person that actually helps us with that permit she said that she has not seen a district actually get a waiver yet but there is a section on the application for alternative applications there may
135be some Partnerships with other entities in town are other things that we can investigate she said she hasn't seen it yet but I think she's she says eager as us to give things that kind of the old College try okay so the other fees were pretty standard is would you say the wetlands fee is the only one that yeah the Wetland impact is really the big one there are a few other tests you know some soil testing and other things that we've had to do that are are some smaller costs but really that's the that's the big irregular piece on this budgeting versus a standard or other school projects that we've worked on so you said a little under 400 just under 400. thank you um as far as and and I don't know if
136you can answer this but I'm curious given that you are an architect and therefore no more than me um where the Portables are right now yeah you've been on the campus you've seen that um you look at the Portables and you think oh there's a Wing that that that's a wing of the building and if we just made it two-story we're done um we you know we've got some common space we've got those classrooms as an architect can you explain why or whether that that is an option so yeah I'm gonna do my best so there will be a few qualifying pieces in here we can build a wing pretty much where those portals are if you remember back I'm not sure if anyone remembers the um the campus option that we had put together
137we had a wing going in there to make up for some of the spaces that were going to be lost in that project the big challenge is that you're if you're going to continue to increase the enrollment of that school is that you're going to hit the max of gymnasium's cafeterias libraries the need for additional program spaces for art music all those Allied art spaces and that's where it really starts to becoming a lot more compressed on the campus you know if we had to add a supplemental gym or a multi-purpose room all of a sudden you're talking you know three four thousand square foot box in the middle so I think I think the challenge is going to be yeah you could probably build the classrooms but you could never get all of those
138supporting things that you need for that increase of total population in the building and then you're going to be still back with the challenge of what to do at the middle school in a few years as we've kind of shifted that problem out of Mabel I you know they're going to hit their Max and then they're going to hit me um the middle school so I think it's it's really finding that balance you know I think you're going to lose Fields move parking move roads in order to make something like that work and then you're going to be back to having the disagreement between the town and the dot on what the offside improvements are going to be and whether those could be mitigated through through other avenues so there's a lot more kind of
139moving pieces there so I'm going to say that maybe I don't know well it you know to the average person you drive by you see the Portables and you just think oh there could be a building there and um again for those of us who are not trained in that it's very easy to think that but I'm I'm just trying to put out there some or have you put out there some of the costs that the average person wouldn't want to be thinking about and they're great questions when we when we looked at the previous campus option you know we had the ability to utilize that two and a half acres kind of heading up the hill and then utilize a lot of shared space it gave us some opportunities that you don't necessarily have
140now you know with a lack of contiguous additional space on the campus so without I think without displacing Fields I think you'd have a hard time addressing all of those those individual needs on campus unless you acquired more property thank you and then the last thing and this isn't necessarily a question for Tyler but I would like to revisit the idea of the performance space um at the proposed building and I totally understand like thinking about a kindergartner who's gonna practice do they still do the Three Piggy Opera for kindergartners I don't anyway um so you know thinking about like what that does to the day of having to go over to the GCA to practice but if that is a savings to not have a stage or to rethink that space I think that
141that does um allow more use of the GCA uh and I think the kids would would be excited to be in the GCA where the big kids are so I would encourage us to to rethink that I just wanted to piggyback on that because that's one thing that I was thinking of through this conversation as well um you know I mean right now we've removed the stage at miw in part though because of capacity and we need that additional space for lunches um but you know my children personally have not been involved in any sort of activities that would involve a stage at this point um and my son's now and fourth and and my daughter's in second um you know and I also wonder if though I can see some downsides of using the
142GCA for kids that age because it is a very big space but could we use the North Yarmouth Community Center it's closer it's you know a very nice space I don't know just something to think about um and then aside from that I did also just want to thank you Tyler for bringing this information to us I didn't have any other thoughts now that I'm at the end of the line that my colleagues have not mentioned um but I look forward to continuing this this discussion to see um any additional changes or what comes next can I follow up on one of Kim's points is that possible yes please and I was just with the picture I was just hoping Tyler could show us what is being talked about oh yeah thank you so it's
143it's the kind of like lime green color okay and do you know the square footage somewhere between 1800 and 2000 when you get into the um the storage space associated with it okay and so the cost would be then sorry come on Tyler maybe maybe eight hundred thousand dollars okay so um the other the other component to that we've got the the wall that separates the um cafeteria in that space it's designed to be an operable partition so that you kind of open that up to a larger space give you some overflow indoor recess is one of the big challenges I think that you're going to face in this building with the number of kids and trying to find kind of that trike track sometimes you know call it that see if you can kind
144of loop them a hallway through the calf and give them some activities on a rainy day that's some some of the reasons why it's located where it is because you would need to do indoor recess while lunch is going on I'm assuming well yes yes um so sorry Tim okay I just want to follow up on Kim's because I I this for the last couple years whether on the board or not I've been trying to figure out like right now we've had like one option ahead of me and that's really difficult because I think a lot of people push back and like this is the only option but it was interesting to talk about the on the school option because you can start seeing the cost benefit of it so you just kind of explained
145that you'd have to move Fields like it's possible you could do it right we could build a wing you could probably figure out a way to expand the gym and you could move the fields and reconfigure some stuff if we did all that and I know you couldn't give us any kind of ballpark but would the whole cost total cost do you think get into the ballpark what we're talking about right now or would you be like that's a pretty big cost savings so that's something for you guys to consider when going going forward with all this can I raise one one point would now be permanent space which would trigger the change in the dot right like but no but the Town of Cumberland has said we will not do that they have categorically
