I would like to call to order the board of education, the pelham board of education Meeting for january 8th.
let's rise for the pledge of allegiance.
I would also like, before we start to call for a moment of silence on today, day of Mourning.
okay, so
anne-marie, would you like to give us a [inaudible] god, I can't speak today of our Executive
meeting. Yes, sure. We met in executive session to discuss the record of a particular student and also Discuss collective bargaining
agreements. All right so now let's move to
oh, sure. Let me just. Okay. Just readjust.
all right. 2.4. Yeah.
so now I'm going to have some opening remarks if you notice jackie deangelis, our President cannot be with us today, but she did send us some great notes for us to
read. Before I do read that, I would like to just thank everybody for coming back.
it was a great holiday break. I think we all needed it. It was well received by the kids, by the parents, and I'm sure by the teachers and Administrators.
so it was a great two weeks off and now we're back in 2025. We have a lot of work to do.
so thank you everyone and happy new year and welcome back.
so from jackie she wanted to say a couple of words. Unfortunately she couldn't be here due to some work commitments.
but I'm going to read them for her. So welcome back from the holiday.
I hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends. She's, you know, her apologies for missing this meeting due to her work commitments.
we are in a critical period now as a board is budget season.
and this also is the time where we where we prioritize our facility needs and develop a New bond proposal to present to the community for alignment and support before the break.
we spent time as a board learning how to evaluate the needs brought forward by the Demographic and facilities studies that we had undertaken last year, as well as
conceptual plans that we put that were put together by our architects who have come Tonight as well to discuss with us tonight.
we will also align on the evaluation method and move forward, hopefully as a board.
from these studies, we've identified several key areas requiring attention, such as ada Compliance and particularly one of our schools.
capacity, aging infrastructure, and right sizing spaces to optimize the learning Environment.
we have been discussing those needs in committee meetings and board meetings throughout The fall.
there also have been facility committee meetings last year to discuss some of our needs In the coming weeks, we'll begin community engagement efforts to gather
feedback and ensure our plans reflect the needs and priorities of the community.
we are excited about this opportunity to engage our community to ensure our students have The facilities they need to succeed in the long term.
so that was from jackie. Okay, let me go to 3.1.
so now we're going to move on. Motion to approve the minutes of the wednesday, december 4th business meeting.
so moved. Second.
all in favor? Aye. Okay. Any abstentions?
any opposed? No. Okay, so now moving on to administrative and committee reports.
so I think that starts with me. And tonight as I know the board is aware but just for the for the public, given the Substantive conversation that we're expecting to have tonight around facilities, we have
given the cabinet the night off on reports. But certainly if the board members have any questions for them about any, any agenda Items or anything else, you're more than welcome always to ask those.
so I again, I would just say happy new year. I as well enjoyed the two weeks off.
it's rare that we get that kind of a break, and it really is restorative and refreshing To have the time to relax, to be with friends and family, and to take a deep breath and be
ready for the next phase of the school year. So excited to be back. We already are starting are already starting to think about calendar for next year Internally.
so you can expect that to be coming forward to you within the next months time.
so we go through a lot of process internally, certainly drafting calendars, using the Regulations and trying to match up with other
entities in the, in the region like boces. Since we have students who take classes at our boces, we like to try to align as much as Possible.
and then we also have to work with our collective bargaining units on some agreement Around different pieces of that.
so just know that that is in process and is coming.
and one note that went out to our families and our school community when school started Was a new adventure that we're trying in the personnel world.
as the board is aware, we've been and I think community is aware we've been looking for Monitors for many positions, be it special education monitors and security monitors for
just kind of on an ongoing basis. We've had several openings in that area, and we just have had a real shortage in supply Of interested candidates.
so the board knows this back a few couple months ago now, I think we approved a contract With a vendor for a private security firm.
and we actually this just this week started activating that and bringing in some staff Through security.
they are uniformed officers, I will say clearly, because I guess I didn't think to even Think about it in my email.
they are unarmed security officers. I think it's a really important detail for people to know.
