001e e e I can hear you fine thanks e good evening and welcome to the Tuesday May 21st 2024 regular business meeting of the rner Township School District I I'm sorry I know we're a little tight in here um the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance if you join me please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all saying one other housekeeping item um just thankfully because I think we needed the space Mrs Stern is not able to be with us this evening but she is participating remotely so she's not here in person but she is she will be voting on agenda items and list hello everyone thank
002you Susan um the second item on the agenda is the report on Executive sessions um I can report that on Tuesday May 7th the board met in executive session to discuss Personnel matters relating to the hiring of Administrators and contract negotiations with individual bargaining units uh on Tuesday May 14th 2024 the board also met an executive session to discuss Personnel matters relating to the hiring of Administrators and contract negotiations with individual bargaining units the board met earlier this evening on Tuesday May 21st 2024 to have our superintendent evaluation and to discuss a tax assessment appeal uh the next item on the agenda is the report from students we have are they they're here somewhere they made it into the room great that's fine that's fine we're going to let Nico go first and if she's
003not here yet we can actually do some of the recognitions first no I I don't this is a special we have a we're running a special Series where students from all of our schools not just our high school are getting turns to come and give presentations to the board about what's going on in their buildings and I wouldn't want someone to miss that so we can certainly I have the prerogative to move that on the agenda we're good good evening Nico thank you and welcome perfect finally APS are over and I think we can all breathe a sigh relief I know I was definitely stressing out a little bit and the uh procrastinating didn't help but uh I got it done I got it done in the meantime our rner students have been lighting up
004the fields courts and classrooms during the month of May let's jump into the highlights of this month rner softball has been showing some serious skills this season going head-to-head with Central League teams and proving their force to be reckoned with on May 1st the girls faced pen Crest at home where Annie Talon Aaron Tas and Ashley triest each snagged two hits their next game against Strath Haven was a nailbiter tied until the final inning big plays came from Aaron Tobias Annie toone and Audrey Rubenstein who all smashed doubles to help score six runs in the last two innings Audrey also took over pitching duties striking out six players to win although the team had a slower game against marpel they bounced back against hariton with Audrey Rubenstein hitting a homer right off the bat setting
005a fantastic tone for the game the season wrapped up on May 13th against Springfield where we bid a heartfelt uh farewell to eight seniors who have greatly contributed to the team over the two years I think we're excited to see what next year brings the rner boys tennis team has been busy gearing upward districts with lots of practice and tough matches they started strong beating straf Haven 3 and0 in the first round of districts by winning the first three of five matches however they faced a tough match at Unionville and ended up losing narrowly 2 to three the Boise didn't let this defeat slow them down they came back to win a tight match against Garnet Valley 3-2 and their Journey continued with a off game at Central Bucks East High School where they fought
006hard but ultimately fell 0 to3 missing out on advancing to States despite this teammates Antonio fidelibus and Graham bernabo had a great run in the Central athletic league and will be competing in States at Hershey so not all hope is lost rner senior prom held at the Constitutional Center in Philadelphia was a delightful mix of Elegance and fun alongside the traditional dance the the evening was packed with unique activities the seniors had a great time bouncing around in inflatable castles and competing in giant inflatable soccer balls where everyone was pushing each other and knocking each other around another popular activity was life sized Hungry Hippos my personal favorite and had teams enthusiastically diving to capture as many as possible the smiles on all the seniors faces made me very happy as I'm friends with many
007of them and to see them leave it's such an unfortunate thing the rner color guard concluded their competition season with a strong performance in Wildwood Jersey early in may they scored 83.2 two at preliminaries and 81.0 in finals a great score showcasing their hard work and their dedication with competitive season behind them the team is now focusing on practicing for the upcoming Memorial Day Parade alongside the band and starting preparations for next year's season thank you all so much and have a great night thanks Nico now I think we have some Wayne Elementary fifth graders uh we have Natalie hilderbrand and Caroline Kelly welcome ladies I want just leave the microphone as it is the buttons on so you should be able to speak thank you for joining us my name is Caroline Kelly I'm
008a fifth grade student in Mrs tr's class at Wayne Elementary School my name is Natalie hilderbrand and I am also a fifth grade student from Wayne Elementary School in Mr fy's class we are here to update you on all that is going on at West the fifth grade has just returned from the camp canadensis camping tradition where we had the opportunity to meet and build relationships with fifth graders from other buildings the fifth grade is also reflecting on our time at West by writing a reflection paper on our Fondest Memories here in social studies we are studying the impactful and influential memories of the 20th and 21st century in science We are Becoming familiar with the physics and Newton's Laws by building vehicles in the unit motion and design in math we are focused on
009reviewing the different units um this from this year and our teachers are introducing some sixth grade topics such as percentages and ratios a few students also go to a sixth grade honors class in fourth grade the students are relieved that they just finished the science pssas now the students are taking a close look at the history of Pennsylvania they're identifying famous landmarks and the people who have made a difference in our state in Reading they just began book clubs and are sharing what they read in math they are growing with measurement and practicing conversions they have an upcoming field trip to the Fourth Street meeting house they were thrilled to go to in third grade the students are getting ready for walk to Wayne the biggest field trip of the year to prepare for it
010they are learning about the history of our town also they just finished watching an educational series called economy in addition a paleontologist is also going to come to talk to them about dinosaur bones the students are excited about this in math they are learning geometry and just ended a unit on area and perimeter in writing they are writing animal research projects and are working on text features in in science they are rocking the rocks and minerals unit then in second grade they are excited for their field trip to the Colonial Plantation they are also writing an informational piece right now in ela and working hard to finish it in Solo studies they are learning about how families learn about their past during math they're exploring graphs and completing a graphing project finally in science they
011just fin their soil unit and are working on organisms in first grade at West it is butterfly time the students are working on butterfly reports and watching the life cycle of a butterfly up close and in person for writing they are creating poetry that they will share with each other and in math they are exploring measurement and data recently they played knockout with Mr smari and had a blast they are most excited for their field trip to Elwood Park Zoo which will be happening soon this is the highlight of the first grade year in kindergarten they're beginning kindergarten count this is where they do fun activities for each lay of the word in kindergarten they also just finished their work with hatching chicks each student at West was invited to see the chicks before and
012after they hatched this brought a lot of fun to Wayne in math they are working hard on skip counting and identifying patterns in writing they are looking at fairy tales and creating their own Tales lastly they will meet with their fifth grade buddies at the end of the year celebration finally the whole school was buzzing about art tonight each student got to put in one piece of art for the show students also had the option of creating a project for the science fair which each grade got to see during the night and during the day students also got to enjoy going to the mystery box and swarm board which the lovely ambassadors helped out with some events that are coming up are field day in which all the grades go out onto the field and
013play sports and the bucket challenge which students are picked to dump a mysterious bucket on their favorite teacher's head there's also one of the students favorite PTO events coming up the spring fair students came go to games and earn tickets to get prizes there's Fun For All thank you for letting us share all about West and we can't wait for our Middle School memories ahead thank thank you so much ladies I you know I don't know that you realize that the school board members actually up here all have kids who went through the elementary schools and it's it's actually a really nice memory for us to because I think we all remember these different stages although the bucket dumping a bucket on teachers heads was not that was not part of my children's time so
014I I'm glad you're having a great year uh the next item on the agenda is the report from our superintendent Dr Bachelor so good evening it's good to see everyone and uh sorry for the crowd normally we're at the township building but there's a conflict tonight with the township building and so this is where we have our committee meetings and we have a lot of recognitions tonight um so sorry for the crowd and what's standing between you and the recognitions is now the superintendent's report so get comfortable usually I go on for about an hour or two uh I'll keep it brief tonight um but all of our students who who just gave reports too feel free you don't you do not need to stay for the meeting so you can feel free to leave
015at any time that you'd like to go um so first for our superintendent remarks I just have a few items that I want to share with everyone um moving that slide to the next slide I just want to thank you to our generous donors um you know West PTO giant company and Special Olympics or just uh some of the donations the board will be accepting tonight in tonight's board meeting and I just want to give a heartfelt thank you uh I say this often but it really takes our community and the whole support of our community to do what we do so I want to thank them for their generous donations uh next our students just talked about camp canadensis and our camp can camp canadensis fifth grade uh Environmental Education Program uh was another
016huge success it really is a wonderful trip um the fact that we get an opportunity to bring the fifth graders together from all three buildings to have this time to be together before they come to the Middle School uh it is something very unique um that a lot of districts don't do uh and that value of that time is really important uh you'll notice in one of the pictures uh there is a really dorky looking guy with a hat on and big boots uh I got roped into the pond study um so I was helping Mrs Brook Doyle uh who is an absolute the the whole team there and all the teachers who run Camp canetas do a phenomenal job uh but I had a chance to help with the pond study and it was
017just a great program the whole day or the whole couple of three days I wanted to also just recognize our middle school and the Civil Service um you know the sorry I'm sorry the high school excuse me career and counseling I was looking at Dr wadle uh as I said that so uh the the high school career and counseling department hosted a civil service Fair where students were able to learn about a variety of careers in fields of health law military Recreation among others uh and I just want to thank our our community uh for helping um you know whether it's our Police Department um all the different civil servants in our community um for coming out and supporting um our district and our kids and for all those at the high school to make
018that possible our school bus safety competition uh our transportation department uh is a really impressive group as a department uh not only do they do a wonderful job every day with our kids uh the care the skill skill that the expertise they have but they also compete in a bus rodeo and it is a competition and it is a serious competition uh and it is a competition that is sponsored by the Intermediate Unit where it invites Transportation departments from across the uh County to compete in driving uh and written exams um and uh so I don't know that Rodeo is a fair way to call it but they love to call it the bus rodeo uh when they compete we had several of our drivers compete um five of our drivers placed in the top
01910 uh and two will be going on to compete at the state competition at State College in June so we're really proud of our whole all of our drivers and especially those that will be continuing on in the competition and then post prom uh uh you know uh we already mentioned it and it was it was nice that uh we we've already had a chance to hear from the students about Pros pom but I just want to thank our community and our parents post prom happens because of our parents our parents not only fundraise uh but then they put in The Sweat Equity they put in all the work uh to make post prom happen and our staff uh that jump in to support um our parents uh our kids truly love the night I
020think many of them enjoy post prom more than they enjoy the prom uh I I think I do I know I do uh um and it's just a wonderful event uh to not only keep our kids safe but an opportunity for our kids to really uh be together and to celebrate uh their years in Radner so I just want to thank our community uh tonight on the agenda and much later on the agenda when we get to Personnel but we do have a recommendation the administration uh is recommending uh for our principal at Ethan Elementary and for our principal of Wayne Elementary we're recommending Mr John Wagner uh to be our next principal at at ithan elementary and recommending Dr Michael Morano to be our next principal uh at Wayne Elementary this has been a
021very extensive process uh we started off with focus groups um with our students our fifth graders uh our parents our staff our support staff our teachers asking them what are the qualities they're looking for uh in our next principal and asking them also what is it that makes our schools great and what can we do to improve our schools so that we can not only find that right person but also give that person some of that information when they come in we then went uh we had almost a little over 62 applicants it was the most competitive pool of outstanding candidates I have seen in the last easily the last 25 years plus of uh administrators uh it was really a wonderful pool of candidates um very strong candidates uh and they had opportunities to
022meet our we called it the village interview uh where we had probably 30 staff members uh board members parents Community uh members uh involved uh Administration uh asking our candidates questions throughout the interview process we had them uh our top candidates had to come back and actually had many Sim simulations they had to uh uh answer they had several questions they had to talk about they had to present on what their first faculty meeting would look like um throughout the process and I just want to give a congratulations for the recommendations to uh uh Mr Wagner and Dr Morano we are thrilled to be recommending them tonight um uh it's been a lengthy process it's been uh a very involved process I want to thank Mr Wagner for being here tonight with his family um
023Dr Marzano is in Chicago uh he's a current principal in Chicago and he while he flew out here many times for the interview process and we had an opportunity to fly out uh to visit him in his school uh he wasn't going to be able to make it here so we'll have him join us in the future but I just wanted to uh recognize uh you know Mr Wagner with his kids and say to the kids your dad's something special and uh we're thrilled to have him here uh in Radner and thank you for coming earlier here so you can meet us all and I think Dad might have plans for ice cream right now and if he doesn't he better now he does now he does so you guys don't have to stay for
024the whole meeting um and then next I want to just mentioned to our board and our community commencement so we have commencement will be June 12th truly it's a k to2 celebration uh commencement is that celebration for our whole District um and we're um each year we're trying to incorporate and include more of our uh kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and staff that want to be involved in the ceremony uh as we celebrate our kids and celebrate this Milestone so it's June 12th at 4 P 4M at Villanova University uh board members uh please make sure uh let us know if uh you know you're all invited and and if you'll be in attendance please uh let us know and then last but not least just upcoming events uh the I I I really font
025any small you know the font can't get any smaller and here's the issue there's not that many days left um but there is so much going on and just to share with our Board of community so many of the wonderful things that are happening uh as we come to the conclusion of another another wonderful school year and that concludes my remarks sorry I tried to keep it brief for everybody thank you and don't normally get Applause it's they don't know any better just say thank you thank you again uh Mr Wagner and family for joining us we're very happy to have you joining the dist well you've been a member of the district but joining the district uh at a new level um the next item on the agenda is recognitions and I just want
026to make sure that the families who came out with their students have space in the room so I'm I'm actually going to do something rare and ask administrators and other guests who might be here um if you wouldn't mind I'm gonna ask you Trisha to go get the hockey team we're going to start with them um but if you guys would just mind making space so PE parents have space to come in I really appreciate and I apologize for the disruption but I it's in an exciting time for their families and I want them to be able to join us help move people okay thank you okay so the the my apologies to the administrators who got here early and got good seats they can have them back as soon as the families are are
027gone um yeah the first uh recognition we're having this evening is the um the rner high school boys ice hockey team and I see that they're joining us um Mrs Brennan would you actually give a second would you give an explanation of how we're going to do this because I know how we do it at the high at the administrative building but this is a little bit different you want to use the microphone so you just yeah oh if there if there's more than the boys ice hockey team out there then maybe if the other groups want to come in as well yeah just if if that's all we have for ice hockey if all the other groups want to come in that'd be fine it'll save us time between the recognitions ice hockey first
028ice hockey and the wish Warriors they're coming okay but we do actually have this all organized at the at the other building it's just there's so tight here we don't want them ice skating on this floor it'll make it even worse than it already is here we go oh that's great APS are over they have time to get get here in the evening Mrs girton will you help me with this absolutely hold on actually real quick Mrs Brennan when when we call people's names we do have certificates for them but rather than have them try to jostle through this tiny space yes so we're going to invite you today to stand up when your name is called and then after we call the entire team and do the recognition we're going to invite you to
029go outside to the front steps where they'll be a photographer to take your picture as a team and Mr Brown is going to give you your certificates I'm going to have them Mr Brown to so in exchange for dealing with this tiny space you get a better background for your picture I have your folder so the the first item is the Radner High School boys ice hockey team wins the central League Championship M gton will you I will thank you so much it is my uh thrill to help present um the rner boys Ice Hockey Club um for their win um over for Intercounty Scholastic Hockey League Central League Championship I mean what an accomplishment um beating Springfield High School exactly the school we'd like to be right fellas um sophomore gold tender James Danner
030had an outstanding game stopping 31 out of 33 shots on goal uh that's a pretty big percentage senior Captain Tucker Graham recorded a hatrick while senior Ryan Carr and sophomore Steven suker each scored twice in that game this is the first League championship for the team in over 20 years amazing th this team was led this year by head coach Donald suker assistant coach Dave Wood um Had a Little Help from DJ suer um and also booster I would like to add booster club president Tim Brown who does so much for the hockey club uh the superintendent along with the board and the rner community congratulates these students student athletes their parents and their coaches on this outstanding accomplishment so proud I'll read I'll read your names fellas and if you could stand and then