146I don't think that's correct yeah I wouldn't say like there's a lot of unknowns I think with an on-campus option I've we've pressed Tyler just recently again on what this would look like what this could look like um what are the opportunities what are the the issues um and so so yeah go ahead I can't give you a number on the cost I can I can tell you my gut tells you that you're going to exceed what we're talking about here just from the dollar sense one of the concerns that I have about the on-campus option if you're not acquiring additional land is really going to be how this campus starts to change right now you've pushed all of your parking your buildings are kind of on the perimeter and you've kind of built your
147green spaces and your fields and your play areas kind of toward that middle if we drop a building onto one of those and then surrounded by parking in a couple little playgrounds I think it's going to really change the entire feel and the function of this campus whether you can recreate those off-campus you know Twin Brooks somewhere else I think that there's going to be a real negative impact on the student experience on campus I think you have the square footage to do it we did something very similar over in Falmouth you know on the last day of school they had their their soccer championship and then the next day we dug the field up and built in elementary school it can be done they had more land but I just think that I think
148the trade-offs on your experience your education and the cost is going to get there you know recreating a track and a Stadium Field and all the associated pieces with it are very expensive you know we looked at just replacing for the track I think it was in the three-ish million dollar range and if we start to expand uh sorry uh turf field you start to expand all those other facilities and infrastructure you're looking at Big dollars and I think that you're going to kind of quickly exceed that piece and then trigger a lot of other storm water traffic and other permitting things that are going to drive things on this campus to be more expensive it's something we could certainly take a look at though if yeah no I think it's just important for people
149to know where the journey has come from right and like that a lot of these things have been considered the pros and cons and stuff and like I'm coming into this kind of late right but I I do think it's important for people to to know that like this is an expensive option like right people see this as an expensive option so they're like well we can't afford it or we can do something else and can we do something else right because it keeps getting more expensive and so I'm always open to the fact that I don't want us just to be stuck on one thing and unless it continues to make sense and right now it seems like it's continuing to make sense but I would encourage people to take a look back and
150uh forgive me on the dates but somewhere in the 19 to 20 range if you look at your website we have kind of historical uh PowerPoints from the building committee meetings that we did then we had options where we looked at you know a Pre-K okay early childhood education center on campus we had one where we looked at additions to Mabel I additions to the middle school and they really didn't get traction for a lot of the things that we've talked about tonight but I think that all of those things are posted on your website now if you're interested and if you can't find the specific dates you know have Jeff reach out to me and I'll track them down for you thank you you were kind enough to send me your your 2021 presentation
151at North Yarmouth through a joint standing and I believe the number you had working at that time two years ago was 63 million dollars for an on the campus project yeah yeah 2020 2021 right yeah that is correct that is correct yeah take the escalation since then we're not talking about saving major money by trying to cram it on I think is that does that make sense to you oh it definitely does and the other piece is that you don't have access to the land that we were utilizing to make that work now and so and Tyler does know that we have the two additional Acres but there was a dish was there more than those two additional Acres that was built into that plan it was a different two and a half it was
152a different two and a half acres they involved moving the superintendent's office the Suites of school which would have allowed that building to happen and this would not the land that we just purchased would not be the right configuration okay and I think yes the DOT was a consideration the other consideration was a concern that the buildings as presented for that cost would be full when they opened that was that was that was honestly I think one of the biggest concerns is that they would be full based on Productions when it opened and not only full but exceeding what our district has established as a a reasonable number for students in a building correct you brought this up a couple meetings ago Jeff that because it was only moving it wasn't it was only moving
153to the first grade would be the new building well not even a new building if we add the wing then how many students would be at Mabel Wilson um it was the middle school that was the most problematic because it would it would have to stay a five eight building in order for this to work and I believe it was a 2-4 building at the Wilson school and it was a K-1 building that was being built right but what I'm saying if if we just add to Mabel Wilson and we add to the middle school not building a brand new building but adding These Wings that that looked like they could be added yeah we're we're a thousand over a thousand yeah I would add we just moved a historic building on the USM campus
154very similar to your Suites or school and the numbers that came back cost wise were blew my blue blew my socks on it was unbelievably expensive to move that facility so I think we'd have to take a hard look at that how viable that really would be and the because we just talked with Tyler about this last week one of the other things that I thought was interesting because Falmouth is brought up a lot in comparison um when they were building the elementary school they had their students off sites in other schools while that construction was going on so that's the other consideration while we would be constructing this school on campus we'd have the same number of kids throughout the term um still accessing all the schools on this campus versus Falmouth who had
155was it two other schools or at least one they were off campus and we structured a number of things in order to make that work where we front loaded a new woodship boiler we front loaded a a new stadium field so if you've been down to their field those are all front loaded we built additional Fields across the street all before we started that middle school or Elementary School construction we can do all these things you know they have a cost implication there's phasing other pieces that will add additional expense to a project make it a little bit more complex but again it really comes down to square footage you know you're looking at the same square footage in these buildings that numbers fix and we kind of move around the site development costs I
156just want to make sure we give everyone an opportunity um Tommy Sophia yeah one question that I had that um is is relating to the cost cut measures when when looking at like for example insulation obviously that's going to be that's going to be felt in operating costs being higher but say when you're taking about three million dollars out of the budget by eliminating geotherm thermal does that increase the sticker cost of having different heating or is that just kind of felt in the residual cost each year uh that money it's a great question so the money that we're showing is a reduction is the difference between the new system that we would be putting in there we'd still have to work out some of the details and then go into the full geothermal a