I know there's concerns around that. Absolutely. They are unarmed. They are just uniformed.
so I wanted to make that really clear. And we'll be sending out follow up communications about that.
it really gives us an opportunity. Well, we always would prefer to have our own staff in these roles.
that has always been our stance continues to be our stance. We're going to continue to recruit and solicit for folks that want to fill those Positions directly with us.
but until such time, we want to make sure that we also are adequately staffed. So we did have three gentlemen join the the district this week.
in those roles, they were greeted by tom drake, our consultant who then oriented them to The school administrators, the school security staff
the school expectations, our safety plans and just general approach on how to work with Students.
they at this point we have one is assigned to the franklin place entrance as the main Duty post, and the other two will be floating one in the middle school, one in the high
school. And their job, as tom put it to me this morning, I thought it was well said, is To be the eyes and ears to be around to, to, you know, provide, you
know, visibility and provide supervision. But if there are any issues, the first move is to call our school staff, call our Security staff, call our administrators, because these are the folks that know our kids
the best. They know our expectations. They know they know a lot about our students that outside security staff may not be privy To.
so it's important to call on those resources who do know our students best. So that's the direction that they've been given.
and so far we it's been met very positively from the school staff.
the nice thing about working with an outside consultant firm is if, say, one of these Guards happened to be out sick, couldn't be here one day.
they provide substitutes. That's the commitment is they're providing us security every day.
so it gives us a tool to provide some consistency to make sure we're fully staffed. So I'm sure jim will add anything to that if need be if I missed anything.
but I'm just really happy to have to be at a fully staffed capacity and are hoping to see A successful model there.
speaking of success, and I know I get spoiled because this has happened every year that I've been in pelham, but do not let that be a
diminished the this achievement we just found out this afternoon.
the many of you may be familiar with the regeneron science talent search competition.
it is one of the highest in the nation student science competitions.
every year that I've been in here now, including this year. We just found out today, pelham has two students who were selected in the sts Competition.
that's two of the top 300 students in the country.
let that sink in for a minute. In the country.
so that is something just for all of us to be proud of.
doctor callahan, the teachers have done just a tremendous amount of work, and I know that That work starts early on.
I see doctor fitzgerald smiling over there, because I know that there's power in the work That our high school students do with our elementary students.
that then gets translated up to middle school or mrs. Buckley scott, our middle school science research program club, started.
you know, all those seeds are planted along the way that culminate in a tremendous, Tremendous program at the high school that continues to be awarded not just at the local
or just the state level, but now at the national level. So congratulations to those two students in case you know, you may know them.
madeline pechella and axel robinson. So congratulations to them, their families, their teachers and all that has gone into That incredible accomplishment.
I'm sure we'll be publishing that in other via other venues as well, and look forward to Celebrating them at another board meeting.
I just want you to know that hot off the presses news. So one more thing.
and natalie, really, via jackie already mentioned it, but just excited tonight to start Really the next phase of our facilities conversations.
we have been having these conversations for well over a year, but tonight we're here.
as a follow up to our september 18th meeting, folks may remember we had representatives Russ davidson, walter hauser came then to give us the overview of our
building conditions survey. The board has been digesting that and working with committees to then take that and Combine with the demographic studies and the room utilization report to put together some
potential projects for us to be examining. So tonight they're here with the further development of that work to present that to us.
the board knows this. At our last meeting, we spent time together as a board learning Some strategies for collaborative decision making and training on the decision analysis
process. And starting to figure out how to how to use that to begin to make decisions About this major project that's in front of us.
so tonight, what we hope to do is hear from russ and walter some updated presentations to Have some discussion, question and answer to go through that decision analysis
criteria and try to really refine that and agree on what we want to be looking for there.
and then depending on how time goes, we may want to start to look at are there are there Are options that we want to keep on the table or there are options that seem kind of
outside of what really makes sense for, you know, what we value as we go forward with This discussion.
this is really the start of discussion. We're not going to get to final decision points tonight necessarily.
but, look forward to this being the start of a lot of engagement with the board.
and as was already said, we're going to be laying out an engagement plan for the Community so folks will know how and when they'll have the opportunity to come and be
engaged. So I know one of the things we talked about in our engagement committee, and I'll say it out loud and we'll maybe say it again tonight.
we really encourage the community to pay attention through these next couple of months.
we really want folks to get engaged. Stay tuned, because there really are some important, big, exciting, significant decisions That the district is going to the board is going to be making on behalf of the district
regarding facilities that will have long term implications for our students and our Taxpayers. So we really invite folks to tune in and stay engaged as much as possible.
with that, I'm done with my report and I think we can proceed.
proceed and turn this over to our guest tonight, russ davidson. Walter hauser from kgd architects.
and I just continue to appreciate our appreciate our work together. So far 20 1718 bond was successful and here we are again and have already appreciated Really many great brainstorming sessions with them.
jim and I and john condon, who's here tonight with us as well, have had many meetings and Follow up conversations to really try to move this work forward and to provide the
information that the board is looking for tonight to help us move, helping us move Towards decisions.