031of course Mrs Brandon will um take your picture at the end Um Zack French Henry Kennedy Grayson much Hayden Goldenberg Jared Ross Vim van rossom Connor Haynes Russ yel Samuel Kane Andy Zang Lucas Mitchell James Danner Ryan Carr Steven suker Christopher Kennedy Reed Gul Tucker Graham and Cavin mutch congratulations fellas I'm just gonna say I've never seen a team that came in and managed to sit in the order in which their names appeared in the agenda so kudos to the coach or whoever organ and to the students for following instructions it's a clear you guys work well together thank you again this is what we all got is until weate our Championship AP we don't have one for every no it's good thank you again so much really appreciate all of you okay uh next
032item on the agenda is the wish Warriors Miss Rosen Plum well actually can we yes we're going to bring them in we probably have room for both the wish Warriors and the leukemia Society students if they're both out there Miss Clan you did she hear both the both of the next two groups okay that'd be great thank you come on in and find a seat anywhere we're actually not going to make you stand up and move so once you find a seat you're all set is that everybody from the hallway okay great uh Miss Rosen Bloom okay and as I don't know if you heard but as we call your name if you could just stand up and then after we call your name um Mrs Brenan will take your picture outside on the front
033steps okay the Radner High School Radner High School wish Warriors Club took first place in the Make A Wish Foundation Rising Stars campaign in the Philadelphia Delaware and sesah Han Valley area the team raised over $1,000 through several fundraisers to Grant a young boy his wish to visit Disney World the Make A Wish Foundation creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses the wish Warriors team includes includes Ashley C Georgia reinh halt Tessa Halper Georgia Gada anuka Barry Ashley Albert Commerce Fisk and mey lingren the superintendent along with the board and the rner community congratulates these students their parents and their sponsor on this outstanding accomplishment congratulations great and if the members of that group want to join Mrs Brennan outside for a photo thank you again uh next item on the agenda is the
034uh recognition of the students in the leukemia Society Club Mrs Mrs Duffy please stand when I call your name the rner high school Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Club was recognized as student student Visionaries of the Year by the leukemia and lyoma Society the team led by Simon RoR raised over get this $125,000 through Community fundraisers and corporate sponsorships achieving second place in the Greater Philadelphia region campaign in total teams raised almost half a million dollars for the society the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is a nonprofit organization with the mission of curing Leukemia Lymphoma hodkin disease and Myoma while improving the quality of life for patients and their families the team be the change includes leader Simon RoR Franchesca lucazi Kylie gray Lexi Webb Margot Ernst Alexa mccy Tatum Jolly gray Graham Kayla K comier Ryan
035erle Chase dellaa Quincy hippler Juan selero Hayden Goldenberg Jack Fleming Bryce Fury Luke Riley miles micho John Duffy and Jack Bo Mack Bowden the superintendent along with the board and the Radner Community congratulates these students their parents and their sponsors on this outstanding accomplishment for a really worthy cause [Applause] congrats thank you very much um and the last but not least student recognition this evening is our young poets Mrs Solomon will you help us honor them will you please stand when I call your name um I volunteered to give this award because my middle daughter Natalie won this award when she was in third grade at Radner elementary school and she is now a professor in the Stanford Medical School so poetry can take you far Radner students from Ean Elementary School Radner Middle School
036and rner High School were recognized for their poetry during the 35th annual young poets of Delaware County poetry competition Delaware County libraries in collaboration with the Mad Poet Society hosts this long-running contest inviting residents to explore their creativity and share their voice and is open to all first through 12th grade students residing and attending schools in Delaware County at distinguished panel of local poets Educators and authors judged the entries selecting first second and third place masterpieces for each grade level the students were these students were awarded from Ean Elementary School third grader Arya Mangum morti took first place for her poem fall Radner Middle School sixth grader Rita dong took third place for her poem The Emptiness rner Middle School seventh grader Anica at Lori took second place for her poem fosen did I say
037that right thank you Radner High School 10th grade 10th grader anre Shu took first place for her poem a winged youth the extended script and Radner High School 11th grader Georgia Reinhardt took first place for her poem the little girl in me the superintendent along with the board and the Radner Community congratulate these students their parents and their teachers for this outstanding accomplishment [Applause] quite a slate of impressive young women thank you very much keep up your writing you all need to get up now and well preferably now and head out front for your I didn't mean to sound so aggressive yeah go have your picture taken picture taken thank you so much for representing rner do you want to bring the administrators back if if someone would tell the administrators there welcome back in
038the room start record thank you all I really appreciate you stepping out and making space for the families that came this evening uh the next item on the agenda is public comment um per board policy number six the board provides an opportunity each public meeting uh of the regular board for eligible participants to comment on matters of concern official action or deliberation that are before the board um if anyone has public comment at this time we'll do live public comment first and then I understand there's some recorded public comment live public comment please feel free to come up to the microphone state your name the town you live in we no longer require to give your address uh just make sure it's on the little red light will go on sir thank you for joining
039us oh turn hit it again there you go there we go thank you um my name is Bob micholas I live in Wayne um I was here a couple months ago um interested in the design development for Ean Elementary School in particular for the gymnasium so I understand based on looking at the recording from a week ago that there's some presentation tonight about reducing the size of the gym um and I'm very interested in finding out what that's all about and um if I can offer any any suggestions but I need to know more before I can offer any suggestions so that's that's my public comment thank you Mr micholas there is um a separate public comment at the end of the meeting if people have comments or questions on items that have appeared on
040the agenda and want to uh give feedback then so you're welcome to stay to the end um and comment then and Mr Nicholas we can have a uh Mr Morris or somebody from that department I i''ve met with previously to reach out to you afterwards too to so you can see some of what we're discussing so thank you and thank you for all you do for uh youth basketball in the area is there any other live public comment at this time welcome hi everybody um can you hear me my name is Jennifer unterberger I know many of you so I just wanted to I live in New Town Square should start with that I just wanted to say thank you to all of the board members and the administrators um I'm very grateful to all
041of you for all your hard work and all you do for our district and I just wanted to make a public comment um just trying to think out of Stark so I'm sort of off Off Script um I just wanted to talk about and make a comment related to the U qualified principles that were hiring who sound amazing and I'm very excited to to see them in these roles and my comment is just about our current hiring practice practices that seem to have not yield a staff of teachers and administrators that equitably represent our students and I believe this is a disservice to all of our kids in rner um all of our students have not seen Equitable representation from a diverse group of teachers and Senior administrators which is crucial to their ongoing success
042in college and in business when our kids graduate and leave rner they will embark on a journey in a global world when I met with our HR Director a year ago at his office we had a good conversation and discussed hiring practices in the district I asked at that meeting if we told the search committee or The Villages that are involved that hiring a represent staff was a district priority and at the time he said no we have a great school I know because of all of you and we have very high standards at the time I ask that we consider potential biases during the hiring process that everybody has I understand some improvements have taken place and I applaud each of you on these efforts I believe if we don't tell the folks on
043the search committee about our district priorities things won't change as is as it is proven that people hire people that make them feel comfortable and that look like them and that's just the way it typically goes um I can't help but remember at a board meeting here two years ago I was sitting in the same room with I think many of you and one of our um board student Representatives on the curriculum committee I won't use her name but she is a student of color and she said to all of us I just want a counselor or a teacher who looks like me just one in my four years of high school just one I believe collectively we all need to do a better job listening to our students and collaborating to achieve Equitable representation
044thank you very much for your time thank you Miss unterberger is there any other public comment the room this evening okay seeing none I understand we have some recorded public comment my name is I jazal and I live on 402 Cheswick place in drar firstly I'd like to thank all the board members for all the effort you put in to make our community a better place I would like to make a public comment about our human resources Department's inability to prioritize incorporating diversity in hiring teachers and administration we we need to have hiring practices that emphasize diversifying our teaching and admin staff the children of rner Township need to see leaders that look like them good evening this is jerisha Connor from South Wayne I'm sorry I can't be with you this evening but I
045am calling to encourage the district to adopt more aggressive practices with regard to recruiting candidates of color for administrative posts as well as teacher openings I'm reminded of a story told by a principal at one of our Southeastern PA educators of color meetings incidentally this is a group which Dr Anthony Stevenson established I still regret that we lost him to te and uh which former board president Amy Goldman um attended to make connections and promote the district at any rate the principal had been working happily at a school in Philadelphia for many years when she was approached by an administrator I believe um from Garnet Valley who invited her to come check out this District he showed her around took her to lunch and told her that if she applied for the opening and received
046an offer he would always have her back he explained to her why the district needed her he helped her consider a change that she would never have thought out otherwise she ended up getting and accepting the job and as she told this story to us she shared how grateful she was to this administrator incidentally a white male uh for his efforts to encourage and Champion her so it can be done um and villain NOA really wants to be your partner in this I'm happy to share that we've recently relaunched a state approved principal certification program and I would love it if you would send us your teachers of color and women faculty who are interested in assuming greater responsibility beyond the classroom whom we can help to hone the skills and acquire the credentials they
047need for these roles think about how wonderful it would be to establish a grow your own program for teachers and principes so that rner Educators and administrators can more closely reflect our student body I ask the board to encourage the administration to pursue and invest in these sorts of strategic Partnerships so that rner can become an example not just locally but nationally for how to diversify its leadership rights thank you good night hi this is Kathleen mCP I'm calling in support of the resolution to fund ragner girls crew Club I live in bmar um my daughter Devon has rode for the club for the last three years and is going to continue to do so I am thrilled that the board is now considering and Hopey approving funding for the club um it's been great
048for the girls who roll on it and for the community which they've been um very involved with for over 25 years now um it's expensive to um fund this boort to participate and get in the races and uh as a result uh not everyone can do it and that's unfortunate so I'm very hopeful that this will change things and it will be available to more girls and it will be easier for the girls that are doing it to continue rowing um so this is great and um very appreciative that the the school board is is now approving funding for the girls crew team thanks very much good morning my name is Rachel skrlac low I live in St David's Pennsylvania and I'm calling to ask the board to hold the administration responsible for the recent
049decisions to hire the two new principles who are both based on their appearance white men I'm writing or I'm calling because in my experience as as a education professor and as a parent in the district I have found that my kids Thrive and other children Thrive the most when there's diversity in school leadership the two new hires further homogenize the gender and race of the leadership teams in the district high schools even while the district is becoming more diverse with the student body and the families in the communities it's because of this I ask the board to strongly question and hold the administra team responsible for making a decision that increases the homogeneity of the leadership team um while asking them to explain how these decisions align with the district's effort to focus on belonging
050and inclusion thank you my name is Ryan chance lady and I live in Wayne I'm a freshman at rner high school and I wrote for rner girls crew Club I would like to thank the board for their support of rner crew I encourage you to vote in favor of the new budget it would make such difference as a team is that everything okay thank you uh the next item on the agenda is the presentations we're going to have an update on the building from the new Ean Elementary School um welcome gentlemen uh for people who don't recognize them we have Damian Spar and um Steve Barons from Brin architects and I'm sorry no presentations is first on the agenda can be after um and I just wanted to check um Mr Hand want to make
051sure that the PowerPoint is is viewable um I think there was a question that Mrs Stern had who's doing remote that she wasn't able to maybe see the earlier PowerPoint um so Mrs Stern let us know if you're unable to see the PowerPoint as we move through the presentation I I can't I don't see any I haven't seen anything on the screens tonight all right so we have Dr hen working on it and we'll communicate with you and let you know and hopefully you're you're not it sounds like you're not seeing this one right now that's up there on the screen correct okay well we'll let them begin and as they begin we'll be in communication with you Mr H Dr hand is looking at it right now thank you all right thank you Dr
052Bachelor thank you Miss dun you me to do that sure sorry technical issues go ahead thank you and welcome thank you so much nice to see you and good to be here again in the community of Radner Township the agenda tonight is to talk about upcoming board meeting decisions talk about the schedule update discuss the ACT 34 situation and really that process and our review of it as we move toward having a hearing talk about the design development cost update for estimates and compare that to schematic design and then talk about how we have found design efficiencies and cost efficiencies to lower the anticipated cost of the building while still maintaining the programmatic needs and goals that we've set originally for the project and Mrs Stern can see now so you don't have to worry
053about slowing down till we get that resolved thank you so uh I'm sorry two two more slides forward please to slide three there we go unless you're looking at the large screen out here you probably won't be able to read this this is what I like to call bottom line UPF front and that is where are we with costs as we estimate the progress of the project through design we have we we've had a concept estimate we were all together and deliberated and and really had a great way of coming together with comments it for two months for the schematic approval process and that is what we're doing right now for design development there's one more step in the design process after this it is creating the construction documents that we use to bid so
054we're going to do our best tonight not to say SD for schematic design or DD for design development uh or even MEP for mechanical electrical Plumbing we're going to work very hard not to do that those of you counting I think the over under might be four but we're going to start with a comparison to schematic design and design development if you look at the at the table that's in front of you there are a few things that are important to see one is that when we talked to you in schematic design we had a total project cost estimate of 69 M522 th000 after we worked through the design development documents and worked with the administration on recommendations for efficiencies to reduce our costs we actually looked at the size of the building and we
055have some recommendations for that you'll see you'll see that in a minute and we've had to take into account uh the actual design of the site work the costs the cost expectation is up to 73 million $876,000 that's about a $435 million difference that difference really came a lot in the design of the site work which was here to for not available in schematic design but came to full fruition during design development we were able to fully estimate the costs of all the site work around the school so one of thing that I'd like like to point out is that if you look at the building square footage we started off in concept thinking maybe we were around 109,000 square feet in schematic design that building square footage and this is gross square footage so
056kind of outside wall to outside wall was uh 114,000 Square ft we actually the the building got a little bit bigger in schematic or I'm sorry in design development and then we've reduced it and you'll see at the bottom there were reductions that we'll be showing you tonight of 5,630 square ft so that the total building size itself is now just over 113,000 Square F feet so again what we're looking to do is refine our expectations of cost and our estimates through the process and we are looking to find the best things that we can find in terms of building efficiencies design efficiency icies and construction material efficiencies that's that's what we've been spending a lot of time on I'd like to take a couple of uh moments and say some notes about this particular
057slide if you're if you're looking closely you'll notice that the Architects and Engineers fees have gone down they have gone down because as we hone the building and and that's really about a percentage of the construction cost so we start to look at what that is and and as as costs for the building go down the cost for the architect's fees go down as well what what happened in this case though you'll we know that the costs are up the total project costs are up and we say well goodness doesn't that mean the architect's fees are up well no because some of the a lot of the fees that are in in there have to do with site work and less the building so there's there's a little bit of close examination there it's not
058about the size of the building it's about what that buildings actually costing us that affect those fees you'll notice that throughout this process we've been holding $1.1 million for furniture fixtures and equipment which we call FF and E so if you ever hear that that's what that's what that means Furniture fixtures and equipment if you think of it this way it's um on the start of the school day without the books and the papers and the pencils anything that if you could shake that building it would fall out of it that's FF we've kept that at 1.1 million that was an allowance fortunately the cost of furniture has not risen the way the cost of construction has risen and we typically set those allowances early in the project and they stay where they are unless
059a school district says you know I want to do something extraordinary here or they want to reuse furniture that that typically stays the same so you'll notice that that's consistent across the board and that is is why there is something that is near and dear to all of our hearts and that's contingency contingency as a as a generalized statement is the extra money that we carry for one thing or another and there are several types of contingency the two that we're really dealing with here in our project are estimating contingency and construction contingency estimating contingency is actually properly carried in the building estimates so there's about $2 million of estimating contingency shown in the construction numbers for the building and for the site those are for the things that we know something's something's going to