157lot of that expense is site related so we have a lot of piping that goes out and then there's 90 Wells it's essentially what makes up geothermal systems so they're 500 feet deep they're interconnected with a lot of piping and all goes back to the building so that three million-ish dollars is primarily in Wells and piping the differential is is still in that construction amount so that's a true savings okay wood not having that cause other heating measures to increase um I don't I don't think so I mean we're still You're Building load will always be the same so if we can increase the amount of insulation it drives down the load and that's where you're going to see your utility savings but the load is going to be the same whether whatever system we
158had so if you had an oil boiler it's the same amount of load is that was that your question yeah okay yeah thank you thank you I just had a general question which I'm sure has been answered but it's more for Mr Porter like we're talking about how the middle school elementary schools have all been like reaching their limits but what happens when we get to the high school like are we do we have the room right now that's a great question the high school historically um we we do have more capacity at the high school the district has had larger enrollment numbers I think when we're looking at this at last meeting was in in about 20 years ago our numbers were about 200 200 higher than they are now um and then um
159because we had additional buildings in our district and so we did have higher student populations in the past um so what's the exact did you do you know those numbers right well the high school was was probably I think it reached 750 at one point and right now we're at 6 25 today and we're one of the lowest years in the predicted enrollment so the the building can handle more we just have more programs than there were 20 years ago there's far more programs we have you know Pathways we have special education programs have been added so the the Broom the rooms in this building are definitely more than you know we'd have to really analyze that but in terms of um just the general to generally answer your question um and I've talked to
160the high school administration about this when a high school has a little bit more flexibility because a teacher's room has not used the entire day and we don't schedule classes into every single room where a teacher is has a prep block so that room might be empty you know not all the time but many times a teacher's room is empty for that 80-minute block that they are have a prep or whatnot they don't have a class in there so we would have to rethink how we schedule so that we're scheduling classes in like a college would you know every block there will be a schedule and staff would have to work somewhere else in the building instead of working in their room so that's the general answer and so we we have looked at it
161and we believe that we still would be okay with 700 students or more than seven years I can bear personal witness my daughter graduated in the class of 2005 in that in those bump years and high school seemed to be fine it was not ever never an issue and there were some additional classrooms with the Jeep when the GCA was added to is that yes to to additional classrooms actually three because we use the conference room mostly as a theater classroom plus we use the GCA itself yeah good point thank you it's just one one more question going back in time to the idea of building on the existing campus and the number that you threw out was 63 million that was a few years ago so that so the number would be as potentially
162higher than what we're talking about now um and how would it take significantly longer to perform Construction on the campus Because the campus is full of kids and how do you do that yeah so the plan at the time so if you if you look at the site where the Suites or School the superintendent's offices and then head up Main Street there's about two and a half acres and what that allowed us to do is utilize that space to construct a new Pre-K to one school which would have pulled those grade levels out so the original plan was to build that school which would you know take about two years move over to start the additions at Mabel I Wilson another 12 to 18 months you know all of these kind of moving pieces so
163that was a phased project you know as you look at those they're they're more complex they take longer you know they kind of work out in the end when you look at them overall timing wise you're probably looking at a four-year project instead of three maybe four and a half years all of those things at risk because you're bidding a project out much later in a bond cycle so you're kind of escalating out you know the volatility is what we look at when we're looking at that escalation and and how comfortable you are looking at that long-term piece so I mean to answer your question it was a phase project it would take and a significant amount of additional time to build out that full capacity okay thank you I I know you sort of
164touched on it and I'm asking partly to clarify in my mind partly so that it's on the record and that we can go back and use this so I really I really appreciate you clarify ask away we've been working I think this is the third or fourth option that we've presented so we're happy to answer as many questions try to give you that historical background as you you know ease into these projects so ask away just have a couple other a little quick follow-ups and I also quickly did the math that if we were looking at about a 14 increase as we were for the 80 Gray Road numbers that it would be about 72 million uh for the on-campus option I think you all can check my math but so then the questions that
165I had going back to the Wetland impact permit you mentioned the possibility of a waiver and then something about Alternatives with local organizations I was wondering if you could say more about that and well this is this is the piece that I'm we're waiting for more clarification on from our natural resources so she said at the end of the big long you know four inch thick pile of paper there's an alternative section where you can propose an off-site mitigation other components she said we could we could include it in that section and petition them for it but the impression that I get is that she's not optimistic that they're going to do anything other than cash the check so we have we have to go through the process is really what I think she was
166saying and we would do our best to to minimize those and see if we can get some creative juices flowing with them okay yeah I just didn't know if there were any Partnerships that we should be yeah that's I think we'd have to get into the discussions with them on on what they'd be looking for for other impact reduction okay but it's something that we're definitely looking to explore other creative ways in in our community with either land trusts or towns or you know talking to our representatives to see if there's going to be some more opportunities in the future with some of these costs great um and then I appreciated some of the comments from other board members about the amphitheater excuse me um when I heard the potential other opportunities for a reduction