take it away. Thank you. Thanks for having us tonight. You know, one thing I'll add to the board?
well, one thing I'll add for the board while they're while they're setting up.
just one more thing to plant a seed in the board's mind as we go through the presentation Tonight, since we will be laying out an engagement plan for the community.
part of that will involve surveying and probably some world cafes, town halls, etc.
so please be thinking about what kind of feedback is going to be valuable to you as a Board that you would like us to gather through the surveys in particular, and maybe the
world cafes. Once we get through this towards the on the other end of the evening, we may Come back around to that question.
thank you. All right. That was a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much. So we're happy to be here tonight to talk a little bit more about the Capital planning process.
you may remember, this is really an outflow from the building conditions survey and five Year capital plan undertaking, which is stipulated by the state, but also the pelham
hasn't done one since 2015. So it's been a long time coming for that undertaking.
and there's a lot of good work that's happened as part of that process and then built on With the facilities committee.
so this is just a gentle reminder of our mission of why we're doing this.
so, of course, the primary goal is to keep all of the buildings in good working order.
they are in good working order, but it does require an investment over time. So we have components that are aging out and are ready for replacement.
we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But we also want to make sure the buildings are sized to handle.
the district's enrollment and capacity is a nuanced issue, and it's paired with Supporting instructional programs as well.
so when we talk about building capacity, that's really a blend of space and program Usage.
and then as we are considering capital improvements, we are also always thinking about Ways to be more sustainable and make improvements in a resilient, energy focused
way. So you'll see those underlying all of the things that we're talking about this Evening with a little summary of the september meeting.
yeah. So we talked about enrollments and capacity issues.
you know, there that was a whole separate study.
but I guess the bottom line is that you really do have some capacity issues at colonial And siwanoy, but it's focused more on
support space and common areas. You also have a lot of undersized classrooms at both colonial and siwanoy.
the biggest capacity issue long term is right here at the middle school, high school Campus.
and I think that you've got some time to address that one. But it's real.
and you're going to be facing a space squeeze in the combined middle high school building Condition survey, as walt mentioned, identified
$95.9 million worth of work.
and again, that's what it would take to bring everything up into, like, new condition.
so you don't really have to do $94.9 million of work all at once.
but one of one of the sort of glaring code compliance issue is accessible entrances and An interior accessible route
at the siwanoy school. So, again, the americans with disabilities act was civil rights legislation passed in 1990 that has made its way into building code shortly
thereafter. So all grace periods for compliance are long past.
so since our september discussion with the board, we've been hard at work with the Facilities committee, and a lot has happened in the progression of the capital project
development. First there was prioritization effort with the infrastructure work, as russ Mentioned.
we've identified about 96 million. We've whittled that down to the things that are really appropriate to do at this time, And meaningful to keep your buildings in good working order.
we've also looked at some other options related to infrastructure, specifically air Conditioning and the possibility of adding ground source heat
pumps. We'll talk about that in a little bit later on, but those two are linked to a Degree.
and then we've evaluated some options for additions and alterations, really at all the Buildings or most of the buildings to include
a heavy focus on siwanoy and the high school, middle school facilities.
and then, of course, prepared budgets for all of those. So a lot has happened since the last time we were here, and we'll go through that.
so I always get the really exciting task of talking about the infrastructure.
and I'm just going to highlight a few elements. So we really focused on high priority work related to maintaining your building envelope.
so envelope is your roofs walls, windows. And there's a focus there on keeping the water out.
and then the other primary element is heating plant replacements and upgrades.
upgrade, so just have a few sample pictures to share. This is the slate roof at prospect hill.
that roof is, I believe, about 100 years old and it's ready to be replaced.
it's that simple. And there are also some areas of low slope or membrane roofing that are Reaching the end of their expected useful life as well.
and this is at siwanoy as well. It is a picture from inside a classroom.
the windows appear foggy because there's condensation within the insulated glazing unit.
so it's. Oh, I'm sorry prospect. Sorry.
and the seals on the insulated glazing units have failed.
the windows also are in need of significant work to maintain their operation.
they're single hung windows. And the mechanisms that help the windows move up and down and counterbalance them are Failing.
so they're very difficult to difficult to operate at this point.
this is the high school and we've, over the course of years, done a lot of masonry work.
but when you own a masonry building, that's kind of a lifetime commitment and there is Ongoing need to continue to maintain the masonry and building the picture on the upper
right, you can see some water infiltration coming off the top coping. And those are issues that just continually need to be addressed.