060eat that up but we can't see what that is right now because the design is not quite far enough along so we carry that in as a buffer we had been carrying that down in one lineage to generalized contingency that line item for contingency now is what we call construction contingency that is the checkbook for when you have changes during construction and you have to write change orders so a lot of people say well if you have change orders you're automatically over budget not if you budget for them you're not so we budget for change orders because we know we're going to have them what did that what does that look like it looks like the standard of care for design for a new building I'm expecting changes needed for the building might be 1%
061of construction cost of the building we have to carry money in case we run into something with site work site work is also uh part of the fabric of our dreams and nightmares and site work we want to get out of the ground and there's a critical difference at Ean that we didn't have at the high school that critical difference is at the high school we had extra soil and extra fill that we had to take somewhere since you have to take something somewhere that's not your property it costs you a lot of money at Ethan we have to bring Phil to Ean so we've got that accounted for in the estimate and that means we have less risk doesn't mean there's no risk but it means there's less risk so we feel very comfortable
062and in fact the the construction contingency that we had been looking at a little earlier we bumped up a little bit but we have that at 1.4 82 million so I think those are some important things that I wanted to talk about in that slide and we'll be happy to come back and hit any other questions on them but I didn't want to leave anyone in suspense the next slide is the actual outlay of what it is we're doing here a week ago we had the May facilities committee meeting and we outlined where we are and all the things that we're doing and the things that we've been doing and our recommendations we took some questions and comments and we've worked that so that we could come here and have with the board a really
063productive discussion and and get some good input so that we can again take that back come back in the June facilities committee meeting answer more questions get more input so that we can be back here at the June board meeting in a month and have the conversation about approving the design development phase with the input that you give us setting a budget for design development importantly setting the act 34 limitation and deciding when that act 34 hearing needs to be so that's that's really what we're trying to do through this whole process and I want to remind everybody one more time we're doing the right things by experiencing understanding what we want for space designing an ideal educational environment setting a budget range for ourselves and finding ways to bring that design back closer to
064our budget with efficiencies and cost while staying true to the program that we want this is the process that we all go through these days long gone are the days of kind of doing whatever you want and you get what you want and hey it didn't cost that much things cost a lot now so every project that Mr Ven and I go through goes through this exact process and and we're doing really well understanding understanding that we just have to make our choices here good evening everyone on the subject of those choices and um reminding you with this slide here before you is we established some priorities early on in the in the process in the design from the beginning and as we've gone through this effort of identifying efficiencies finding places to trim to
065bring us back closer to the budget we've kept our eye on the ball from the standpoint of what are those priorities and so what we haven't done is by by intention is put into je compromised or put in Jeopardy any of these things that are on on this slide because these were the priorities that were that were set forth from the beginning so we're not impacting program negatively by these by these changes the um the goals of the design that we've been talking about with excitement for months are still front of Mind as we've been making these these difficult decisions and and make this recommendation to you tonight the next slide that we have really is all about schedule and it's important to understand that we Lo a long time ago set a schedule for
066ourselves which were staying relatively true to those the schedule incorporates some quite important things one of them is taking our time to have this thoughtful process that we're having at the end of each design phase that's been an excellent process that I think works very well for rner Township School District the next thing is how quickly can we get our Land Development in and get through the permitting process which also and that combines with our decisionmaking process to when can we go out for bid we have always been targeting going out for bid sometime after the election there's a lot of reasons for that probably the best reason is there will be confidence after the election which will tend to drive prices down momentarily so we want to have that that lasts for a little
067little bit of time so it's not a short real short window it's it's got some months to it but there some wisdom in being able to do that we also we'd like to get out to bid as early as we can but remember we're not doing summertime Construction in an occupied School Etc we just want to start in the spring so by contrast I will tell you just last week we awarded project we awarded contracts on a new Elementary School in the center of the state that that has a schedule much like this Elementary School does for construction it doesn't have the demolition in the end but it has that same schedule where it ends in a good spot Etc so a couple highlights here knowing that we're feeling good about where we are with
068the schedule we want to keep our our hand gently on the back of everything as we push through um the the permitting process and we want to make sure that we're thorough in this room for the community to to get the best that they can get for the money that we're going to spend here so if we stay on the schedule we'll be submitting Land Development that says May June I'm going to tell you that's going to be later in June that we would submit that and that would come about the time that we potentially approve design development you see what's here in red our board decisions and then we would look in August to approve the ACT 34 advertisement and set that hearing date for a September hearing want to have that hearing at
069a time where there's lots of folks around they're not uh on vacation for the summer they're not somewhere else for the winter time and holiday we want to look for a release for bid in November that's going to allow us to go through a bid process and award an issue notices to proceed in February going back to what I said earlier if that becomes March it's okay really if it becomes April it's okay there are things about this project that are going to make it attractive to biders and it is a and one it is a brand new project two it is a project with a good client rather has a good reputation in the construction Market as being a a a good client not every school does and I think it'll also come with
070because of brein being the architect and having construction management there'll be a desire to do it because it's it's not going to be a project that's going to be jumpy going to have a clean design you're going to have a clean process and contractors think about that when they decide what to bid that really takes us all the way to completing the work earlier than we need it then we can occupy the building and then we get to the part that's tight on the schedule and that is taking down the old Ean and putting in everything that we need to get children in there through the summer months there will be work that we intend to have go on into the fall a little bit and by a little bit I mean two months maybe
071into a third because remember when we have to buy asphalt and we're putting that material down as it gets colder that's not available so sometime in November or so we can't get asphalt anymore we have to finish by then so we'll be thinking about whether we have liquidated damages or things to in incentivize the contractors to get finished at that time but we feel really good about the schedule because we're not backing ourselves into a corner with the finish of the building and we're giving ourselves a little bit of Runway there with the really difficult part we will be doing a phasing plan as we enter the next part of our design and we'll be able to share that with Administration and that'll be shared with the board as to how we're going to accomplish
072this and what that looks like so very briefly you've seen this slide before what what is design development mean what are we approving what's the process that's gone on till this point well as the name implies the design has developed so we have uh be since the schematic design approval in October of last year we've been conducting the detailed meetings we've been meeting with the end users with the administ ation with facilities with teachers the uh engaging of the other partners in the design team the mechanical electrical and plumbing Engineers or MEP Engineers um structural Food Service talk to about the the scope of the design and started looking at the elevations of the building of the of the the uh the and there's a list here you know things like the windows and the
073doors and the WF finding and and the exterior features in detail so the the the playfields the outdoor amenities and all of those things have been incorporated into some of the visualizations that you'll see in terms of the renderings and looking forward to an animation coming up soon um and then so it's that body of work that site logic has utilized to prepare the design development estimate and so that's that's reflective of the numbers you're seeing here and then once those numbers were received then we entered into the the value engineering the scope analysis process and identified the the the opportunities for efficiency and and reduction that form this recommendation the the this is also the same information that will then once approved feed into the ACT 34 uh booklet and advertisement and the public
074here ing that identifies the parameters of of the project uh from a fiscal standpoint that the that the board would approve so from here with this eventual anticipated approval we would move forward into the construction document phase and that's taking this approved design and then generating a lot more detail such that it can be then bid it it presents the information necessary for for contractors to bid on it and then and then ultimately construct it so this is an important milestone in terms of defining um the the key aspects of the design certainly there's a lot more work to do so these renderings that you you'll see if I forget to mention it later they are somewhat conceptual at this time so this is this is um a a a concept that we will move
075forward with just to give you a flavor for how things are coming together but there's a lot more work to do in that and um as as we take the decisions and the recommendations and and move forward with with the options that are ultimately selected so thank you next slide is act 34 again something we've we've discussed but it's it's a complex topic so we like to refresh our our memories each time we have the opportunity so it is a a 50-year-old act at this point and um it is designed to to place uh boundaries on the expenditures for school construction it's applicable to new construction and significant additions obviously what we have here is a new building and um I've explained hopefully uh somewhat clearly uh in the past how the rated pupil capacity
076the capacity that is generated by by mostly the instructional spaces within the traditional instructional spaces within the building and that gathers us what we call points based on the number of those spaces and then that is then um multiplied by a per pupil um capacity and that's again a little bit of a misnomer as I've said before the numbers that you'll see they don't correlate directly to the actual number of students in the building it's a it's a a ratio that's that's then multiplied by an expenditure limit on a on a per pupil capacity that generates a that number in combination with the architect's fees and the furniture fixture and Equipment cost must not exceed a a limit and the limit is that what's called the aggregate building expenditure standard which is the product of
077of that that capacity number times the the per pupil uh cost and then so that that generates the the limit that would would be that the design development estimate is then uh compared to and the gap between those we refer to as the buffer and so um Daman will go into some detail on that in in subsequent slides but when when you hear those terms the limit that's the the most that we can uh spend according to the requirements of the law and then the buffer is is how far this estimate Falls below that Mr Barons I understand that the when you're going to start talking about some of the changes tonight there's a reduction and there's a community comment about the reduction in the size of the gym and the library and that is
078so that we can meet act 34 in in part yes exactly so as as I said the the capacity that that you that's generated is really in those classroom traditional instruction spaces we do not get capacity for the cafeteria for the gymnasium many other spaces that are in the building so we need to have a limit high enough to fund the construction of those spaces that aren't receiving capacity so yes when we reduce the size of the building that's the primary driver for cost is the is a square footage so when we reduce that um we we increase our buffer now you'll also see where we point out where through this process we've actually gained some points by uh carefully looking for ways to increase our our limit as well and in a nutshell act
07934 we've talked about this at length is requiring school districts we have to follow this but when this was first created there was a reimbursement aspect that the state would provide reimbursement to school districts that no longer exist so we are we are forced as public schools to follow this act and yet the reimbursement that was tied to this act no longer exists for us that's true right yeah can I just clarify as well we teach Library we teach JY and we're mandated by the federal government to feed our students but none of those spaces so the two instructional spaces that we use for instruction don't count under this law as an instructional spaces because our legislators don't understand how a school district works and the first part of that's correct and I'd encourage you
080to discuss the latter with your legislator well I think I think the legislators for rner do it's disappointing that the state as a whole our legislature fails to understand you know I was at a a legislative breakfast and I I know I'm off topic but I think this is really on point for a lot of people um a number of us attended the legislative breakfast at the dciu last week and one of our Representatives actually one of our state senators got up and he said you know people talk about public education failing our students he said and the reality is we're failing public education and that really hit home and this law is an perfect example of the state failing to allow us to serve our children the way we could um so it's very
081very frustrating I I I fail to understand how a library and a gym where we are required to provide classes does not account as as as educational or instructional space I I don't understand it either okay yeah yeah and I know it's not your fault but that's that's can I ask on the point of the million dollars for fixtures and equipment I know I'm getting ahead of you but just do we have to buy new equipment and and tables and chairs no so the first year we build this school we could open it with the existing chairs and cables we have at Ean and if we feel they're unfit the following year we could buy new fixtures and equipment for that building I wondered if there are districts are less that do that okay thank
082you sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you thanks okay I I do love the image of kids carrying their desks to a new building someday I have seen that and it is a great site the next slide is probably a little more selfish for me than it should be when I first learned about act 34 I was frustrated because I couldn't easily tile all those numbers back and understand it myself so over too many years that that I'd rather not recount I have taken to wanting to be able to educate the community to say well what the heck is in this act 34 limit and where's the rest of the money so that's what this slide is meant to show show you on the left side what you'll see is the design development estimate just
083like you saw on slide three and what this is meant to do is show you what is going into the ACT 34 calculation so on the right table at the top act 34 there's a capacity this is a capacity with the points that Steve was talking about or the the the rated pupil capacity that's from pte that number is 2,218 well we're not putting 2,28 students in this school and maybe that's a key Mrs Dunn as to why they didn't allow counting of the gym and the library Etc however that doesn't help us today with the current inflation rates for construction but that number is is is that computation based on the formula that are given to us for ACT 34 you take that number times the per pupil cost limit that just went up
084of $ 25,157 to 88,000 that's pretty straightforward but then we have to say well where do the where do the numbers come from that we compare to that the first number is the costs of constructing the building so when you think about that that is our new construction estimate less the options for scope uh value engineering and alternates which give us a number of $ 49,27793 257 that's that's step one remember this is all about the building because they don't know what you're building on and some sites are easy and some sites are not so easy so act 34 never worried about site but they said ah what do we paying our architect friends well we got to put that calculation in there too when we look at the architecture Engineering Services on the left
085table the portion of that that is attributable to the building itself is 2 million to uh $725,000 and that is a portion of the 2,989 on the left the other stuff really goes more toward the the site work and um the coordination with the civil engineer the furniture fixtures and equipment number translates straight over as an exact cost so we add all those together and we get our number at 53 M82 th000 leaving us our buffer of 2.65 I'm sorry 2.625 million what's not included is what's below this that is all the site work costs and then all of the other soft costs that were not taken into the building itself which is basically the architect's fee on construction cost and the furniture fixtures and equipment and when you add all those numbers up in
086that manner you get back to your total project cost so it's important to understand when we talk about act 34 we're talking about the building construction and that that somewhat translates into the architect's fees and then back to the furniture fixtures and equipment which we just had that astute discussion about so hopefully now and um should you make the suggestion that we don't go through this again next month I'd be happy to take it but hopefully this gives sheds a little more light into what we're talking about with act 34 the next slide starts to get us into what we did as we looked at our construction cost and said okay we've we've gotten the space we want we've looked at the ideal situation where are our economies and we looked at economies for the
087interior of the building the exterior of the building mechanical electrical and plumbing so we looked at those separately and then site work those top three interior EXT exterior mechanical electrical Plumbing those all Impact act 34 the site work does not so that's kind of why they were split out in that manner if we look at the the next slide with the table last month this slide was um not as condensed what we wanted to be able to do was show you each area building interior building exterior mechanical electrical plumbing and that total that impacts act 34 and then site work and soft cost and and the total together what are we recommending that we take out of the design or removed for the from the cost what are we recommending as alternates that if we
088had to manage the budget down we could not spend the money on those items and therefore be within act 34 what are the total of those and then what did we evaluate that we just simply do not recommend because there's a list of those things too and then you can see what equates to a total considered and I have to tell you this has been a wording process for both of us to be able to find so much value in efficiencies not touch the program in fact we improved the program and really not go against any of those original uh thoughts that we had about what we wanted to see in the design of the building building design has changed from schematic to design development but it's changed to make it more cost- effective effective
089and and in some cases just flat out more efficient so we're going to use this table as we work through all the recommended recommendations that we have for board consideration and I'm going to let Steve explain the first which is building interior building interior has $3.3 million of recommended reduction has alternates of about 1.3 million and then we looked at some things within the building and said there's about $218,000 that were not recommended Miss D I'm so sorry point it order I I just have to tell you I don't understand this page at all so I'm glad you guys are really happy with it but I I I it it has not made sense to me in even the smallest way so when it's time for us to comment I'm I'm glad you guys are