167that was one that stood out to me as one that I thought we should look at more carefully in terms of the indoor recess concern I wonder you know at least in years where we're not to capacity of needing to use flex rooms as classrooms perhaps that's a space that helps with it those could those spaces are really designed to be dynamic that they're going to serve a lot of functions they're not necessarily a program space so they could be available different times and you know it's about a thousand square feet per room depending Which floor you're on we give you some really good opportunities to break things out for you know puzzle times or crafts or other things that they're doing so those are absolutely options for those the only other thing I'd want
168to mention is um since we've reviewed a few things is we have looked at other sites and I believe we understand as a board this is the best site but that is something that has been done and been considered and reconsidered and um just about Outreach to find other sites and this is the site I just want to put that out there that that's why we're talking about this site yeah and there's this is the third design Tyler that you you've completed for us we had the one in North Yarmouth behind the community center that was the first one the second one was the one that was on site with the two and a half acres in the Suites or School displaced um and this is now the third design and we have looked at
169a lot of different properties in fact the a previous board had tried to put down uh an option agreement on a different piece of land and we didn't get it it was such a hot real estate market but this was probably three years ago um yeah three yeah three years ago so that fell through I can't remember what that was there's been all kinds of different iterations of this and and options that we've we've explored we also talked if we were to go and say okay we want like a new design for on campus despite all the things that we brought up it would be you said 14 months to get us back to where we're sitting here today with a cost proposal yeah that you know a rough estimate we're getting pretty good at
170designing concepts for you so we might be able to trim that up but there's a lot of things outside of our control with you know make sure we're working with the town and Dot and all those other entities so some of those just take time so I think a 12 month is a reasonable approach so uh Tyler again thank you for you know going back and try to look at it with some fresh eyes um I just want to also say that I've had a front seat to how Leanne has been going about this um and I have been really impressed by the way our board chair has been asking some tough questions and pushing on some things that I I don't know had been asked before they might have been but it's been great
171to watch you really listen to the community look at look at every line item and say you know how can we be creative about this um so just in case there's any any question Leanne has been working really hard to to get that 8 million um not harder than Tyler but working really hard they did almost hang up on me the other day when I suggested a number I'd like to see so yeah um I think we were like I'm not sure hey you gotta ask right so other questions I know the one question for me is it did seem like there was some interest to see another a reduction on the um so what are we calling that green space we've called it a multi-purpose Amphitheater a multi-purpose Amphitheater um so we didn't have
172like any official Vote or anything scheduled on this today but it sounds like the board would like to consider adding um a potential cost reduction by removing that space is that what what I'm hearing is that something that the board would like to see on that list for cost reductions I think I also though would want to be sure that we're hearing from um administrators at the at miw in terms of because is part of it that we're just physically unable to use anything like that at the moment because of capacity issues um I don't I don't want to remove something that would result in other unintended programming consequences but it is something that I would like to explore I'd agree I'd want to have input from the teachers as well actually I'm going to
173their staff meeting tomorrow but I also know that Tyler that you're coming to meet with the Mabel Wilson Staff in a month depending on where this is going we were going to update the staff at the school um so we can certainly um you know talk about that but I think at this point if the board is looking to make a reduction that's something that you have to decide and I think it could be that you're just we you don't have to take a vote you can just direct That Old Point explore that see what the actual reduction would be what would it look like um and then see if that's how feasible it is and we can take a look at two different things we could take a look you know the halfway a
174thousand square foot standard stage versus the the full open concept Amphitheater so we can give you a couple different numbers okay and Tyler can I ask you two about the cafeteria can you remind the board how many students can fit in that cafeteria um for a given meal so what we've done is we've sized it for one third of the capacity of the school so you take the Pre-K out because I think they're likely going to eat either in their rooms or elsewhere so you take a third of the capacity and that's what we we've tried to make it so three lunches we've built in the square footage for those Flex rooms so that if your population does increase that you're not going to be going to be pinched in there so that that's really
175what is driving that square footage it's just a formula okay thank you so obviously we're we've had a lot of conversations about the overall cost but I think the question that a lot of people including myself as a taxpayer in this District um is so what what does this mean for me um and I know to be able to start to answer that question to get us in a place where we feel like we can start um communicating some of that information from the cost side we I think we need to I guess how concrete of a number do we need to to settle on for Scott to be able to start and work through your process with you know what we have to do as a district what we have to do with our
176towns what is what does that look like and and where does that lead us because I I really am looking forward to the Joint meeting at the end of October to be able to talk through this in a little more concrete terms from the cost perspective I think at this point what I'm going to use is the number that was in this budget this the 74. and run off that 74.5 up and run off that number to create Bond and Debt Service schedules and and what that might look like just so we're prepared for that car so does does that does that make sense to the the board because we need a number to work off of to be able to start creating those schedules to understand you know the tax impact um yeah we
177have to create cash flow schedules look at our our bond anticipation notes and then what that looks like in comparison to what we actually take on the full debt and what would we like to be in the position to present um from a cost perspective at that October meeting so what do what do you what does that look like I would anticipate being able to provide a debt schedule a plan of financing and also what the impact will be to the mill rate and I'd be talking to both the managers about that great okay I would ask if it's easier to go down so if like your estimate now is it easier for you if we if we were to say the higher estimate and then we're going to look at each of these recommendations
178to cut is it easier for us to be like no it's not going to be that it's going to be subtraction or is it later easier for us to add up like for example I'm concerned about you being the project manager or whatever that line item is right like that might be one I'm like I don't know we need someone with a full-time I mean you could certainly look at that I mean we've done it on all the other projects here but it's easier to build up or go down or it doesn't matter it's not going to matter either way so the I mean the numbers are out there right now I mean we just presented them okay so so let's take the lower number and work off that for now okay will we have