so that's included in the prioritized building condition survey work.
and then finally heating plants. This is a rather dramatic picture. This is probably the worst boiler in the district.
this is at the high school. It's currently out of service. There are two other boilers at the building, but a number of the heating plants at your Buildings are at the end of their expected useful life.
and there are also many of them are steam. And this is a time to consider upgrading the boilers from steam to hydronics.
so from steam to hot water and there's an involved process in doing that.
all of the piping needs to be replaced when we do it. So it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a pretty significant undertaking, but.
so we're going to share some numbers with you in a second. But I want to talk first about what are in the numbers.
the numbers are all in. So they include direct construction costs design contingency of 10%.
we're at a very early phase of developing budgets. That's for all the things that we know we'll have to do, but we haven't thought of just Yet.
a 10% construction contingency and an escalation factor.
so escalation is really just the inflationary pressure on costs over time.
and historically, that's a 4 to 6% per year. And some of the components we're talking about here are projected out five years.
so we're talking about 20% escalation between today and when this work is actually bid And installed.
and then project costs. So project costs are all the expenses that are non brick and mortar.
so architects, construction managers attorneys insurance etc..
so when we present a number to you this is a fully baked number with direct costs Contingencies and then all the soft costs to make it happen.
and walter those are pretty much kind of standard. Yeah. Ballpark. Absolutely.
these are these are standard percentages. The escalation is built on a turner construction cost index.
they publish a quarterly report tracking inflation of construction materials, costs and Labor.
and historically, over a ten year window, it's almost always averaged 4% for the past 25 Years.
so that's how we base it. Escalation. Yeah. And escalation is a lot different than the consumer price index, which a lot of people See every day.
construction escalation is a whole different thing. And having just looked today for another project between 2018 and 2024.
that added up to 28% additional cost.
and then you're going to talk about another 20%. So if you're comparing it to your last bond, it's about one and a half times more.
50% more to build now.
any questions on that? Make sense? Great. So the prioritization process for the work coming out of the building condition survey, As I mentioned, is really whittled down to roofing windows, masonry.
so that's really the building envelope components and then heating plant replacements.
so you'll notice there are two categories related to heating plants. One is the straight replacement option to replace steam with steam.
and the second one is to upgrade to hydronic heat. So that's a water based system where we're pumping hot water through the building instead Of steam.
there are a couple of considerations to make there. We could talk about it in depth if you like, but steam plants.
steam heat is really an antiquated system. It was installed many, many years ago.
parts are increasingly difficult to find. Components that interface with steam are increasingly difficult to find and replace, and It's very difficult to control and less energy efficient than
hydronic heat. So as there are some options we're gonna talk about related to geothermal And air conditioning as we consider making buildings more sophisticated, easier to operate
and higher performing. We really want to think about upgrading to hydronic heat.
the other component is absent a pipe replacement project.
with the steam heat, you will continue to face periodic replacement of aging pipes.
the option to upgrade to hydronic heat will replace all of the old piping, provide new Piping throughout the buildings that are applicable.
so that is really a thorough upgrade of your heating plant to modern systems, with Capability to expand or add
options for more sustainable approaches. So yes, just to confirm, that number is in addition.
right. So it's the heating plant replacement number plus. Yes. Those are those are additive costs and all in those numbers at the bottom for Roofing windows masonry and all of the recommended heating plant work
is $54 million. And that is taken down from the $96 million that was originally identified in the Comprehensive building conditions survey.
this is the recommendation for the prioritized work. All right walter, is there any possible efficiencies or savings?
if I know we've kind of asked you to look at things in buckets, which is maybe not the Most efficient, cost efficient way to do it.
if the board were to add on the upgraded hydraulic, for example.
would there be any potential savings in there or has it already been accounted for here? But maybe when we look at geothermal later, it's a good question.
so there are a lot of considerations for capital projects and ideas throughout the District and recommendations.
it's very difficult to pin down right now the overlap of the potential estimates.
for instance, when we're talking about upgrading to hydronic heat in siwanoy, that's Going to include some general construction renovations.
so need to pull apart walls, take ceilings down to replace the piping.
if there's a separate or different renovation project that we're talking about that may Happen there.
there's potential overlap and efficiency that could be reclaimed once the project is Defined.
yeah, I would say once a project is defined, we're going to take another look to see what Those numbers would be.
but it's appropriate to be conservative at this phase because generally in the private Sector world, you wouldn't fix a budget
until you're 60 to 70% done with design in the public sector world, where you can't Authorize full design until you have funding to build it.