090happy with this page but it means absolutely nothing to me okay I'm going to take I'm going to take a moment and see if I can help you with it because if you ever tell somebody they created a spreadsheet that you don't like their spreadsheet they want to help you understand their spreadsheet some s of natural natural thing I love a good spreadsheet here's why I don't understand this page and maybe this is gonna make more sense when you all show and maybe I'm the only board member who doesn't really understand this but why I don't understand this is um I have no context of what you recommended you got rid of what the alternate was what the alternate and the rec I mean it just it is it it could take hours to go
091through this spreadsheet and I make a lot of spreadsheets M Mr Spar spreadsheets aren't supposed to create more they're supposed to make it easier to understand things and this does nothing but bring up a b a lot of questions for me none of which I'm going to ask you right now because it's not time for that I just need you to know I don't understand this spreadsheet forgive me this was our way of giving you the bottom line up front again and saying this is what we're going to be looking at and now we're going to look at it for each area starting with building interior we'll do interior exterior mechanical electrical plumbing and site work and soft so hopefully that will come together I certainly empathize with the idea that this standing on its
092own does not give you good context thank you thank you so um this next slide and again um if we advance it one the this is the breakdown that does go into the detail behind that number so in each of these categories you'll see a an excerpt from a from a larger document that provides the backup so we don't need to go through this um here at this moment line by line but each of each of these items is hopefully through that description uh that short description meant to allude to a decision point that that we created and then um what what it what the impact of it would be from a dollars and cents point of view and deducting from from the cost of the project and then so there's a dollar value in
093that in that first colored column and then the second colored column is is the status so if it was recommended it's something that's been reviewed with Administration and the design team and um it's part of a recommended um list of of reductions if it's an alternate it's something that we would work into the bid documents as a choice in other words the biders would put a a a price tag on that particular component and then that gives the board the ability to decide whether whether it's in or out of the project the reason we do that is because these are just estimates of ultimately on bidday the market will tell us what the market will about the cost and we want to have the opportunity to either take some things out to align with the
094budget or perhaps if we were overly conservative have the opportunity to bring value back into into the process so that's that's what those alternates repr represent and then the red items are not recommended so things that were considered as Daman described in that column the total of things that were considered but this was not part of the recommendation based on uh for some reason with either the design team or the administration saying we don't want to do that and the intent was that if we if you add up the green from this which is the interior of the building and you go back to the previous slide you'll see under recommended that will add up to 3367 million the alternates in purple those will add up to 1.3 million just under and then if you
095look at the not recommended they're just over $2,000 that total of things that we considered inside the building was 4.875 which is what you're seeing down there at the total um that's brought forward onto that summary table so we were we were looking to show you the detail but also show you the summary and and where those things fell so taking the theory that a pictor speaks a thousand words we've endeavored now to provide some some visual context for what these what these items are so the next slide is um is in your packet is a comprehensive floor plan which indicates several things um it will indicate the uh the areas of peach I'll call it depending on how it looks on on your screen or on your paper those were areas where the square
096footage of the building was reduced and we we've spoken to some of those items here you'll see some images associated with that but it was areas where we reduce the square footage of the building and then the the Blue Area are changes that were made that actually proved beneficial to us in in an act 34 increase to to our limit which helps when compared then to the cost the dashed line indicates areas where corridors were narrowed slightly again constituting a square footage reduction to the building and then the yellow is an area where there was a change to uh to the layout of the toilet rooms that then afforded us the opportunity to enlarge an adjacent instructional space and therefore increase our act 34 limit so um those those items are again some of those
097are you're going to see in in more detail as we go through but this is a comprehensive view of that so um the next slide is again one that we're not going to take the time to go through here line by line but there's often questions about how does the square footage of a particular space compare to the existing elementary schools something that we focused on in great detail during design certain of those questions have come up in previous presentations but this has been updated to reflect in that First Column the um the design development program the the next column is the design development ve program or the the the reductions that change and then the the three colored columns represent the existing Ethan building and the other two elementary schools rner and Wayne so
098if you see red indications on this chart it indicates areas where square footage was reduced green areas are uh where where things were enlarged so again if if if you have questions about particular spaces this is a good reference tool for that f that are some individual space floor plans again we wanted to show you the impact of of some of these changes this is the impact of the reduction in the square footage of the multi-purpose room so 675 St square feet was reduced why did we choose that because that um keeps it in line with the other schools so as you can see it still gives us space for the for the full-size court for the two side courts um we uh we kept our focus on on on storage to support this space
099that's so important for these types of spaces so where you see that the the little individual toilet room associated with the space was was removed that was because we wanted to preserve storage that was required for the program so the um we really were reducing those those oversized safety zones around the the court but you still get the the same sized basketball court in the space the next slide is the art room now you'll recall that the art room is on the lower level underneath the library so there was a corresponding reduction in the square footage of both levels so a total of 300 Square ft was was reduced out of the um art room that again brings it in line with the other art rooms in the in the district and so from a
100programmatic standpoint we don't believe that was that was a a detriment the following page shows the library above that space which is um just because of the way the floor plan shakes out with an overhang um under underneath the library it's slightly less square footage but 250 square ft so the the floor plan's been adjusted you can see how the space lays out it did not require reduction in the lineal footage of shelving thereby allowing for the same size collection and so then we'll move into some uh views some rendered views of the interior of the building to show some of the effects of not only the square footage uction but some other things on on that list that we'll go through this is just an orientation plan to show you where some of the
101following views are taken from so the next page is a view from one of the IDS rooms looking out we've talked multiple times about how we want to draw natural light and Views into the building this is the original uh image that shows uh a glass up to the ceiling and wall toall if you look on the next page you'll see a slight reduction in the amount of that interior glazing that that that does reflect a a a cost reduction because the wall is less expensive than than the windows but as you can see it really doesn't have a negative effect on either the views of the natural light coming to the space even gives some more opportunities for perhaps some pinup space for student work or that sort of thing next page is the
102other IDs room similarly um if you pay attention between those two images at the interior glazing in particular you'll see a slight reduction I'm sorry to interrupt you can you go back I just I can't tell between slides 20 and 21 what is it's just there's the one beam of of wall down the center little bit at the top little bit at the Top If you see there's a sof running across the top and that one piece of Y actually at both ends and in the middle there's there's some glass removed okay okay yeah well and the shelving below was there in the other picture it's there in both pictures so that's what I was trying to figure out the difference okay right and and I think that's the point quite frankly that it is
103difficult to to uh see see the difference and um slides 22 and 23 are that same comparison where you see a a little bit of a reduction and again these are Concepts these are not the final designs there's more work to be done we're showing you examples of how we would reduce this glass without negatively in affecting the design of the building next slide is the art room so this is the original view of the art room that you've seen before again abundant glass to the to the outside properly oriented for um for indirect sunlight into that space the next slide shows again if you if you were to carefully flip them back and forth you could see that that that exterior wall has come in board a little bit about 4 feet it it
104again maintains a size to the art room that's in line with the other elementary schools um and the benefit is now it creates a little bit more of a plaza area on the exterior that could also be used um at certain times the year for for outside instruction and then if we move on to the next slide again it's an orientation slide for where these subsequent views are taken these are the small group instruction spaces so a couple of things were changed here if if with this view you can see that um there's a there's a door an entry door on either side and there's a a solid column in the middle and a track overhead that's because this was originally conceived of as a small group group instruction room that could be subdivided after
105a little bit more careful study during design development and actually looking at the individual spaces it was determined that that wasn't necessary wasn't advantageous and so if you flip to the next slide you'll see that one of those doors is removed the the partition is removed that the amount of glass is reduced slightly some shelving is added these are these are changes that were made that actually reduced cost and bring the space this this particular space as an example more in line with what the program demands the next two slides are a similar view of uh of other small group rooms again you have two doors a partition and full height glass the next slide shows one door removal of the partition and and the introduction of some additional shelving um this is again a
106a space that's looking directly across the lobby to the outside so we wanted to make sure we were drawing that natural light and view through additional views on the next few slides this is a space identified as as the gifted room the original view with if you notice for instance that the glass goes to the ceiling and there's open shelving below the next following slide shows a sopit in reduced up high the case work's a little bit taller and and it was desired for that to be enclosed so reduction in the amount of glass there but not really affecting the uh the experience of the space then uh the next slide is is we're looking at the library just showing you where that view is taken from so we have the original Library View there
107view number seven so you'll see again um expansive tall glass Beyond and then the the the subsequent slide shows that exterior wall pulled in just a bit the some reduction in that in that exterior glazing again we just played with the architectural features of the elevation um but as the design moves forward we would Advance this um to to place some detail on the on the design again the size of the collection would not be impacted by this and then if we move on to the next slides we're I looking at the at the classroom Corridor width as an example here's a view that shows so that was reduced by um by by one foot from from uh 10 foot to to 9 foot the following slide shows the impact of bringing that stair Tower
108uh into the building so you can you see that we can still have a design that um includes uh basically a laminated glass Riser that still allows the light to come through but reduces the square footage substantially so this would be what the lower level would look like uh the upper level not shown but that would have no effect because this the there's no flight of stairs above um but you can also see here that we made some changes we reduced the ceiling height a little bit in this node where the classroom doors exit together but again still lots of natural light and Views to the outside all right so that concludes the building interior we're now looking at the building exterior so if we uh look at that previous slide sorry for just a
109moment we'll see that same chart where we identified a recommended reduction of almost 1.5 million 1.4 in change identified alternates of just over 34 of a million for a total recommended and Alternate reduction of 2 .18 almost $2.2 million and similarly on the following slide there's the breakdown so each of these items is identified with its corresponding piece of the reduction you'll again see recommended alternates and not recommended we're beginning to introduce some renderings and and more will will come as the design progresses but this is the overall view of the exterior of the building as you would approach and um so you can see the we had previously the Sawtooth roof uh scheme for for over the classroom Wings which you would see beyond and if we go to the next slide there's there's
110a number of of changes here that you can see um the parit walls and those um those uh shed roof Ro elements are reduced and we're uh utilizing a mechanical equipment screen on the roof very common solution in in school construction and um we've we've you can also see some development on the leand side of the elevation there we're we're adding some uh some weight and some looking at the composition of that elevation in architectural terms so we've actually taken away a lot of parapet wall and reintroduced just a a little bit to help with that and that is happens to be the the wellness end of the the classroom with with the with the kindergarten and that would be the exit where the kindergarteners would would go to their playground if the next slide
111is a little bit of a of a of an enlargement this is again A View that you've seen before approaching the main entrance to the building I draw your attention in particular to the canopy and the the shed roof over mass of the um the multi-purpose room and then if you go to the next slide you can see that the length of that canopy is slightly reduced that we're conceiving as being an alternate rather than an outright removal so again depending on the uh the the results of the bidding we could bring that canopy uh extension back in and the the the size of the multi-purpose room again is is slightly smaller here as you can see but the architectural features the natural light is still very evident as a virtue of that space if
112we look at the next slide this is the opposite side of the building this is the view that that you've seen with those um with the shed roof elements over the classroom wing and you can also see how the stair towers are are are exterior to the building if you go to the next slide you can see how the parit and that shed roof element have been eliminated the the stair Tower is more tucked into the building but yet we still have that that glassy end there um you'll see as in the foreground there's we're starting to develop that PL ground area you can see how there is some slope down that the the children in the rendering there are traversing the accessible path down to the playground elevation to the left on the building
113itself you can see the library and art room elevations and how there's a little less glass on the exterior but still abundant light and then on the far left you'll see we're beginning to develop that ramp that Prov provides an accessible pathway down from the upper level where the cafeteria and the gymnasium are to the playground area that's going to go undergo some additional um development it's it's it's a little bit um undeveloped at this point but you'll notice that the stair is removed so the cost reduction was associated with removing the stair so this hearkens back to the philosophy that we had at the high school which was um you know take the ramp and so the ramp can be used by everyone the stairs cannot so we opted to retain the ramp and
114and eliminate the stairs and so again as the design development or the design develops Beyond this phase into construction documents we would look to try to blend that into the landscape a little bit better so then moving on to the mechanical electrical and plumbing there's that that line item again where between the um the recommended and Alternate values we have identified $900,000 worth of reductions the following page is an itemization of that that also does include one thing that we did not recommend it's hard to show pretty pictures of this so I apologize to our our mechanical and electrical and plumbing friends but uh we'll move on to the site work and so this is identifying between the recommended and the alternates there in that column a reduction of $997,000 and um we should have
115the okay we have the other slide first first which is this is we will look at the site in a moment but this is a a summation of the um scope and uh Rue engering options for the uh for the site work and then at the bottom is the is the soft cost associated with that then if you move on to this plan where this is the development of the site as it exists now so this is much further along this is what site logic has been able to to really put pen to paper on and so a few things to draw your attention to here one of the reductions in sort of the top center of the image was there was a desire if if the budget would support it to improve the existing
116multi-purpose field on the site and make it a regulation field for uh u12 soccer um and so that the the field would stay but those improvements have been eliminated from the project something potentially down the road but not able to be supported by the by the budget at this time and then um you can see also then that the playground that sort of kidney bean shaped uh terracotta color that that's begin to develop as you saw in the in the renderings we've developed um some some retaining wall features on the on the leftand side of the plan there that's a desire to soften that area where there's where there's a an amount of fill that needs to be brought in um and then we're also identifying the areas of storm water management very important in
117the design of the site how do we manage the storm water and so we've they are being depicted now as as surface basins we are are also looking at the opportunity to put those underground and the cost that would be associated with that so again as the design moves forward we can we can um bring that forward as as a possibility and then ascertain what the impact on the budget would be and and what other decisions that that might involve what I can what I can say is that um no matter what solution is determined we would do our best to make those things um blend with the landscape to be uh to be manageable there's maintenance associated with it whether it's above ground or below ground so we would work to for the design
118to mitigate those ongoing costs to the district but that's something that we're looking forward to and then also you'll see the smaller kidney bean between the building and the the existing tennis courts which remain those were identified as a community resource that that uh needed to be retained contained and that is a dedicated kindergarten classroom I'm sorry kindergarten playground right outside the kindergarten classrooms and then we're also improving that area overall with a A pathway that provides an accessible means to the tennis courts to that kindergarten playground and um so that that's an that's an overall Improvement to the site Okay so um with that I'll turn it back over to Damen to round it out that really just brings us back to the process that we're undertaking here tonight and the fact that this
119is the second in a series of four meetings that meant to bring the design the cost to go with the design the options for efficiencies to reduce costs and really to get us to a place where we collect can collectively say we like this design with the caveat set forth by the board through this process with two more meetings to go to get us to a place where you will be able to in June at this board meeting a month from now say we can vote on whether to proceed with a design with design development into construction documents and then set those budgets including that act 34 limit thank you for your attention there's been lots of work that has gone into putting all this together and we appreciate so very much that you've given
120it this much thought and time for for us be happy to take questions thank you both very much I this is not a fun part of the process but I appreciate you trying to remind us it is part of the process I have one small comment I I apparently am much older than everybody who sits on the facilities committee when you uh or my progressives just need updating when you do charts like this like spreadsheets can you make that fun legible because not all of us are looking at this on a screen where we can enlarge it and I'm I'm not the oldest person on this board but but I just think it's helpful to be able to read some of this um and I have a lot of questions but I'm sure other people