179the operating costs projected for the October 25th meeting so I can answer some of that the operating cost we did uh use we do have an operating budget from before right um so we did start looking at that operating budget again to see what tweaks and changes we would make in Tyler actually um prompted us a little bit more on doing that when we met with him last week and I haven't given you those updated numbers yet but we've we've got to work on that and yeah the energy costs and any potential impacts from the changes what's the extent of the operating costs that people are looking for I guess that would be my question is that is that labor is that busing Staffing um Just Energy costs what is that that people are looking
180for because there's only so much that we can provide in terms of what the knowns are right now yeah what was it that we had included in the previous calculations yeah we did have we did have what we were comfortable providing at the time and I think um all the kind of what we estimated to be the knowns um obviously you know Staffing we're moving most of our staff over to a new building so we looked at all those pieces and we just need to do it again yeah I don't think there's going to be huge change in Staffing or labor or the operations budget but I think with the geothermal that might add something that Tyler's going to help but have to help us with on an annual basis but I think we'll just
181take we'll start with the budget we had before the operating budget that we used for the November 22 referendum and then work from there did it include busing our previous calculations I don't remember Tyler do you remember would you say bussing it did okay I think it had the purchase of X number of buses and drivers I believe okay it was an assumption that we did I think I think the challenge with that one is that it didn't reflect any state subsidies in the last one so it was kind of the worst case and I think we came out a little it was the worst case and it was a maybe a month leading up or within the last month or so before the referendum so I feel like we're going to be in a
182much better position now to have those estimates um months and months in advance I would just make an observation for my business career on this um I think you were being very honest about the 2 million but it's five years from now and furthermore you have a big budget 47 million dollars and can two is it really two million of incremental costs or could you find a way to sort of move a little bit here a little bit there I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to say that uh you know you shouldn't be factual about it but it was quite a large number I mean if it's 2 million that's on top of The Debt Service of six so the the mill rate impact is large uh there and uh with a businessman with
183a 47 million dollar budget think about what would really be incremental uh you know that that you couldn't kind of work around and figure out sorry it could be a flash point and it's a difficult thing to put a a number on five years from now yeah so um yeah I was just going to say as I recall the operating budget also included the savings of um not leasing the Portables which was about right but it's going to be much higher well anyway I'm just I'm just saying um that that it's a long way in the future and and and difficult to predict oh absolutely I'm just um kind of checking in about what the the costs are of the Portables that um that would then come off and it would be interesting to see
184how that affects I'm definitely going to have that information um and I agree with Danny I think we did as I remember back what 18 months now when we were maybe a year 14 months now we created what we were trying to be as accurate as possible but probably we're going in a little bit too much information in terms of we over guessed like Okay We're Not Gonna we don't want to undersell this we've gotta make sure we have at least the information that would be devious but it just to re it's it's it's a pretty ephemeral kind of forecaster it's very difficult if I was in a Debt Service which is going to be on online you know next month right yeah right yeah we struggled with it trying to figure something out but
185it was our best guess at the time okay okay any any last words for us Tyler I would just say you know keep the questions coming from through Jeffrey Scott and we'll do our best to get the information for you I so appreciate um it's it's been great to work more directly with you over the past few months as we've been continuing to prepare for um what what's ahead with this revised project and so we've invited Tyler to come back for the joint board meeting um and then back again for a meeting with miw is that yeah is that what you said yep Tyler's making a lot of appearances in the last in the next month and we wish you lived here but he doesn't you're not far away you're in Maine but Leanne yeah
186just one other thing as it comes to mind and that is um how to think about what you with your hard work and Jeff have accomplished you've accomplished an over 10 class reduction right and not get anchored on the fact that oh but I'm sorry that it's the same that it was two years ago you should say be thinking we had a two-year-old two-year-old project or a project two years ago it would cost today this it was too much we knocked 10 off we all knocked 12 percent off and that's that's a huge accomplishment and and and I think that for those who might think that you're just uh uh you know not not being Tough Enough that's the wrong conclusion to draw I I appreciate that but also know that I'm not settling exactly
187where we are today either I think we're going to continue to work through all the Angles and opportunities that may exist now or in the future that we we don't know about yet um to pay for things that we may have to bond to save this community money um and so I'm very committed to that personally um not only in this this role which I don't intend to be chair when the school opens so but regardless of my role as a member of this community finding ways and opportunities to to save our community funds which includes talking with our representatives to see what programs could exist in the future because right now with school construction um it's it's all or nothing you there's a list it's a very long process to get on the list
188they only choose a very small percentage of schools that even make the list and then every other school who has needs um doesn't get any Capital funding um so these are conversations that we're going to continue to have right and and I think within the community too I think there are opportunities that we need to keep pressing on and so I think that's we have some you know opportunities that we're looking at right now and strategically planning with both Cumberland and North Yarmouth is at the the Forefront and we're really excited to have the meeting at the end of the month right this can't just be an sad um answer solution or whatnot this has to be a complete Community effort we appreciate both towns helping us at this point in time get there yeah
189it's it's been a great collaboration so far so that's it I think that I think I think that's it thank you so much um so we're going to move to the superintendent's report but as we do I think I I kind of gave a high level overview um please keep sending questions um we are going to this information is now public right it's been posted this is being recorded um and this is all going to prepare us for the for the joint meeting um to start you know going through more of these details what what our opportunities for reductions that people want to continue with which ones should we consider not continuing with um and so we're going to look to continue that conversation with both Towns at the end of the month and then