we have to project costs at about 2% design.
so we want to be conservative so you can achieve what you can get done.
and that worked really well in the 2017 bond. And that authorization authorization you're speaking of is a public vote is a public vote Right.
so we can't move to that level of detail until the education department will not support You doing complete design until you have voter authorization to
build the project. You could do a two step authorization, but that's almost never done in new york state.
yeah. And I just remember that was a large source of frustration for a lot of the Community, because they're used to the more public approach and a lot of, excuse me, a
private approach. And what we deal with is more conceptual throughout this process, and It's the nature of the public bonding process.
and not to dive too deep into the estimating process, but we do have a database of work That we've completed.
so we feel very confident in the numbers in that they are achievable and workable to get A product that we're talking about generally.
I think the confusion sometimes lies in the specificity, right. So there are lots of options of how things could unfold between now and when it's built.
and we need to think about a band of influence at this point, with a number of decisions Yet to be made in the future that could influence our budget or
our costs. But we have all the tools and mechanisms in place, and we feel very confident in our Estimating process.
I want to talk about capacity and program. Yeah. So additional full size classrooms and a dedicated cafeteria are the biggest issues At colonial.
siwanoy is also the same thing. Dedicated cafeteria and undersized.
need additional full size classrooms. Prospect hill did get some.
added capacity in the last bond and it has larger classrooms than others.
there are some inappropriate classrooms in the basement that have. Moisture problems in the middle.
high school again. Additional classroom space to accommodate projected increase and then some additional Student commons or cafeteria space.
I would also say there's some issues with renovation related to pretty outdated science Labs, which apparently is not affecting your performance
because of your amazing students, but they really are outdated science classrooms and Labs.
and then there's always been an issue with the district office as long as we've been Involved with pelham.
and so it might be worth looking at options to solve that problem and get you out of Rental space in conjunction with
some of this other work. The items on the slide.
just to be clear, they're not in any sort of ranked or prioritized order. This is just this is just everything that ideally we would do if we were able to.
not prioritized. So we looked at colonial.
so the heavy dark line is the property line that includes the pelhamdale property.
and I think it's kind of interesting if this never works on the screen.
but if you see this line here, that red dashed line is the outline of the hutch school.
just to get a perspective. The outline of the red outline is the outline of the hutch school.
so it shows you that colonial is really the site is challenged and the building is Challenged.
the blue area could be a two and a half story addition with six classrooms, but you would Only net four because you're going to
take two away where you cut through. And we could put a cafeteria at the lowest level in that courtyard, and it would be Wonderful and solve a lot of problems.
you'd be able to expand the play area to the 314 pelhamdale property, but then you would Have to move out of that property and find a place for those
district office employees. And it's not an inexpensive proposal.
when you talk about the problems that would be solved with the dedicated cafeteria, those Are sort of quality of life problems or what kind of problems are we talking about.
so each ideally an elementary school has three common areas an auditorium, a cafeteria, And a gym.
even when you built the hutch school, you said that's ideal, but expensive.
so we'll have two. So you have a cafeteria that functions as an auditorium and you have a gymnasium.
colonial and siwanoy only have one space that does all three of those things.
so that's the real issue at both colonial and siwanoy. They at least need a second one, because if you go to any of those schools, you'll see That they're serving lunch, holding gym
and assemblies in the same room. And the custodial staff does an amazing job of moving tables quickly and hiding them in Various corners of the building to make cafeterias into gymnasiums in
about 15 minutes. But it's problematic even for a small school.
so this would solve the problem by the gym would then become just a gym and assembly Space, and the cafeteria could be a dedicated
cafeteria. Also, additionally, with the classroom additions like this, the corridor would Be sort of circular, so it would alleviate
congestion. It would make the school safer and easier to get around because you'd have Two ways out wherever you hit the corridor.
the only other piece I would add to that, that was all on point from what we're Experiencing, would be small group instruction space.
that's kind of a theme across all of our old schools. Yes, because they were designed, you know, 100 years ago and you didn't have Interventionists and resource rooms and all this, you know, otpt, so it would
provide some it would provide some more space there.
the biggest difference between hutch and colonial siwanoy and siwanoy and prospect hill Is the amount of support space, the small group space.
we showed that in the earlier capacity study graphically, and that is a very strong need In, I would say, contemporary public
education, academic intervention, english as a second language, learning accommodations.
the older school buildings have no space for this. So it happens in hallways or former closets.
and that's why the hutch school has a full size classroom in a small room next to every One, and they're all used.