121have questions um does anybody and I could be the only one who has questions Lydia is laughing nobody has to have questions I just want to make sure I'm giving opportunities I'll look over there next go ahead I don't have any questions um I like all the changes that you made I'm pleased that you're saving us this much money and I can hardly tell what you've removed and I still think it's beautiful so I'd like this better thank thank you Lydia Sorry Miss Solomon anybody on this side of the room have any questions I know a number of you on facilities you've probably had your questions asked asked and answer I just have one question um thank you both so much but the slide 37 and 38 the difference in the hallway um in the
122corridor I'm having trouble visualizing you said nine 10 feet to 9 feet so and there's kind of like the narrow part of the hallway Corridor and then the wide part what where's the 9 ft great question um I think I misspoke I think it's 8 feet but that's only at the area between those nodes in the plan so it actually enlarges substantially where the doors themselves are so it's only that that section between the classroom doors okay so it's not this way it's this way is that it's the width right from one side of the hallway to the other could we pull slide 37 up number 37 yeah thank you this was interesting when we worked together on it because we we said what's happening at pinch points what's happening where there's lots of kids
123flowing in ETC so we we were pretty thoughtful about that to the point where kind we were in this room having discussion and would look at the quarter outside and start to imagine that I know I know it doesn't it's it's temperamental thank you sorry yep so if you when when 37 comes up if you you pay attention to that that little spot where the young gentleman is standing that's the narrow spot right so this between the camera and him is is the doors to the class so that's that's on the order of of 12 feet there okay 1311 yeah and so if you go to 38 yeah thanks so and then so then okay so it's 13 ft the where the classroom doors are and then when you go back towards the back of
124the building there that's where it becomes 8 ft correct the back of the hallway and then in this next slide go ahead to thank the next slide that's the wider View and then if you look at this and we chose this because this is the condition where the stairs within that that 8 foot it actually does have to widen out there slightly because the stair is greater than 8T from an egress standpoint but nominally speaking but so that um you you would go around that lower flight of stairs to get out through the doors that go out to the playground but we're in ending to to keep that that that flight of stairs as transparent as possible to light let light through but if you imagine then going up that flight to the upper level
125you have no Rising flight next to you so it would be wide open so if you think about it in terms of this is the the worst case condition from a from a from a transparency standpoint what's the measurement between the staircase and the wall um that would be in excess of 4T fet probably 4 and 1/2 ft which doesn't sound like a lot if you're moving lines of kids right yeah so the staircas is how wide about four feet is the staircase right the thinking about that was that whenever somebody's going through that we're going one way we're either going everybody's either going outside or everybody's either coming inside there that's kind of oneway traffic at any given moment right where you're seeing that I I think that's a good concern to have but
126we did talk about that a little bit because really at any at any time either everybody's going out or everybody's coming in is that the case though well no again this isn't the there's a there's a central staircase this is not the central staircase this is the staircase at the end of um what we call the keys or the finger it's not the central staircase is the central St staircase that's a wider staircase sure and there's there's lots of circulation around it okay yes this would this is there's there's three of these one at the end of each classroom Wing So it there's a lot of dispersion to the number of students between these but is can I just something is that is is this the key access point to the to the playground not
127necessarily no so this isn't where they'd be exiting from the cafeteria or the gym after lunch to go out this isn't where they'd be exiting from the main lobby going out this is where they'd either be coming in or going out from a classroom whether that's to the playground or to the courtyards that are between the classroom wings so it's it it in our conversations with Administration this was not deemed to be a a detrimental pinch point from a from an everyday use of the facility and generally speaking our classes at the alementary level move in single file lines um and you know we're actually very organized the way move around the building um maybe for a point of reference for next month I mean I'm just thinking Wayne staircase I'm just curious how how
128wide is Wayne staircase on either side as a point of reference and you might have identified something that's not on our chart um we we will find out I was just trying to think something that was similar and in my mind it seems like the Wayne staircase is probably only around 4T it doesn't feel very large to me but that that's my guess too but we'll we'll double check can I ask just while we're on that point uh because that that view I think is helpful so these are primarily you'd be using this for emergency exit to go out that route or if a teacher is taking students outside it's not right um that staircase is open which I appreciate is designed to bring in light do we have safety concerns about it being open
129it's it's it's no more open than then a regular egress stair those those risers would have and and you might have seen this different places where there it's actually like a laminated glass I heard you say laminate and I wasn't sure so but that's going to require special maintenance or or custodial services to make sure they don't scratch those when they're cleaning I I don't I don't glass in the building right right but they're not putting waxing machines on the glass I just would worry I just want to make sure if we're doing something like that that the cost to us to maintain that and it doesn't get ruined the first time we have somebody subbing in who hasn't cleaned those stairs before and they run a so so the something what you're talking about
130is when when if this is a stair tread and there's a little bit of a turn up at the back of the stair tread where the Riser is so that there's nothing bumping up against this and scratching it yeah that can be taken care of in the details I can tell you the first time I saw this I went we're doing what on the stair on the stair risers now so we've been thinking about this a little bit and that's a really good point to to be able to do that so that we're not creating scuff marks along the bottom where your feet hit yeah I mean that yeah that's exactly other thing the kids come in with Muddy shoes and they're kicking it or they come in you know some kind of sharp edge
131on their toes there there would be just a little bit of a toe kick there okay that would be necessary to support the glass quite frankly okay okay sorry I anybody else sure I do Sarah when everybody else is done I was getting too Susan I promise go ahead Miss La um so I agree with Miss Solomon you know I'm quite pleased with the recommended savings especially with respect to the interior um I do miss the ex the original or the previous exterior profile of the building I think it largely has to do with the slanted roofs like I really feel like that gives it a really Dynamic profile um but so I guess my question with respect to the exterior recommended savings are those purely Aesthetics or are we also sacrificing quality with respect
132to the recommended items because I guess I don't fully understand what they are um in some cases sure so um they were not purely aesthetic um we were utilizing those shed roof volumes to have the mechanical equip that you see surrounded by the roof screen that was actually going to be inside so there was there was a benefit um a slight benefit to the probably the life uh the life cycle of that equipment and protecting of it there's certainly plenty of uh to the equipment versus the cost of the construction of that volume was was determined to not provide enough value to justify it um yeah so so I think you know my personal preference is you know the interior changes I think are quite subtle you can barely notice them at least according to
133the pictures that are shown um with the exterior those changes are quite dramatic and if there's you know a reason if we're also getting a qualitative addition right I I know you made kind of the cost benefit analysis and came on the side of you know it not being worth it but would take a harder look at those recommended um changes um more so than I would the interior which I think are a greater savings anyway that's just my personal opinion and maybe that's a good question for you know you shared with us already what are what could be potential alternates at bid time some things fit for alternates some things don't make sense to be an alternate does a roof and the design of a roof fit to be something as a as as
134a potential alternate or do if it doesn't make sense and that unfortunately not yeah just because of the number of Trades and the structural modifications and so forth I'd like to say yes but unfortunately in this case excuse me hadn't we already taken the Mechanicals out of the roof I thought that happened like several months ago that that that was part of value engineering that I heard we were going to move we started to look at moving them out onto the flat roof and flattening the roof one of the other reasons that we had any sloped roof at all was that we like the idea of the sloped roof it's not a flat roof and even though flat roofs drain they're still more or less flat as opposed to being slop so there those were
135the two benefits really um part of what came down to for us and and and really for me was when I look at that act 34 buffer and I say what what is this doing for anything other than mostly aesthetic I I don't have an answer and you know I'm I'm one of those I get more out of what I what I feel in the house than when I'm looking at my house driving into it so we looked at that and said for the cost of that in that act 34 buffer consideration this is was a Target and it was it was a tough conversation to have I'm gonna ask a questions just since you brought up the actor for buffer because that was on my list I guess in your experience is a $2.6
136million buffer enough cuz that's that seems low to me in a project this size to to be frank the project that we just bid in our awarding did not have that buffer it relied on the alternates to get it under act 34 and the bid results were about 5% under under the estimate so in my I I feel comfortable with that however you know on the if there some reason that there's a bad bid day then you have that Consequence the opposite is a good bid day so the opposite is we under budget by an extra million and a half dollars and I come in and Mrs giron says to me or I'm sorry Mrs L says I could have had the sloped roofs that because that's happened to me where we took something out
137because we were concerned about budget so I I am comfortable with it and there's there's there's still a little bit more um area to move within that but I am comfortable with it as it sits now what's our our experience sorry our experience as of late have not been that estimates come in below mean right now you shared a very nice story in the facilities meeting can you share that again because I mean I would hope that's a situation but if it's not and I guess what's our recourse if we end up at bidday and it's over over our buffer I'm trying to understand what that looks like so before we because we have to do this process again we get extraordinarily uh thoughtful about what that recourse is is there something that gets cut
138out is there a design change that we can make and we typically do that during construction documents what will happen here for our act 34 hearing is interesting in any districts and and before covid and the inflation that we've encountered an act 34 limit would be set and it's was usually higher than a budget now we're seeing districts that want to spend more on the building than the ACT 34 will allow them to spend so that tells us we're just going to set our limit right at the ACT 34 number so really the recourse is if if the final uh information that comes in from the general contractor and the electrical contractor saying some of this is site work and the rest of it is building because that's that's a determination that happens later and
139typically happens um in in favor of what the school district's trying to do because contractors tend to put more money in site work because they get paid for the site work first if you understand why they would do that and so there's a there's a little bit there but our our real reaction if those those things don't work are is going to be redesigned very quickly rebid very quickly and what just to give you a little bit of Solace because I I've I've shared the feeling that I think I'm seeing you have in in construction documents as we're doing now we're looking at what is our cost per square foot what is it at that P project I just talked to you about for the building and how does it compare and does that Mak
140sense that this building is a little bit more expensive than that building given what's in it and where we are and we're already looking at that so I'd love to have much lots more buffer but there's a limit to what I think is appropriate for us to take out and typically because our estimates are catching up and in eclipsing inflation now because that's happening I'm feeling better about this honestly than I felt in four years Miss LA and then I'm G to let Miss Stern ask her questions but if other people have questions just yeah I was just gonna suggest um um in response to miss Duffy's question um is another potential recourse the items in Orange um the not recommended items right because you you did the consideration bucket it's big for a reason
141and I'm guessing not all of these are no-brainers some of these orange items are actually close calls and they would I would look to them first right if we are in that unfortun situation um you know so maybe that's another potential recourse rather than you know like yes like a complete you know in the case where um where a project is Bid and a district doesn't uh wasn't planning to afford that much or didn't desire to afford that much and and I'm I don't remember the last time oh I I can it happened once in N sham over covid prices came in and um the district wanted to have I forget if it was a full rebid or partial rebid when you have the knowledge of where those numbers are in your building and what's
142costing what before the rebid occurs we have we collaborate with the contractors and we understand oh oh this is costing a lot of money we're going to modify that design and take some cost out so the while while I never want to see anybody bid anything more than twice and I don't want to see bids twice but sometimes it happens there's some value to it because you get to see really what the market is bearing for those things and so not only would we look to those items in red first but we would look to some discussions like that to help guide us as to what we could change and still keep our program Mrs Stern would you like to ask your questions at this point yes I would thank you sure um thank you
143for helping me understand the um the Excel spreadsheet better appreciate that I don't think I have a good understanding of the things that you didn't recommend making in terms of changes but maybe I don't really need to understand those I I do want to say this in the context of um I did not vote for this building uh a year ago year and a half ago whenever the big vote was uh I I I sincerely thought that we were we should have been building on the spot where the current ex where the existing Elementary School is and that we should be trying to take the kids out of the building and build on the on the property where where the existing building is um seeing $12 million in site work is not helping me feel
144any better about that and I know that we had conversations and we kind of said it laughingly but we kind of said it seriously to know that we spent a ton of money to take dirt off of the property at the high school knowing or believing that we might need it over at Ean and now to have to spend money to bring dirt in is is a really um hard pill for me to swallow um specifically about the changes you're proposing for this I share some of Miss L's um concerns about the changes to the outside of the building but I share them for a slightly different reason and and this was part of why I voted against this building um I thought that the parapets uh or the the pitched roofs I thought part
145of that was to bring light into the building that was going to shed down through I thought it was going to shed down through the stairwells and bring some light to the to the to the ground floor that's below grade so I'm concerned that in going to a flat roof where some of the very concerns I had about the bottom floor being dark are going to be exacerbated but I might be wrong about that maybe that light was only going to go to the top floor but I I did think it was all like a kind of a trickle down effect well the top floor was going to be lighter and we're going to have these Big Bright Walls on on you know both ends because we were going to have the um we were
146going to have those um those window wells but now we're not going to have the window wells and I'm concerned we're going to have a really a much darker ground floor than than the 54 vote that got us this building because it was not overwhelming support now I don't know what this board is going to say about the building but there was not overwhelming support for this building for a variety of reasons um but that's one of my concerns about going to this flat roof the other concern I have about the cost well look it two years ago when we voted to make this build to to Ren to uh build a new Ethan this building was supposed to cost us somewhere around $57 million that was the June 21st 2022 feasibility study back of
147the envelope estimate that that Mr Barons told us not not you know we couldn't be held to and I'm not holding him to that it's just and I still stand by even today even in this price that building a new school is the right decision so I don't want anybody to misconstrue that particularly because if we were even to consider renovation which I don't think we should we would have to move the children off of the property and I was my understanding that was a whole big reason about why we shouldn't be building on the existing site is that it would mean moving the children off of the property you can't do the kind of extensive I apologize there's a 2-year-old in the background who doesn't want to go to sleep um but that that
148there was a um you know the whole reason that we were doing this alternate site location instead of rebuilding right on the existing footprint a bigger building on the existing footprint had to do with the expense and the difficulty of moving kids off of the property and I don't think that we could do the kind of massive renovation to Ean the of the existing building um without moving the the the children off property and I want to be really clear I don't support that idea $73 million is a big number and separate from act 34 it's a big number and it's $17 million more than what we back of the envelope talked about just two years ago so I'm concerned about how much more is this going to go up by the time you're actually
149bidding in a year and a half that that's one part of my financial concern around this um I I agree that the interior changes don't seem to be dramatic uh with the exception of the stairwells and I would be I personally would be curious to know where you did the square footage reduction if you were to break out the cost of the square footage reduction of those of those wall of those those stairwell Towers at the ends of the buildings what that savings would be um the reason I say that has to do with concerns other board members already mentioned about not only the look of the stairs inside which is a very different look but that the the width that you lose in the stair in those stairwell hallways um down the ends of
150the Halls so uh I'd be curious to know what that square footage reduction specifically of those three pieces are those three ends are saving us um the other thing that I recall being a big con conversation and I serve on the steering committee and we've had these conversations is I don't have a good sense of if this $73 million how much of this glass is built into that because I think there's been a big outstanding question you know we have all this desire and vision of all this glass in different areas um being an integral part of the plan that's going to bring nature inside and is going to you know mitigate the the being downstairs in terms of the light and I think all along there's been an underlying question well we'll have to
151see how much of that that glass we can afford to do and so the value engineering that you did where you where you made some of the windows smaller are not dramatic changes and I I'm okay with the fact that they're not dramatic changes what I'm concerned about is I didn't have the understanding that how much of this glass we could definitely afford to do in the bidding anyway and that the amount of glass we might have to cut might be pretty even more significant than what you're proposing in this value engineering um that's all layered under a question that I have for Mr Pauling as it relates to tonight's budget which is uh I'm going to mention it now so he can think about it because I'm sure he's listening carefully we we we