190help work together to decide a referendum date but it's a vote of the school board that decides the date add to that just that the importance of reaching out to us to ask questions it is a lot of information and we could have the greatest website FAQ section you know all of that but the average person to to try to find a quick answer to a question I think I can speak for every other fellow member of the board that if you reach out and ask us simply email us and say I you know can you explain this we're happy to answer that and unfortunately our um we've experienced some times where our local newspaper the forecaster has gotten some things wrong we've alerted them they've gone back and corrected it but by then it's
191already out there so we genuinely want to be a primary source of information to the community so please do not be shy um if anybody if you disagree with that we can take your email off of the list but uh yeah please please reach out to us because we would love to show you where that information is and answer for you agreed report for October 2nd at Greely high school we had our consultant Lawrence Alexander came back talked with all of our students last week about the power and impact of words and there was um probably Tommy and Sophia will mention it later so I won't go into a lot of detail but there's a lot of prep work that went into that assembly and I think it was well received but I'll let them
192talk about that later at Greeley Middle School we the fifth grade students acted out phases of the moon this was a project that's that's gone on with a lot of our classes at fourth and fifth so this was kind of the latest iteration there you can see and uh I don't know what solar system Mysteries there are out there but I think some of our students have solved many of them in fact we've had two students who are alumni who have gone on to do amazing things in the world of astronomy as we as we know we've had recently one stopped an asteroid well it was an asteroid that was never going to hit Earth but it was a test that might have had that and now I'm forgetting the other one but um science
193is a huge area for us and so this is where it begins right here actually begins at Wilson School as mentioned the the work continues on the new playground and and uh sounds like in a week's time according to Mr Poulin uh we will the playground will be just about complete um and for your calendar we have a student flu Clinic we're offering that again on Thursday October 26th I know this has been very well received in popular and having our students receive their seasonal flu um shots and so we're able to do that again we're partnering with Northern Light um on that on that endeavor thank you to the nurses for arranging this um and I just wanted to call attention I know a lot of people um do read the newsletter or see
194the newsletter but just putting out a second plug here um I'm in this this is actually the third week now uh where I'll be addressing different strategic priorities and just getting into a little bit more detail so if you don't see the newsletter you don't get it we have a you know a place where you can subscribe last week talking about really the meat and potato of the Strategic plan which is what happens in the classroom each and every day the academic pieces and where our focus is and then where each school and Department in our district puts their emphasis on academics this year so just kind of putting a plug out there we also have a new YouTube channel we took two channels and put them together and made it into one amazing YouTube
195channel for msad 51 and I hope you check it out we don't just have board meetings anymore I know everyone that's the first place they want to go is a board meeting however we have so many other categories and I couldn't put it on this because I it was a screenshot but there's Athletics you want to see a streamed athletic event check it out you want to see Arts programs or presentations from students that we've got up there check it out we've got it up there so please visit our YouTube channel it is far more robust and then the Rangers Rock Encore Edition just a little bit more on the Hashi exchange we had a lot of students participate in that we did have a lot of students at uh families that ended up coming
196to the Hashi Exchange program a couple weeks ago and there's just some more photos of our exchange this is our primary exchange with Amore in Japan now we used to do some things at the middle school this is really kind of morphed after or during the pandemic into this cultural exchange of artwork where we are um you know it's it's a great connection with the students in Amore and our students here in our district and it was just photos of students and families celebrating that cultural exchange I think it's very exciting to be able to um to do this every year so again thank you to um Linda McCann Olson and um you know all those folks that helped make this a huge success that's the report great thank you can I just add I
197think it was also really wonderful to see the Hashi exchange on display at the Cumberland County Fair in the exhibition Hall yes yes thank you Anne great okay all right well I'm really excited to move into committee reports because I know there's been a lot going on um in committees um so we're going to lead out with student reports start um first off the girls field hockey team had really big win against Lake Region on Friday that was very exciting I know there were a lot of people who are excited about that um also in general I think this year the junior class especially there's been so much excitement and like build up for a lot of sports events people there's like a lot of positive energy so many people are showing up to the
198sports games and it's like really it's it's been really fun to see um other thing Mr Porter talked about was we had the talk with Lawrence Alexander that was really valuable I think and it's also it's really nice to be able to have a full school assembly where it's like a time where the whole school can come together and that really doesn't happen a lot um also he's super charismatic so he gets like everyone to laugh and it's really nice because you can look around and everyone's smiling and they're all at the same time talking and thinking about like things that are pretty meaningful um I think some of my main takeaways from that were like the words you say matter which is obviously true but you know it just kind of reinforces that um
199the other thing is that like the choices you make every day is what defines you and it's like if you mess up one day it's okay it's just that like the repetitive choices that you make is kind of what makes up who you are so yeah I I definitely agree with all that Sophia said it was a it was very enlightening and interesting to hear um one one thing that I talked to that we talked about in our English class was how he really drove home the point and I can still remember him saying you are what you habitually do that was one thing that stuck with me but in terms of the past week and the upcoming weeks it is a very busy time at the high school last week we had the post-secondary
200fare which over I think around 50 colleges came to the high school and also other post-secondary options which um members students at the high school went and talked with admissions officers military recruiters all different um kind of Pathways for post-secondary life and also the senior Sunrise was last Friday which was super which was a super good senior bonding event I had a lot of fun and I know a lot of my peers had a lot of fun as well um which was super nice and put on by some senior parents and Miss Dexter which was a great celebrate celebratory opportunity to just kind of Mark the beginning of senior year and next week is the very very busy week with homecoming week um where the homecoming dance will be on Saturday with many theme days