and it's a very common issue with buildings, the age you have, this lack of small group Space.
we'll see it later. But I think that after talking to the committee and the board while This is a good approach, given the priorities of
other locations. There was no desire to further study the concept at colonial.
we assigned a number to it by the methods that walter described, and it's about an all In $19 million project for new construction,
renovation, expanding the playground, removing the. The house at 314 pelhamdale.
could you just go back one to that previous slide? How many additional classrooms would that four.
four classrooms. And that would allow some of the smaller, undersized classrooms to then Become small group instruction spaces.
you actually get six new full sized, but you only add four.
so you could take four of the worst ones, probably in the basement out of service, which Would be good.
and then you'd have a number of them available for small group space.
and that $19 million on the next slide. That does not include the structural hvac.
any of that stuff or is that inclusive of that? Is general construction renovation only.
but that's to cheryl's earlier question, which is excellent.
you know, if we're renovating the existing building, is it a portion of that renovation Credited towards putting in steam piping?
and yes, there might be a little overlap there. I wouldn't expect it's a lot.
but if you said we're going to do that and we're going to do hydronic heating, we would Do a more detailed estimate before you put that number in front of voters.
right. So, so the price tag for colonial would be the 19 for the expansion of the Structure, plus
the roofing windows, masonry, the seven, the 70807 minus any kind of efficient minor Efficiency you would get in doing it.
it's going to be less than 5%, if anything.
I think, you know, one of the I know that the committee spent some time this at the Committee level just and I say this really more for the board who wasn't part of the
committee and for the public did spend quite a bit of time looking at colonial because For all the reasons that we just talked about I think
once we go through the rest of this, it'll be a little bit easier to see that in the Grand scheme when one has to prioritize, given the scale and scope of what we're talking
about. That colonial really is not as inasmuch need as some of the other buildings.
is it tight? Yes. Are we making it work? Yes. So I think that's what the committee's recommendation coming out was based on.
and I know a couple of you are on the facilities committee. Really? That recommendation that this really wasn't the best place for us to continue to Spend time given the magnitude of the other the other needs also, you know.
is it tight? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Is it also a blue ribbon school?
yes. So, like it seems to. Is it perfect? No, but it doesn't seem to be impacting the the quality of the education That's coming out.
and we're also talking priorities, right. Not that this may not be a project down the road, but we can't do everything at once.
I thank you for that. You reminded me of a key thing that I wanted to be certain to Share.
one of the things that you know, as we, as we thought about this exact question because There's needs in all buildings or all the older buildings.
so how do we really prioritize? If you look back at the history of the district, there has been a pattern of looking at Which of the buildings need the most attention and attending to that.
so even the building we're sitting at was built 15, 20 years ago, 20, 20 years ago, Because there was no middle school and there was a need from an enrollment and
programmatic perspective. And then in about 2010.
so that's why I'm checking my phone. 2010 there was a major project at colonial, right?
and then 2018, there was a major project at hutchinson. So now as we look at this, as we get further in, we're going to see now we're looking at Siwanoy as a major project.
so there is a history of strategy and a pattern of the district taking a look and Focusing on, you know, whatever building needs it at the time.
and again, that just kind of speaks to colonials kind of been in the in the rotation so Far.
it's to your point, it's not the condition is not impacting negatively on student Outcomes.
so and the needs of the other schools are rising to the surface. I also think when it comes to colonial, we've strategically done a few things like buying The house that is next door to give us the land to enable us to one day
to put a project plan with more details together for colonial.
I just think right now, given the fact that one of our schools is not even ada compliant, Really will take precedent over doing something
for colonial. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't they shouldn't get all the, you Know, all the infrastructure needs taken care of because we do need to do those.
but in terms of additions and other things, I think we may have to focus our, you know, Our needs today in other
schools. But I think from a strategic and long term perspective, I think colonial is set Up very well because the board, who was here back in 2019,
was very strategic, and buying that property right next door to allow for one day in the Future to be used for, again, an addition or any other ways we could see
fit. And what was added on. Was it 2010? Was it a library?
yeah, the library. And that was two classrooms and an elevator and an elevator.
that build the ada work was done in that building. Prospect hill got the elevator in your last bond.
that's right. I did leave that out of the project. It was a it was a minor, major project. How's that sound?
right. It was going to be an elevator and a security vestibule and two classrooms, a Classroom and two sgis later.
that's right. For the same budget. It was done. Yeah. Russ learned a lot about me in that work together.