152may we have an an administrative recommendation of a particular tax increase that is addressing borrowing a certain amount of this building a certain amount of this um Debt Service into our budget over a certain period of time and if we move forward with this building at this price The Debt Service will now be larger and I I have the corlar concern not only that we're spending more but that our debt service will be more and our is Mr Pauling still prepared to say that he's comfortable with our tax increase and that he'll have the time he needs to build the additional Debt Service into the budget now that's not for you two to answer I'm saying so he can give that some thought before we have our our budget vote uh a little later this
153evening um I I I listen this is not a this is what I'm about to say is not a surprise to Dr Bachelor because I mentioned it to him there is a part of me that feels like we need to stop and pull together a very similar building uh in terms of the components and put it where the existing Ethan is and not spend $12 million on site on site work that that that because that was a concern I shared a couple of years ago I mean there was there was lots of things when I voted against this and the grading and all all sorts of things um you know and I'm not looking to stop this but I am really concerned that as rapidly as this has gone from 57 to 69 to I
154know you guys brought it down from what like 78 to 73 we're still over a year out from you know or quite a ways out from bidding this and it just seems to be escalating I I do appreciate the last thing you said Mr um spars right before this but I've not seen it going that way so far um I am curious the building that just went to bid in the middle of the state what was their per square foot cost because ours seems to be in the southeast of PA escalating you know ridiculously quickly it was uh $410 a square foot approximately slightly smaller building than this and how much do you have us budgeted for right now I I think we're closer to 420 or 425 I'd have to do the math on
155that Mrs Stern okay but I will for you and I don't I don't have to you know we're not taking a vote tonight but I I am concerned about this building for all the reasons that I just said and I'm concerned about the cost and I still think we should be building uh rather than renovating I you know I can't state that clearly enough but um I think we can take some of the things that you've expressed and uh work with the administration and come back to the facilities committee with some information not only about what happens when we're going out to bid a little over well say six or eight months from now but why we have more confidence around the numbers that we have now and what those costs per square foot are
156I think we can um we can put some narrative behind that so we can have a robust discussion at the next meeting if you'd like I I I mean I'll I'll leave that to you and the administration to discuss but when you say six to eight months we're not going out to bid before we complete Land Development right uh as of right now we are planning on going out to bid at the tail end of Land Development which is typically typically we've been doing you say six to nine months November de eight or nine months is what I think you said so I'm I'm hearing in that I'm I'm in ing from that that you believe Land Development will take about eight months I think we're expecting if you look at that schedule slide Land
157Development really comes to its conclusion sometime in January is right but you don't have you don't have verification yet from the township whether or not we have to go to zoning first for slope relief right we we have met with the township several times um going through a number of due diligence items zoning is one of those and yes we're preparing um for uh potential uh uh conversations there around around steep slopes okay all righty um that's really all I wanted to to say and kind of ask and and mention tonight and I I did remember this a similar conversation about we we did something with the Mechanicals we put them inside the we put them inside and it I believe a few months ago so now they're going back outside and they're going to
158have screening around them is that the is that the new plan with this flat roof yes that's correct and I'll I'll go back to that roof question if I may the um when we had the the shed roof or the slanted roof um at first we were thinking about the light that would it would would bring in we realized at that time then it would only bring light into the top hallways of each of the three classroom wings and then we started to understand the details of uh the height that you were going to have inside and and the expense and I don't I wasn't I don't think at that time we could we were bringing the Mechanicals inside and we decided instead of bringing light in we could bring Mechanicals in was that is
159that am I getting that right Steve or you want to amend no I think that was I think I think you're right because I think we talked about the concern around further decreasing the light I I appreciate that background it doesn't help me feel better about the the lack of light on some of the Interior rooms on the ground floor um I think Mrs Stern what you were remembering there correctly was there was a light well along the front of the building that was not bringing in very much light so we um went to the inside of the building and we moved some rooms around so that rooms that didn't require as much light were in that first floor Corridor and then we looked at the the light that we could get from the corridor
160and from the back side of the building to solve that problem so you're you're remembering that correctly too there was a light well up front that's not there that was taken out earlier in design development though well just a few few months ago no I know that yeah uh the last thing I want to say is um I don't want to see above ground uh storm storm water retention basins I'm not I I mean I think I'm making myself pretty clear about how I feel about the whole thing but I for sure don't want to see that um and thank you I I I do know that you all are working really hard on on this um thank you thank you Mrs Stern Miss Rosen did you have a question about the soccer field no
161I think it use your microphone sorry I think you may have cleared can you hear me yeah okay um I just when I was looking through this I wanted clarification on that non uh or the $2 million in the site work that wasn't recommended but I think is that the soccer field no the soccer field was recommended it was I think one of the things we this will explain that we were not afraid to look at everything part of the $2 million in the site workor I believe one was the geothermal wellfield so we looked at that and we did not bring that forward that was 1.5 million I think part of the exterior too was the ramp which was about 400,000 so those are the two things that we are aware that the board
162is very interested in that were not brought forth in the site work okay and then there there was just one other question question with the flat roof is it still somewhat pitched so that it avoids leaks is that yes okay the the insulation is relatively thick to meet building code now and so there's a base of insulation that if you imagine in in in a cross-section it's it's just a rectangle and then there are triangles that are pitched or tapered insulation that run to drain so if if you go on a roof you would be able to see how that is it's not anything at all like a sloped roof but but it it is pitched and it it does run to a drain it's not at all completely flat okay um there's one other
163thing no actually two other things the I'm with Jamie Jamie um when when we look to making changes and reducing things let's reduce things for for the function and and not as so much for the Aesthetics I do agree with um Miss Solomon I do like the plan better um my kids went to Ean and it is a really humble warm School so I appreciate you know the you know going into the future and and making it more modern um I don't mind the flat roof I like it the way it is um and and the gym I I would pre I don't know if we necessarily need all that light in the gym based on what they're going to be doing in there it would be interesting to hear from the gym teachers how
164much light that they actually like in that in that room um because I think I mentioned before I think at the high school they actually the basketball player don't prefer that light that comes through those windows up on the top because it affects the foul shots at a certain time of the day um so when you look to reducing the square footage in there I wonder if there's another way to reduce costs in that area so that maybe we could still have a little bit more space in there um I think that's it I I think that Topic's going to come up again um M Mr Dr bobson did you have something well I'm going to be very brief not only has everyone pretty much said more or less things that I would have said
165um I can just hit a few things quickly I I think there were some interior spaces that I liked better in the original uh I think it was my so my iPad battery's dead and then it's a little jumpy on my phone so I'm just trying to remember um so I like the library originally and I like the IDS room and the gifted room those three rooms I kind of likeed better in the original design but I thought the art room exemplifies like how you can um make some Savings in terms of the the engineering cost of design cost and it looks it looks looks good um now as a parent of Radner elementary kids either former or current I'm pretty sensitive to the idea of light in buildings um some of you may know
166this uh there is just not a lot of light in that building so but um Miss Rosen Bloom I I like the point that you made earlier about the current um let's say feel the design the the connection between the design and how space kind of feels and how people move through it there is a certain warmth to the Ean uh space perhaps uh it's hard to it's intangible it's hard to put your finger on it so there is that sort of you know you want light in the space but you don't want it to be too kind of Aer or angular whatever you want to call it um in terms of the roof I also kind of like the the sloped roof you know for the drainage issues but also um just the light
167issue and maybe aesthetically as well um I believe um Miss Stern addressed some of the issues that contributed to my vote a couple years ago which was similar to hers um at the same time I I think that in order to to build a school in our district where we have high standards that is going to last a certain amount of time you know there is a certain budgetary reality but um but I also I I always appreciate Miss Stern's thoughts on on certain aspects of these projects because her attention to details I defer to her um to her Superior I think grasp on some of those details so that's it for now thank you thank you Dr Babson Miss Duffy okay um I'm going to Echo in terms of the internal um changes into
168the reduction of the glass I actually was nervous because I did think that that's kind of the the light and the glass are at the heart of the design but I actually think from a practicality standpoint when you actually look at what those interior classrooms look like the storage and the ability to display um I I think there're almost improvements um how however I'm questioning just some thoughts on by removing the partitions are we decreasing our ability to be flexible with those spaces which is one of you know our goals moving into the project was the flexibility of the spaces so um that that's a concern and I I think you whispered to me like there's one door now so not without two doors are we limiting that again so no partition no dual access
169where we could divide the classroom so that to me is instruction you know so um another kind of I I'm going to Echo I I I'm I'm good with the library and the the art room how you reduce those but I'm still struggling with reducing the gym and primarily because our gym is also our Auditorium and I just no that's our primary Gathering space and if anyone's gone to any event at your Elementary School we know that's at a premium so I just like to think really hard about that space it doesn't seem like a much but when you've got standing room only on already on some events it just seems like kind of very sacred and it yes it frustrates me that act 34 does not consider that instructional space so but that's the
170reality that we live in so um terms of I think I've add the other pieces I've covered I guess the other piece that's new and we never really got into in our facility meeting was um Stone water um this Stone water retention area and I just question like I'd love to see a picture of what you're talking about so that I understand what that looks like they're talking about the ugly storm water basins like we have along Lancaster Avenue along the trail that collects trash mosquitoes and weeds so so and I and so that's her positive picture that's her that's the that's the unbiased I'm not sure we're talking about exactly that this the way I understand that that's not maintained by the school so the school maintains things in a pretty fashion but but
171I do think I do think since the facilities meeting they provided all these visuals that was very helpful for us to see that so just I think having that visual of what that looks like and you know I heard you say bring those Underground love that idea it sounds super expensive and I can't we get an estimate now because if we're going to hate what they look like and we know where that's going to be the reality I think you know yeah we we're it just seems like something that we can absolutely get an estimate of absolutely can we're we're doing it now because I think that's a reality that that's something that I think we need to deal with now and not Kick the Can because um um and then um just one other
172thing about the I had mentioned this in the um in the facilities meeting you know the idea that when we take that canopy back we lose kind of outdoor instruction space and I'm just referring back that we just did this with Radner Elementary we heard loud and clear like from the community that that it's very valued I guess we'll see how much they use it but you know is that worth the reduction like should we be continuing that or is there another opportunity and maybe this is another phase to build some kind of canopy I know I'm adding something here but but but just some kind of what there's there's a plaza space they've added out back a plaz but there's no roof no there's no covering on the Plaza they have a hel yeah
173yeah we so M Mr Morris has constructed at a project that we're working at for his old school district there there are sun shades so there are steel poles and and then a fabric sun shade and that's on the site so it does cost money but it's it's site work Believe It or Not canopies start to get they become part of the building oh PD another nice PD role is canopies you know or building pieces so we're thoughtful about reducing that canopy but it's an alternate so if we want to afford that on bidday we afford the whole thing but there's a really good option to do something a little different to get you shading not terribly expensive but sh you're talking about with three poles and a sale a shade sale that's what I'm
174talking about that would be site work that would be okay okay and then since we just said the site work this is a great segue I mean we just I had mentioned this in the facility meeting um and kind of talking to what Miss Stern said it was said when we approved this building that you know this was the best place to put this building that if if you had to pick any place you would pick this now you have site C site work costs that are much larger than we anticipated and I guess you know your answer again maybe again for the rest of the board on whether you'd still place the building exactly where it is given the cost of the site work and then I guess maybe what would be helpful and
175maybe help M and if we are going to assuming we're I would imagine even if we knocked this building down and we built a new building I mean we built this building more on the existing site the N the very nature that we're building a much bigger building we would have a lot of we would have site costs so is it really what are we really what additional costs are we really incurring so I don't want this fantasy that if we had knocked down the building and rebuilt on the exact existing side and I am not arguing for this and that would CA a ton of relocating children and renting space and all that would just seems to me Monumental um and very costly but I guess the question we still have significant site costs
176and is there is there any way you can contextualize that or give some sense and I'm not saying right now but maybe moving forward to ease some of those concerns say you know that's the that's the nature of the property and the real estate we have one of the reasons that Steve and I was watching him closely when that discussion happened last week because I I wanted to see how emphatic he was but one of the reasons that I really agreed with his emphasis was there are several things that are going to that make that endeavor expensive and one of them is if as you said the building's going to be bigger and you're going to you're going to build it here we still need bus loops and all the improvements that you really don't
177have at the existing Ean now and it's going to cause more sight work or it's going to cause us to still push down the hill to make room for something so even if we didn't come and build right back on the space but we built partly on the space and pushed away we'd still have site work down the hill a little bit we'd still have other things to do on top of the hill so and we'd still have all the storm water management because when Ethan was built you didn't have those storm water management regulations and in fact we want to build this building now because we're under the old regulations and when the new regulations come out we're going to need more volume in either underground or storm water detention so we we can
178contextualize that a little bit we'll talk together but um I I think it's a very important question and a good question but for those for some of us that have been through that and and can see all all those costs and you know we don't even need to get into design probably and and escalation for an extra year but if we take those things out you'll start to see that there's a good chunk of cost for for the site that's it thanks thank you and thank you for covering the board thanks you for covering so many of my questions as well um I I do want to say I I really appreciate all the work you've done here and and as much as I rib you about some of these things I um I do
179appreciate that you're trying to be fiscally responsible which is Our obligation as well um within the con constraints of the law and also get us a building we like um I would point out as Miss Duffy did that that one of our goals though is flexibility for future growth and and I say this and Dr bachelor's heard me complain about it too many times but I haven't done it in a while in the I had two children in raden elementary three years apart and the difference in their experiences and the difference in my experience as a parent for each of them was dramatically different because as the population of that building Rose dramatically we started having to turn pods into classrooms children were in classrooms without windows we suddenly and some of this was security
180but like there used to be a holiday singalong and all the parents were invited well suddenly you couldn't invite the parents because there wasn't space there was barely space for people to everyone who wanted to come to come see the musical you know that we and we would have three or four four shows and people couldn't all come because it was standing room only you'd end up with fire code concerns and and that wasn't a population that is apparently too large for that building that's a separate conversation but the you know you had almost 600 kids in that building at some point don't am I over it was a 575 590 it was pretty high and this building is supposed to hold more kids and my I understand you know this is a community that
181is going to control class sizes so an art room that's slightly smaller and better organized I get it that's that's going to fit the same number of kids every time and the same with a library ideally but the gym is a community space I think Mr micholas was here and pointed that out and it's a community space for the building itself we don't have to bring in the basketball team to say that that the Ean Community will want to use that for Gathering spaces so I do worry about that and when I look at the numbers um it it looks like it's saving us $200,000 now maybe that's not really it because putting it back in adds Architects fees and some other but if it's really $200,000 that to me is a real loss um
182so I I just would point that out um from from the earlier comments we're going to go look and see what we can do to okay bring because that seems to be the of everybody we've heard if there's a space you want to bring back you want to bring back the gym space and you want other options for what can we do to save that money somewhere else and as and it's it isn't that it's only $200,000 $200,000 is something that you can find somewhere else it's not insurmountable so we're going to look at that okay and this is me being a I'm happier with the shorter canopy my apologies to Dr boand Who I know really cares very much about the longer one but you know she's retiring so she won't have to suffer
183through the shorter canopy but I I will point out because you keep saying it's an alternate on your slide on on um slide 13 it's actually not listed as an ultimate oh do we have it as a as a oh no it wasn't that shoot it was uh it's not slide 13 that's interior it's slide 40 yeah you have it as a recommended change okay we we can make that an alternate thank you I do think thanks for pointing I think it makes sense to have it as an alternate um since a lot of people do seem to prefer it um I continue to have concerns uh on slide 38 about that staircase not so much somewhat because of the space but it it is notably darker and I can't tell like when I look