201with different theme ideas like pink out um America day or patriotic day Greely gear we've got a lot of ideas a lot of ways to celebrate and in the midst of homecoming week we also have a day where all the different grades will be doing different activities the Juniors will be taking the PSAT the freshmen will be doing Camp Kiev like uh bonding and community building events the sophomores will be going on college tours to Bowdoin Colby Bates and I believe USM and they have a choice to which one they would like to go to and at the end of this whole week on Friday the French exchange students are coming from France so it's a very very big and busy week um and for the seniors we have the The English Department is providing
202all of the English teachers are giving out their time on that Wednesday to read all of the college essays that people can bring in and just kind of workshop and do everything around that which is really nice and I'm very excited to to utilize that and yeah it's a very very busy time and I'm very excited for the homecoming week thanks Tommy and I'm glad we have we have a little gap between our this and our next board meeting it sounds like you needed some yeah exactly given that I wasn't going to be doing another one of these for about three weeks I was like gotta gotta pack it in thank you great Community engagement committee we had our first meeting last week and it was I think incredibly productive lots of big brains sitting
203at the tables and Nina and Madge are two community volunteers who seem extremely professional and extremely Adept at what they do and I think we'll add a lot um there are still a lot of ideas floating around so I won't give a ton of concrete detail just because I think there are still some things Yet to Come which are very exciting but first meeting down we meet again next week and we'll probably be coming back after that meeting with a little bit more detail about sort of where we're going and how we expect to get there because there are a couple interesting ideas one of Tommy's in in fact so I'll wait to reveal more can't wait great sorry I had one thing that I forgot to add to my student report um the the
204fall slash winter play has begun and the cast list has been set uh the the drama group is doing Alice in Wonderland and that will occur at some time in December I don't know the exact date but I think first weekend yeah it's already been set so mark your calendars it's going to be a great production maybe we can have them come do a little preview at one of the the school board meetings before yeah that'd be great thanks all right Finance uh I have no updates for finance or curriculum but Tommy you could have my time if you want great policy um we met to discuss the graduation policy and are pretty well through um any proposed draft edits um on that which is always a good start one thing I did want to
205share um I think maybe a couple years ago the last time I was policy chair at a board meeting I had shared sort of the process for policy review and I did share that with all of our um incoming board members this year too but just to be able to share it with the public so policies are reviewed for updates when there are statutory changes current policy is not in alignment with what is needed by the district and has been asked to be reviewed by either Administration mea or students or if current policy is in need of routine review to ensure that it remains accurate and effective the policy committee invites relevant stakeholders to draft language for proposed changes and participate in discussion at committee meetings once a proposed draft has been approved by voting
206members of the committee it is sent to Drummond woodsome for review to ensure that proposed language meets all legal requirements if it is approved by our council at Drummond the policy will be sent to the full Board of Directors for a first read during a regular business meeting if the board does not raise additional questions or concerns it will be added as a second read and voted on to be adopted or rejected at the following regular business meeting if the board raises any issues it will be sent back to policy for additional work which would then also be be reviewed by Drummond woodsome before returning to the board for a new first read the same is true if the policy made it to a second read and was not voted to be adopted by the
207board it is possible to present a policy for first and second read at the same meeting however this practice has generally not been used by the policy committee um the policy committee is also responsible for deleting any policies which are no longer needed or are addressed in other District policies to delete a policy it also goes through a first and second read in general again deletion can also be presented for a first and second read simultaneously although as a practice we've discussed following a consistent procedure to allow board for adequate board members for adequate time to consider any potential concerns deleting a policy routinely the district also Compares policies with our surrounding districts to ensure that we are in general alignment with others in our area and new policies to be adopted are generally built
208on draft language that has been already written by Drummond Woodson or the msba which then follows the procedure outlined preview as I just outlined and lastly policy language is generally written in the broadest manner to allow flexibility needed to best serve students and staff some policies will have a corresponding R document outlining procedures but as a matter of practice the district has reduced the number of our policies um and as a result we're also able to implement administrative procedures for policies to be used internally which are not required to be approved by the board great thank you and that was also the document where you talked about adding to maybe the board a board packet in the future or a board manual yeah we had talked about having a board handbook or something a guide
209and I did take Ann's language and I've dropped that in and hopefully in the next three weeks four weeks I can we can share that out with the board a draft of the handbook and it does have I think this is really important information to have all of this we've got to have in one place because we kind of assume that people know stuff and so when I saw and stuff on uh or um blurb on the policies I thought that was really important place to begin and just start developing a guide that we can have for the board so thank you yeah I also wondered if it maybe could be added to the website too under the board um because for public reference too right yeah oh and our next meeting is Tuesday October
21024th great thank you Christina facilities our first meeting is Friday and we are set to review the long-term and short-term goals with the aid of Scott's ever present slide shows um and we also will go over the capital plan so we can continue to maintain maintain maintain all the facilities we currently have and then we'll be setting priorities which some of the board members have shared what they'd like to see and one detail is a tour for the board members to be offered of all the current facilities we'll be talking about that as well yeah great thank you curriculum Tom mentioned and then equity um so similar to the community engagement committee we had our first meeting last week which I thought was had some really robust conversation just becoming a team is you know