I could be a little diligent when I want something. I don't tend to give it up very easily, but just to sort of declare my own sort of Personal affiliations as well.
we are a colonial family. I've had two kids go through colonial. I have a third kid in second grade in the great house.
so I'm a, you know, a member of the I'm a colonial loyalist.
is it perfect? No. But are some of the other buildings I think we're about to see less perfect?
yes. And this is about making tough choices so.
so, speaking of less perfect siwanoy.
it's a lovely building in a nice neighborhood. So we have developed four options for siwanoy a, b, c, and d, and the option a is
how little can we do to the building to get an elevator in there and replace the Classrooms that are displaced
by the elevator? So siwanoy has a central rectangular building which we call the original Building, which was built 1 or 2 years before.
the new wings, which are on the angle, and the new wings are almost 100 years old now.
so there's nothing been done to this building from additional space wise since the 20s.
and may I sorry to interject and interrupt your flow, but I think I'm right in saying Just to kind of set the scene here, that of the four elementary schools in
the district. I believe I'm right in saying that siwanoy has the lowest instructional Space per student and the lowest instructional support space per student of
the four elementary. So just like quantitatively on a square footage per student basis, it's the lowest.
that's 100% correct. Yeah. Yeah. You have classrooms. You have classrooms in siwanoy that are 680ft², where the state minimum is 900.
so we're not talking a few percentage here.
so it's but that being said, it's got some architectural presence and some historic Value, and it really presents very well for the neighborhood.
unlike the former hutch school, which was really problematic architecturally and Structurally in a number of ways.
so what this does is proposes a wing at an angle on the upper right, and in between that Wing and the main rectangle is an elevator.
and that's the only place it can really go because you have a split level configuration.
so the elevator needs to go where the floors split.
a second lift would be on the other side to also accommodate the angled new wings, which Are at a split level.
they were actually added at a stair landing level to the original building, and the Original stairs are still in there.
so what this does is replaces four classrooms that are disrupted by providing access to The elevator and lift.
so there's no net gain in number of instructional spaces, but a significant qualitative Gain in that you're going to get four right sized full
classrooms, including kindergarten rooms that are have private toilets and full 900ft² Public toilets for which are
also being displaced by the elevator. So you're going to get ada compliance in a number of ways.
and this has a second story that ties in and provides two full size fifth grade rooms as Well.
so it allows you to sort of right size a number of classrooms, but there's no net gain in Assignable instructional space.
there is a net gain in small group space where the former undersized classrooms were.
and you see that on both slides is labeled as sgi, which is really just sort of generic For small group instruction.
we leave it up to the building principal and the administrators to decide what they are, Whether they're special ed resource, and, or you can actually
use them as 811. Special ed rooms which you have a need for district wide.
or they can be. Academic intervention, reading support or testing accommodations.
and I'm glad you mentioned that piece because that was something I was going to raise as Well.
the board knows in our prior conversations, we've, like all other districts, are seeing An increase in special education needs.
and we already know from our cpsc, our preschool special education numbers that we're Forecasting increased growth in our program,
our 811 program as soon as next year. So we definitely need space for those specialized programs.
it would be wonderful to use this opportunity to build a space for those students so that They can be in one school, through their entire elementary years,
in a space that's designed for their program, and has the small group instruction space For all of the service providers, can you just.
oh go ahead will. Would that, might that ultimately mean that the basement classrooms in Colonial are moved to siwanoy for that instruction.
I don't want to alert. I don't want to worry anyone, but we're having discussions about That right now.
we've got one part of the program in colonial. We've got the older part of the program in siwanoy.
we're now adding a second. We'll be adding a second early program, which will likely eventually result in a second Older program.
so we may we could there's a lot up in the air, but the net result of some of this Building project conversation will answer that question, because it could be that we
build space for, I'll call it two sections or two.
we could build for two classes here. We could build for four classes here.
but I guess it sort of offers the possibility of, like, consolidation.
correct. Yes. And the consolidation would actually eliminate the transition that those families now Have to go through.
so which I think would be a positive for kids, and they start in colonial and eventually Have to move to siwanoy.
exactly. Currently they spend, I'd say 3 to 4 years. Tracy would know best 3 to 4 years at colonial, and then they transition and do 3 to 4 Years at siwanoy and then they move on to middle school.
so if we intentionally build space, we can build so that they can remain in one building K through five.
could you just explain for the community, for anyone who doesn't know what those Classrooms are like, what students are served in those to my special ed colleague
to give us, she's going to give you a much better description of what an 8181 the student In 812 class.