184at slides 37 and 38 I actually think oh my gosh did they just put a different color paint on the walls because that looks industrial dark and the other one looks bright white and cheery and I so if that's really just a lighting change then I think that's a point for the Comm for the board to understand how dark that looks so I just would ask you when you're doing your illustrations to go back and double check there's this is really what you're going to see on the first floor yeah or the ground floor with the slide previous it's not exactly what you're going to see upstairs but that's an upstairs upstairs you're going to have the shot right out because there is anything unfortunately what you would have seen other in the previous design
185we built all that space so you could see out the staircase was off kind of to the side and Etc so we we'll we'll I think what would help is if I'm seeing you know if vue8 is both of the both low both downstairs views so we see because maybe it is yeah I think it is the staircase is just set off to the side there's so much room in that stair Tower St by the way you can blame that all on me there there was there was sitting there's so much stuff in that stair Tower you could walk straight out and not hit the stair and the stairs off to the left no I get it and I appreciate you being responsible in your advice unfortunately responsible but when I look at 37 it's
186it's high ceilings it's dangling lights it's bright white walls and 38 feels just a lot more institutional right and I think some of it is the color Choice well that's I'm wondering if that's when you print it because it actually looks I'm looking at at but it looks pretty bad there too it does but it looks even darker on look my print out but it doesn't look great up on the screen yeah okay so I just no and so I guess my question is you know can you have wiers you know wiers hallways a little bit on the you know downstairs and look if that's I just I these kids you know the kids who are in this hallway are in that hallway for a whole year I actually have been the victim of a
187windowless office and I will tell you it is so dep like I I'm very very sensitive to light and I think that a lot of kids will be as well hopefully it shouldn't matter right their their classrooms are light and bright and should be fine but I just it was a stark difference to me oh and the the clear Riser is only it's interesting now that I look at this is it only on the first run or is it on the second run too and is it necessary on the second run I was thinking that myself yeah I wondered where that was going as I as I look at that and I was thinking that detail do we want to carry that detail up maybe a RIS or two past what you see there and
188then that's it or just kind of the way you see it cuz I I'm looking at that and I'm thinking about that detail going well I don't know if I want that but as you buy stair stringers you know I want to understand what is it costing us to change that detail because it might not be worth it right and so I was thinking that way too Dr and I would just say for a lot of things in the design development this is one of those that if you know of a place that has that you know i' happily volunteer you know some of our admin team to go see it um uh because just be would be good to see cuz I had the same reaction I was very curious about it and the
189practicality of it all so then so no I give me two seconds I then I have a question that's gonna shock you Mr Spar so pay attention what are we getting out of those what are now like glass Nubs at the end of the hallways is that really bringing in significant light or would it could we find savings by just putting a glass window at the end and maybe Mr Baron is the right person to answer that it's it's really the the space required for the length of the run because we need to we need that lower flight to be longer so that we can get up faster and so it yes we do need we do need to extend it beyond the face of the building okay and there's not space because of the
190doorways to bring the staircase in further corre that's correct and you can't move the doorway under the RO no it's just a thought because okay yep do you need it on the down you look you need it downstairs as well because it doesn't really save you any to have just it's actually the downstairs of controls because we need to we need the extra distance to get that first flight up to a to an elevation that you can walk under it and those two doors we're looking at those are mechanical doors that's correct yeah those are the mechanical closets for each classroom yeah um I have gotten used to the flat roof I don't think apologies to anyone who takes offense I don't think Ethan has a terribly beautiful profile now I don't think this is
191a worse profile obviously I want something pretty but I I'm much more focused on the the function and I I appreciate that you're working on that um I covered that um oh I I I I think you guys um I think I've said this to you privately but I should put just mention it here one of the concerns I have with some of the alternates is that and again act 34 complaint just keep my list um is that you know it's it's cheaper right now to do VCT Tile than to do tazzo and it's cheaper to do Tazo tile than just a pour tozzo but in the long run it will cost this District more to have to keep replacing the VCT than to just make the proper investment at the beginning and put the
192tazzo floor in am I correct you are so my question is are and it's not I guess for now but maybe it's something to manage our expectations on the alternates especially when it comes down to when we get the bids in we need to understand where making a better alternate bid to save us money now is going to create headaches and expense for us going forward forward um you know it it it's one of our one our an old buddy on the on the uh facilities Committee of mine Mike Miller used to say we always find money to fix it wouldn't it be nice to find money we never find the money to do it right the first time and and I think we really need to move towards that end so we we will
193in in the bid evaluation and Alternate evaluation we will bring those things to light that life cycle cost analysis okay last thing and I've said it to both of you privately I hate retention basins and I know my my description of them sounded really flip but but here's the other way I see them it's space our kids can't go play in right because it's reserved for storm it does become a breeding ground I mean I I know people who live next to them right the geese hang out there they like you want to talk about goose poop you know they grow you know they we we have enough Gees at the high school we've talked about you know it just I I find them unsightly but I also find them to take away from the
194usable space on that property and I know we you know this board was differently constituted but there was a very strong outcry against a storm water basin at our high school and I failed to see how our elementary school students are less deserving of a proper Green Space and we've talked about that because I even though that even though if we put storm water detention underground and if it's stone in there or whatever it is there's a flat mobile play area I mean maybe you're not playing a full game and you're not putting a playground in it but there's there's a space there a nice green space and that has a lot of Merit so when I was looking at this after we talked last week I was thinking to myself where where where does
195that have the most Merit and certainly down lower on the site it has a lot of Merit back where the playground is the place where I find that it has the least Merit is on the back side of the site around past the Bus Loop where we really don't want anyone so I what I want to be able to do is I want to give you a couple options because I think this is an important thing to measure and if we say you know what we really are okay with a fence around something on the back of the site that nobody can see or get to and we don't want anybody there any anyway that could avoid some cost because in the front we want to do something different the other place that's a little
196bit different and and odd is there's kind of a crazy slope down from the playground but I think those three are the ones that we really want to Target to keep it as flat green space we're going to look at that cost benefit analysis and then in the back make that thing capture as much as we can and put a fence around it and don't worry too much about it I'm sorry Mr Spar I do have to say that if you mean the back part kind of over where our existing Roberts Road properties are yes yeah that's the closes to neighbors I'm not going to feel great about s retention Bas in near neighbors just thank yep and and Mr Stern you mentioned something that for the next facilities meeting um could you just talk
197to us about what you see with these designs of the future of the the houses um that the district owns I think that we should have that as part of the conversation as well you know what happens to those with everything that is designed now and then last thing because I am mindful of the hour for me at least um it would be helpful in the renderings next time and I understand you know we're putting a lot on you to to understand visually what those retaining walls over at the kindergarten end will look like um and there's a there's mention of some Pathways not being implemented or being removed I'm not sure exactly and if so if you could have one of those you know hash marks that shows where it was or where it
198was supposed to be so people understand those changes because I think you know a number of those things are may have been used or may be planned for use and we just need to make sure nobody thinks we're hiding the ball you know everything's and and I think this was asked before just to dovetail with the question about the kindergarten wall you know can that be a a small Outdoor Theater instead of a wall and what all I mean is just Terrace or you know graduated so that it's 2 feet 4 feet 2 feet 4 feet with you know I think that was asked before or asked can it be spread out so it's more of a hill instead of the ne necessity of a wall just let us know why that's possible and not
199what's possible and not possible there um you know that could be an outdoor classroom space if it was um you know if we set it up but I don't know if that we have that space or the run to do that does that make sense anybody else and before we go every everybody else is done so the um the all the out outdoor designs I mean I know we're looking a lot of site but but the actual decisions on playgrounds uh fields we haven't made those final decisions yet correct am I accurate with that like when at that point when when we vote on design development and the board votes on design development have we made a decision on of of all the playground spaces around the building the equipment you mean or the actual
200footprint where they are I guess both I'm asking yeah well the the design development will identify the footprint and where they are and and their relative sizes and and we've been through that exercise as as part of the um user meetings we've talked about the location size that is that is critical to show that's part of the Land Development submission the the site features the actual equipment um yes we've also looked at that that's been reviewed there's been actually an evaluation of the existing equipment and what could potentially be salvaged and reused either temporarily during the phasing of the of the construction or ultimately in the in the final buildout so that that's been evaluated but no the final design and location arrangement of the equipment will will come along later but yes the location
201size material grading access to those those uh playgrounds that's all here shown on the plans um as as part of the recommendation as part of the approval that will then very quickly be turned around as part of a Land Development submission so um I don't think I have seen I'm looking for that one uh page um you know right now we have several we have two paved areas that the kids play on um that are not that is not the um you know that is not the tennis courts there's two different paved areas and I'm not talking about a kindergarten play area um with basketball courts and kids and there's a wall ball um so so I have not seen and I didn't think we had discussed yet I have not seen the those areas
202being duplicated yet or those existing areas being replaced you're seeing a very large scale drawing here but yes we do have something that shows those and and we'll we'll uh provide that to you perfect well I guess that's my question so is that so that that level of detail then we want to have done generally The Sur where's The Hardscape play versus the soft those those sort of Perman features of the walls and yeah those those those have been identified now it's the I'll I'll characterize the existing locations and relationships and so it's grown organically over time so there's been an effort to um start with a clean slate think about an appropriate design that actually does a good job of consolidating and arranging things better so you're not going to see two hard separate
203hard play areas now it's one um but so but yes all of those those relative areas have been shown and identified and we'll um we'll bring that drawing back up and and and you've heard me say this before but just to repeat again if all those places for kids to play wind up being significantly back behind the new building for 2 years while we're building um we're going to we're going to need a place for two years for kids to play because the current place where most of the older kids play is where the new building is going so as long as we are thinking about that and that we're thinking about so whether it's temporary or not temporary but what are we going to do while the building is functioning for two years and
204there's construction going on where would those kids be playing since we're taking predominantly that space away for two years yes yes exactly so phasing as as Mr Spar mentioned earlier the details on that would would be forthcoming once the layout is approved right but yes um in our mind we recognize that and it will be a temporary location because the new the new area and the existing areas are both within the construction zone so again we're looking at that area around the lodge and so forth for temporary facilities all right thank you and then the other thing I just want to say to board members is um you know it is very helpful at this point so we're doing a two-month period that we're looking at this asking a lot of questions we're going to
205come back to facilities meeting um next month so I would encourage all the board members to watch facilities I think the the team here is going to look at some of these questions some of this feedback and say here here's what we we're hearing here's some things we could change adjust or not or or or why we can't um please between now and facilities and the next board meeting if you have a IAL questions if you're if you're sitting here feeling I'm not voting for this and here's why um and so there's things that would you would need an answer like something that's like this is what's troubling me about this um it would really be helpful for Mr Morris to know that for um our design team to know that for for me to
206know that so please you know in the next month while we have this time let us know let us know what are those things so that there isn't something that's a burning question um at the June meeting um that we we don't have time to provide you know that answer for it does that make sense thank you very much and thank you for sticking out this this will pay dividends it's very helpful for us to understand what we're doing so have a wonderful evening okay the next item on the agenda is the report from board committees start our meeting yeah well that's why we moved this up so they could go home um curriculum Dr Babson okay the much anticipated curriculum committee report uh the board curriculum committee met on Tuesday May 14th at 5:00
207pm meeting focused on two presentations um the first was on our district belonging initiative and the second was an audit of our K counseling curriculum our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday June 4th at 5:00 pm thank you and Facilities yes um our facilities met on um Tuesday May 14th um the bulk of the meeting was really the a preview of the presentation we just we just saw we also have two items on tonight's consent Agenda One is um uh with weather proofing Technologies for $ 69,7 48 it's to replace some wooden laminate beam in at the high school that have deteriorated and then we also have a change order for um the accessibility and wellness project at the high school and the good news is it's a credit for $1,147 th000 that's it um
208our next facilities meeting is next month I don't know when is it next month are the first Tuesday of June okay first Tuesday of June thanks thank you the finance committee met on Tuesday May 7th um we had a lengthy agenda which I'm going to try to condense um there's several items on the agenda tonight um that we reviewed they include these contracts for um Lakeside Youth Services um building blocks Behavioral Services four contracts for power school hillindale Associates um contract uh I guess we'll do this separately we um discuss the Delaware County Community College annual budget um the Concordia United Concordia Dental benefits um oh the appointment of our new board Treasurer the appointment of um the school board members to the Pennsylvania School Board association annual meeting and [Music] um donations so we
209heard about the donations that are also on your agenda tonight which are for the Special Olympics um donations from the Wayne Elementary school PTO were always appreciative of donations thank you PTO for your support report um the Food Service the giant company donation and then there is the disposal of donating um I don't know what it is a van a diesel van uh then we had a presentation regarding what's in the budget which is a change to the funding for um Radner High School Varsity Club Sports um by a significant amount and um the administration is going to pursue um a grant for improve well let's see for dced public school facility Improvement Grant so we commend them for always is trying to find us extra money and we received an update on the biggie
210which is the 2024 2025 final budget um our next meeting will be June 4th at 7 pm in this building thank you Mrs Solomon policy Mrs Stern yeah the policy committee had its final committee meeting of this school year on May 7th and on tonight's consent agenda we have three policies that are up for second read and adoption and I believe that we will not be meeting again as a committee until August or probably even not until September thank you and I will report that there was no meeting of the government relations and Communications committee but for anyone who missed it um item 12.05 on the consent agenda is the assignment of the psba delegates that meeting is the Saturday before election day the people who um have volunteered to go are Miss girton Miss
211Solomon and myself if anyone wants to dispute that you can pull that item from the agenda and I'm willing to give up my spot if you feel so strongly um I were there any other public announcements we should make at this point okay I'm going to move on then to the priority discussion action items item 9.01 is the approval of the Delaware County community College general operating budget um the recommended action here is that the board approves the Delaware County Community College general operating budget for fiscal year 20242 in the amount of 92 m727 n18 with rner Township School District share being approved in the amount of $1,528 um this was presented to the finance committee um and we need to have a roll call vote on this item could I put some context around
212that because can I just can I just ask for a motion and then we'll have discussion can I uh get so moved okay motion from Miss Solomon can I get a second second from Mr gon yes Miss Solomon um so the liaison committee to the Delaware County Community College which consists of a board member from each sponsoring District had a zoom meeting on April 24th to discuss the budget and so let me just give you some highlights of it so first of all they are only increasing their um budget by 1% next year and they have held their budget to a 1% increase for the past five years um they are making up the difference well it's a different um configuration than like like a public school district so they will be increasing tuition by
213$1 per credit hour for um students and then um increasing fees by $2 um but the revenue plan so this is for the sponsoring districts is still held at only a 1% increase for our budget um and it should just be noted that the sponsoring districts our appropriation is only 9.53% of the revenue for their budget so we're not paying the full amount there um and if anybody wants more details I have quite a bit more detail on [Music] um the breakdown of their budget yeah so the the for people who may not remember this from prior years are the or Township's contribution is dictated based on the enrollment from people from our community so that's why we're resp you know and that's why our portion may go up or down by more than a
214percent each year based on those numbers yeah and let me just say one more thing that that they gave a highlight the advantage to us of being a sponsoring district is that if we have Radner residents attend the college they go their tuition rate is $136 per credit hour which if you those of you who've got kids going to college it is an amazing bargain you can do your first two years of college for that price and then transfer for your second your third and fourth year they have agreements with all the universities around here to finish up your degree in four years at that rate um non-s sponsoring school districts their students will pay $276 so we get um a big advantage to our residents for being a sponsoring School District yes uh were