211important especially when something as passionate as Equity so I thought we had some really good time um even just discussing um perhaps updated definitions of equity or different lenses Dei work has changed significantly over just even the last couple years so just kind of as a group exploring um what what it is that we're doing this year so it was a great meeting um we talked about some goals for the year I not going to share those only because they were kind of my the goals that I put out there and we have not as a as a committee decided that those are the goals but obviously the big one is the equity plan it is our goal to present that to the board at the November 20th meeting so that it can be done
212by Thanksgiving which means we have a bit of work to do but for starters it's coordinating the feedback that we received that deadline has now passed to go through the website so if you go to the website there's no longer that option of of emailing through the website what your your thoughts are on the plan however our next meeting is next week so anyone can email myself or Tim um and just you know it's not too late so please feel free to look at that plan and really the big job is just sort of compiling all the feedback into different categories uh and so that we can kind of look at that um I think our biggest challenge based on the feedback is finding that balance between being an advisory committee an accountability partner committee
213with the administration or are we an authority on Equity um and so figuring out what our role is um and and whether the plan meets that expectation Tim do you have anything to add Set uh it was just it was great to have Ann there and like the chair of ghosts past wherever we're there to kind of give us the context of where everyone's been and it was uh it was good team building and a lot of passion and it's exciting to see what we can do this year and yeah the feedback has continued to come in kind of at a slow rate which I find somewhat encouraging at the same time discouraging um but I've been thankful for it and it's been productive and I thought last meeting was very productive and energetic and
214I and I left looking forward to what we had to come this year thank you so finally were there any at can we just highlight what's happening at the GCA tomorrow oh yes Jeff would you okay yes the Supreme Court main Supreme Court will be at the GCA tomorrow and um they'll be there for the entire morning and we have soche's classes that will be rotating in and out they have different times where you have to stay there you know because they're arguing cases or listening to cases being argued and then there's some breaks in between but we have a schedule where we have students that will be coming in and out whether Social Studies classes tomorrow and representative Moriarty will be the attorney of the day I guess they have an attorney of the
215day but it's very exciting to host the Maine Supreme Court here in the GCA a lot of prep work was done in advance just to make sure this the venue worked for the justices um but I think it's you know these were actual cases I think they're arguing not they're not arguing the attorneys are arguing three different cases in front of the justices that are law cases the Supreme Court deals with law cases but I know a couple of board members were able to make it into their schedule to come we've got a couple Town counselors coming and select board members I think coming and other other folks but it should be a good good event thank you and then I know there's a PTO event coming up um Annika do you want to share
216do you there is yeah I know um other than what was mentioned this evening already so The Grand Event coming up at miw on October 18th but this Wednesday is the event with Jennifer Wiesner on raising sexually healthy children co-sponsored by PTO and Foundation 51 in this room Wednesday evening 6 p.m I believe great thank you okay so I think we made it through committee reports the next item is Communications as you see there's nothing listed I think we covered a lot of it and I'm also watching the clock a little bit that is that is a few minutes fast it's actually 8 56. and so yeah you can see it up there too um but I I think I again just want to express my appreciation I know it's a lot to get all
217this committee work up and going and although we don't have another official official board meeting um until the end of the month with the joint meeting that there's a lot of committee work going on in the meantime so thank you for that and I would like to ask for a motion to return the meeting can I just mention one thing this is um we have sent a communication out this evening but I got a lot of questions we've gotten a lot of questions this this weekend about um the pandemic EBT cards that went out and just let parents know and and that communication did go out a couple hours ago now but those cards were sent out to 80 percent of all of Maine's students and that's because the state opted for free and reduced
218um meals for all students and districts could opt in or out 80 percent of the districts including ours opted in so that we now provide free meals to our students but as a result the state issued all these EBT cards as what they call them pandemic cards for any student who's in a district where that opted in so all of the families in this District should have received or every student should have received a card you do not have to use it our communication just says if you want to destroy the card you don't have to use it but we've gotten a lot of questions so we wanted to just make sure that we put it out verbally it went out in writing just you can use them if you want or you can not
219use them it's totally really up to you but it is part of the state free and reduced lunch to all students for districts that opt in and we are a district that opted in and that's why you received the cards we didn't get prior notification from the state so we would have sent out a message but we didn't receive any we had to look into it and so hopefully that's enough information and each card has the same amount and I I believe each card is same as like eight dollars for every it goes back to the pandemic and it recalculates something but it's eight dollars and 18 cents per something per student per day for each student per day that something was going on with the pandemic honestly we don't have a lot of detail
220but that's all I can tell you is that the money is there if you want to use it that's fine if you don't use it it goes back into the State SNAP program which is for um frame reduced incomes families yeah it was confusing nobody applied right right so I don't know if you know the answer to this question but so if everybody went out and used it like went to Hannaford and like bought the full balance would that deplete the snap funds for the people actually need it I believe I believe it would but I'm not 100 sure I know that has an impact on the snap fund I don't think it would deplete all of it obviously but um that money just goes back into the snap fund is the way it was
221explained to me and we had to check in with our County superintendents group to find out what was going on um people were hearing things but yes that's my understanding is that if you don't use it it goes back into the snap fund but knowing how Governor I would guess that it would be a separate fund from people who are accessing regular SNAP benefits and that and then it would just renew maybe with the future but I think those are really great details that a lot of people will be interested in knowing because I know people were considering donating yes getting food and donating um yeah so maybe that would be helpful yeah yeah if we get more information we'll certainly put it in this week's newsletter um I probably won't have that information until
222Thursday and I was just going to check really quick to see if I got well you're adjourning we might I might have more information okay yeah I mean not many people probably watching to the very end of this anyway [Laughter] can I get a motion so moved a second all in favor of returning unanimous all right