215there any questions comments okay Mr paulen do you want to call the rooll call the vote yep thank you uh Dr Babson I miss stun I miss Duffy I miss girton I miss Lao I miss Rosen Blum I miss Solomon yes yes Miss Stern I and Mr Thorton yes okay nine approved great uh the next item on the agenda is 9.02 appointment of Trustees for the Delaware County Community College Board of Trustees the recommended action here is that the board vote to appoint George B Dawson as Trustee of the Delaware County Community College Board of Trustees um the finance committee was given uh the administration was given Direction by the DCC to recommend the appointment of George B Dawson to fill a vacant six-year term um as a trustee to the Delaware County Community College
216Board of Trustees his term would expire on June 30th 2029 any can I have a motion um I'll make a motion then I want to put some context on this sure go ahead uh so miss Solomon I have a motion from Miss Solomon second from Miss Duffy Miss Solomon so I was part of the um group of Liaisons that interviewed and selected Mr Dawson um so the way it works is the liaison from the sponsoring districts then appoint these trustees and they basically function as a school board for the community college but our role is to appoint them so um we had really strong candidates we interviewed six people and this gentleman was the unanimous choice of the group that was assembled so I support the this thank you Mr Paul were there any other
217comments okay Mr Pauling will you call the roll call please yes Dr bson I miss stunn I miss stuffy I miss girton I miss laau I miss Rosen Bloom I miss Solomon yes Miss Stern I Mr Thorton yes okay nine approved great 9.03 is the adoption of the final general fund budg budget for fiscal year 2024 and this is for 2024 2025 this is our budget so the recommended action here is that the board approve the general fund final budget resolution in its entirety for fiscal year 2425 with total budget revenues and expenditures of 120 million n9120 mil 9,557 uh requiring a real estate tax levy of 15.21 z9 Ms for each $1,000 of assessed valuation which represents a 0.579 mil increase or 3.95% in the local real estate tax millage over the 2023 24
218rate um and this is the there's kind of a whole long explanation here that I'm not going to give um but people can read it Mr kristofco I don't need to read all this detail if people have so I'm G to make all yeah okay uh the 20 2425 budget sets the real estate millage rate I already covered that um the maximum allowed for 2425 by Act One index is 5.3% um further this would direct the real estate tax bills to be dated and mailed July 1st 2024 and approve the real estate tax for the 2425 fiscal year to be payable with a discount of 2% honor before August 31st 2024 and bear a penalty of 10% if paid on or after November 1st through February 15 2025 uh install installment payments of real estate
219taxes shall be three equal payments of the base amount of the tax due as follows the first installment made honor before August 31st 24 the second installment made honor before October 31st 2024 and the third and final installment payment must be made honor before December 31st 2024 uh late payment of the second or third installment payment will bear a panel T of 10% the 2024 real estate tax notice issued to the owner of each approved home within the school district shall reflect a homestead exclusion real estate assessed value reduction equal to the lesser of the county established assessed value of the homestead or the maximum real estate assessed value reduction of $ 29,6 619 for purposes of this resolution An approved Homestead shall mean homesteads and farmsteads listed in the certific certified County assessment office
220report dated April 28th 2024 based on the homestead Farmstead applications filed with the County assessment office honor before March 1st of 2024 this paragraph shall apply only to tax notices issued based on the initial tax duplicate used in issuing initial real estate tax notices for the school year which will be issued on July 1st 2024 and will not apply to interim real estate tax bills issued through the remainder of the Year be it further resolved that the rner Township School Board reenacts the following taxes and rates as set forth in act 511 of 1965 the 1% real estate transfer tax tax for fiscal year 2425 this tax is shared with rner Township the local Services tax for fiscal year 2425 at the rate of $5 per person employed within the boundaries of rner Township School
221District this tax represents a portion of the local Services tax enacted by rner Township which is a total of $52 and be it finally resolved that the administration is authorized and directed to advertise the adopted 2425 budget in accordance with the provisions of the school code and to file a copy of the 2425 budget with the PA Department of Education can I get a motion please move Mrs Duffy may I get a second second Miss Lao is there are there any we've discussed this matter uh at length in Prior meetings are there any questions or concerns or can I and can I also maybe just ask Mr Pauling maybe to answer the question from earlier that was from Mrs Stern about our budget in relation to Ean oh yes thank you yeah I can certainly
222do that so in the budget using the numbers that we discussed in the fall for the building project we were estimating at just about $70 million so we worked our debt service numbers for the project over a five-year phase in and we discussed that at the March meeting and ultimately decided to remove at the tail end of that about $800,000 of debt from the current budget the rest of this budget does fund everything up to that amount so it's really the first four years of the fiveyear phas in for us to go from 70 to 7 $5 million in in the borrowing would be an additional annual cost of about $250,000 so we would have time over the next two to three years to build that in so from a comfort level um obviously the
223higher we get the less comfortable I become but within if you know we're in that 70 to 75 million range is something I feel that we could absorb as part of the budget and work that in over the next two to three years and at this time it's your recommendation that that be added to Debt Service as opposed to paying it out of any funding we may have yeah because we already are committing most of that funding that we already have to other capital projects within the district so would be to adjust the the borrowing amount so okay with rates kind of forecasted to where they are for the rest of this year and what our cash flows are we may adjust our borrowing schedule slightly different and looking to try to forecast when there
224may be a rate reduction maybe borrow more in one of the the the SEC the second or third borrowing um when rates may come down a little bit so we're working with our financial team at pfm to kind of monitor all of that from a cash flow perspective we're not in a hurry so we can kind of wait out the market to see you know when that bears fruit that we could you know help to realize some Savings in The Debt Service when that occurs okay and all that's information we'll get in a lot more detail closer to either November release of bids or February yeah voting yeah because once once we further revine the the project then we'll have that number and again we can discuss at a future meeting you know the difference
225between the 70 and you know what we land on at the final number for design development if it's you know 74 what we looked at tonight um but once we see if there's fluctuations in the market we can revise those numbers to see if there's any savings in the annual cost to to repay that debt great and Mr Paul while we're talking about those milestones and going back to the presentation ear earlier um when the board votes on design development we are not necessarily committing dollars we are committing to moving this process forward correct um the moment though we commit dollars um towards this project is when we accept the bids correct okay yes so if the circumstance would come back that we had to reject the bids the first time we could reject all
226those bids if we had an act 34 issue we're not committed until the board finally as a final approval of the bids and clearly we have committed dollars to the work that is being done up until this point and continues to be done as well but um I just wanted to reiterate the the milestones and what are the significance of each one of those votes yeah thank you and I feel overall comfortable again we talked at the previous meeting The Balancing Act between what we need to borrow for the project what we need to have uh for the other projects that we're looking to do plus keeping reserves on hand and being able to replenish that to keep our credit rating where at which will impact those borrowing costs as well so it's the juggling
227act that we're we're conscious of and working through as we're hitting these Milestones as well great thank you thank you Mr Pauling any other questions no I have comments okay yeah so um I think everyone on the board knows that I was hoping that we would come in more around 3% or less um I do commend the admin Administration I know that they worked really hard to get to 3.95 um I guess this is more a cautionary tale for all of us because um we've got to pay for what we're choosing to do and the spending that we're making and I mean this is almost a 4% tax increase to our residents and I think that's rich and I think that there are people in our community that do live paycheck to paycheck and I
228think think they're dealing with inflation in a lot of areas and of course they appreciate our excellent schools um it's been ironic to me and I will share this with you I I have gone from being the most liberal member of a school board to maybe being the most conservative member of a school board and I think a lot of the same people still live in Radner so it's this is more just you know my observation um I think this is a healthy increase I will support it um because I want to support education in rner but I think it's up to us to really be careful you know how we um tax our constituents it's our job to sort of you know balance all these things that that we want to do versus we're
229asking other people to pay for it with other people's money so um that's my comment on this I think Mrs Solomon you're in good company I think a lot of people had a lot of reservations about this um over time but I do think we trust that you're being good stewards of the community's money and and I would also encourage people who have trouble um if this tax bill is an unusual burden for them to reach out to Mr pauling's office they have work they you know there are different programs and and they will work with people if it really becomes a a paycheck to paycheck burden for people no I'm not saying that's an excuse I'm just saying you know I want people to know that we're aware of that and and we do
230have some resources to help them um if there's nothing else I'll call the vote on this okay all in favor say I I I I okay I think I have a nine z vote okay the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda and although board action is required it's generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items uh so with the consent of all the board members they're grouped and approval is given in one motion but if a board member would like to discuss any item the president well I I will pull it from the agenda and we can discuss it after we vote on the rest the consent jender Miss La uh I would like to pull item 1701 Personnel okay is there anything else sorry I sorry um 1404 please sure okay
231so can I get a motion to approve items 11.01 through sorry I usually write this down in advance 11.01 through 17.04 with the exception of items 14.04 and item 17.01 so moved thank you Miss Solomon can I get a second second thank you Miss stuffy okay item 14.04 Mrs Solomon you pulled that no no we have to take vot sorry we to vot thank you Mrs she's paying attention uh all those in favor of it of the consent agenda less items 14.04 and 17.01 say I okay I think that's a 90 vote uh item 14.0 Mrs Solomon no I'm just curious um when the recipients of the crescent and the Dreer scholarships will be announced have do we already have that that no I don't think we have them I think they're announced at the
232scholarship night in June correct yes so there's a night in June that they'll be announced I have it on my calendar I can share it with the board Clos it to graduation June senior Awards night Dr Bachelor thank you it's right before the senior award assembly thank you so we'll know in a few weeks all right yes thank you um I move to um approve 1404 can I get a second second second Mr thoron thank you so quiet over there it's good all those in favor say I I okay that's 90 uh and item 17.01 Miss Lao you pulled this item yes thank you um first I'd like to thank everyone who took the time and effort um to either submit or deliver a public comment tonight it's always wonderful to see so many members
233of our community so engaged um but I am ESP espcially appreciative of the comments that related to the item that I'm going to address right now so I would like to take this moment to explain my impending vote of no with respect to the appointments for principal of Ean Elementary and Wayne Elementary respectively if we include the principal searches at Radner Elementary and at Radner High School in 2022 and 2023 four candidates for school principal have now been presented to the board for approval Within the past 2 years my opposition to these appointments is not I repeat not intended to be a statement on the strength of Mr Wagner's or Mr Marzano's candidacy I believe that our superintendent Dr Bachelor should get to choose his own team including the leaders of each of our five
234schools and in this case with the support of a of likely a majority of this board Dr Bachelor will get his preferred choices as he did with the ipal positions at Radner high school and Radner Elementary however I feel strongly that I must use my vote tonight to register my profound disappointment over this missed opportunity indeed four missed opportunities in two years to make meaningful progress toward educational equity in our school district over 30% of radner's student population identifies as a member of a racial minority group but this diversity is not reflected in the current makeup of our staff or administrative leaders including our School principles how can we aieve how can we achieve true Equity or inclusion if our students are not fully represented by or through the professionals whom we hire to serve
235them diversity matters representation matters without both we cannot fulfill our mission to serve all Radner students and to prepare all of them for success in a world that is yes diverse again my position is not intended to be an indictment of Mr Wagner or Mr Marzano or their candidacies in fact I am hopeful that as the new principles of Ethan and Wayne they will be important new allies in our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion they will have my full support once their appointments have been accepted and I look forward to collaborating with them Dr Bachelor and my colleagues on this board to continue this very important work thank you thank you Miss L yeah you I just wanted to say and what there's an extra microphone oh sorry um you know the only exception
236I take is the phrasing and I don't think you mean it that way but uh Dr bachelor's preferred choices um you know we could talk about a process where Dr Bachelor picks a candidate uh that is not the process we have here in rner um the process that we have here in Radner uh involves a lot of community input involves um stakeholder input from the very beginning on the qualities they're looking for and then involves a lot of our staff our teachers our parents um community members board members all of this board was invited to be part of the process uh as a district we are focused and committed uh to not only having an inclusionary process but making sure that we as a district are working as hard as we can to diversify that
237pool of candidates and I want to commend uh our HR department for all of their efforts uh to continue to do that and like I often say to the board uh the biggest room in the house is the room for improvement that is we are willing to always look to figure out how can we continue to improve that pool of candidates and we'll continue to do that and have appreciated the work of the board uh but the but the the largest exception I took was Dr bachelor's preferred choices when I really feel it is the choice of what has been uh a community uh and staff process as we move forward thank you I I actually forgot to ask for a motion before there was discussion on this so can I get a motion for
238this item so moved second thank you Mrs Stern for moving it and Miss Solomon for your second um is there any other discussion on this item okay with that I'm going to call the vote all those in favor say I please I and all those opposed no okay so I have eight one on that item and the next item on the agenda oh I lost my page order is uh 18 the reports from the board Liaisons and Community announcements Miss Solomon you've already given us a lot on the Delaware Community College so if you want to be brief about what else there could be just remember the time please not that I don't want to hear all of it I can offer all of you more information about the Community College if you so choose
239thank you I I just we've we've heard a lot about that I think you've covered it all uh the Delaware County Intermediate Unit Dr Babson hope he goes hope you guys don't mind to lengthy report here it's um so the dciu board held their monthly meetings as usual on the first two Wednesdays of the month uh the 1st and the eth one highlight of these meetings was a tour of the Delaware County Technical High School the foft campus um in an overview of planned Renovations and structural improvements that's it thank you I was prepared to sit back you said a lengthy report I know uh the Delaware County school board's legislative Council so that's me we actually um I referenced this earlier in the meeting there was an excellent breakfast hosted by the Delaware County
240legis uh Delaware County leg school board's legislative Council um the the people who put that on did a very nice job and it was great they actually invited legislators who represent state legislators who represent um all of Delaware County um and and most of them actually attended ours had actually attended our meeting and and weren't there but it was it was a wonderful opportunity I I will say um the piece that was most moving to me and I think it's actually apropo given the conversations we're having um was that they had student speakers from a number of the districts actually speak to us about education in Delaware County and specifically public education and they experiences and these students were fabulously articulate none of them were rner students but they rival any rner student for for
241being articulate and being so knowledgeable about the issues they spoke about and the one thing I want to share with this board and I'm mindful that this sounds very different from the points I I raised about our Ean um was a student from um upper Derby no no she wasn't she was from she was from William Penn and she said one of the things that bothers her most about going for sporting events to other schools is how nice the schools are and she didn't say rner she said an upper Darby and innerb and she said she wants to know why and it made me choke up at the time she said she wants to know why she's worth less than the kids who go to school in those districts and why this state doesn't care
242about educating her the same way why she's not entitled to nice facilities and the same quality of education and I thank the Delaware County legislative Delaware County Schoolboard legislative Council for reminding us that Our obligation as school board members is primarily to our districts but I think for all of us it's to the students in this state and to remind our legislators that all of them deserve a top-notch education I don't think R rner students deserve any less I just think every student in Pennsylvania deserves a rner education and a rner facility so I hope hope that uh we can make some progress with our legislators on that point uh Pennsylvania School boards Association Mr thoron yeah absolutely two things one has already been mentioned um in November uh 2nd will be the psba delegate
243assembly we had mentioned that earlier and secondly the 2024 state of education report was released by The psba and one of the findings was that 2third of the state's 500 school districts report mental health needs as a challenging as a challenge facing their schools and may is uh mental health awareness month thank you thank you that's really helpful um the last item on the agenda is were there any other community announcements I offered at the okay uh board announcements the next meetings June we're trying to finish just for community members who think this is really off our normal schedule we are trying to finish our board meetings um for the benefit of the administration and frankly the board uh prior to graduation so we are uh having three our three um committee meetings on Tuesday
244June 4th here in this room in the ground floor of the administrative building and then on Tuesday June 11th we will have our regular business meeting in the rner Radner Shire room of the township building last item on the agenda is public comment is there any live public comment in the room okay seeing none I'm going to ask for a motion motion to adjourn don't everybody jump at once yes call the vote who's the second from G sorry I was ready to knock the gavel but I do need actually a vote all those in favor of adjournment I I have a 90 vote Miss kman thank you very much we are adjourned good night everybody do apprciate oh my gosh I F so bad all