what an 812 class is. Yeah. So the ratio of the class gives you a sense of the type of support and the Intensity of support a child may need.
so the smaller the ratio, the more support they need based on their disabilities.
so an 812 class a student has a higher level of need that could be students that have Physical needs.
that could be students that are nonverbal. Those classes has a teacher, a teaching assistant, and a monitor already baked in.
but they also have some additional monitors for student safety.
some of those students need support with some basic daily living skills, such as going to The bathroom.
right. So those are the 812 programs in our district are for our students that have the Highest needs as far as
academics basic daily living skills and navigating the school environment.
got it. Okay. Thank you. Maybe since you're on the roll, could you ask maybe.
why? Microphone. Thank you. I mean, nuts.
maybe. Could you provide a little bit of color as to why it would be important for this Group of students to have a consistent location
for their lower school experience? So, you know, for these students who probably have the highest needs developmentally Their programs are really built
around consistency. They're built around routine.
they're built around structure. So when they're spending let's say, you know, a period of time in one school and
then for fourth grade, we're asking them to transition where we don't ask any of our Other elementary students to transition.
that's a high expectation for students who have the highest developmental needs.
so you know, there are some pros to the change because we also want them to be learn Flexibility and adaptability.
but I think the benefit of having them eventually in one location to have the same Experience that their general education counterparts
have is a good thing for them developmentally.
the staffing is incredible. They make it work. When the students make the transition to the school it does tend to be seamless.
so I think the staff does a tremendous job.
the principals do a great job making sure that, you know, they're welcome to any new Environment.
but I think, again, it goes back to, you know, we're asking the students with the highest Needs to do something that we don't ask other k-5 kids to do, which
is leave a building. Right? Kind of smack in the middle of, you know, their elementary programing.
and I think right now, you know, we have to do that because of our facility limits. Right? We don't have we don't have a choice.
you know and that's the I this would be the ideal is exactly what tracy's articulated.
and I think because we have this opportunity, we have to really we have to be very Thoughtful and see if we can give students that population of students that ideal
experience and families. Thank you. Thank you for that. I think that was an important thing.
explanation to be said out loud. Yes. Thank you. Thanks.
so option b, we looked at additional classroom space and an additional common area so Similar to the issue at colonial.
and what you may not have seen before is we put this on a site plan so you can see that This angled wing with the additional classroom space and the
cafeteria, which is that rounded section, would face the playground.
he would get an accessible entrance off manor lane with some off street handicapped Parking, which you don't have, and there would be a secure security
vestibule there, so you would be able to do a better job with security, handicapped Parking and a handful of visitor spaces, and that the addition is really
about the same distance from the property line as your existing building.
what's the green blob on that? A relocated playground.
I see the green is the playground. The relocated is the gray.
next to the green blob is that blacktop? That's asphalt play area and obviously not designed.
we're just trying to show you that you still have some space out there. We have taken some away with the addition, but when you compare that with what's Available at colonial and hutch, you're getting roughly equivalent.
and would that have to stay asphalt? Or could it be grass? It could be whatever. Whatever we wanted.
whatever you want it to be. We just turn it into a purple blob if we want to. We'll make it a purple blob.
we're all green. The right now, it's all asphalt. That whole back area in the outdoor space, the.
I mean, the outdoor garden remains. That's over to the on the left side. That outdoor classroom that was built recently is quite nice.
does not get impacted. Yeah. So just in a way of plan again the angled wing this gets built six classrooms which Allows you to get a full grade
level out there which is pretty nice from a functional point of view.
and the cafeteria. It leaves the gym and auditorium is a gym and auditorium.
and again you net the small group space. Just back on the special ed thing for a little bit.
the square feet per student for special ed because of their special needs is dramatically Higher than regular ed
students, so even an 811 classroom needs to be a minimum of 550ft².
and again, you have kindergarten rooms that are 650ft² with 22 kids in them.
so and then the upper floor would be all of the fifth grade with the flat roof, a green Roof probably over the cafeteria and
elevators and lifts. But this allows you to really get two full grade levels out there so you can take rooms Out of service and still net some additional small group space.
in the renovation. Right. So everything in purple we're showing is renovating the existing building.
and this is something that can be sort of dialed up or dialed down.
but right now we're budgeting for the building additions and renovating your existing Building so that the whole combined thing would
be sort of as good as new, as good as it can be.
and because we're putting an addition on in the backyard, this can be done while school Is in session.
so this would not mean that you have to move students out of siwanoy you'd be able to get This done, move into the addition, do the renovations over
two summers and a part of a school year. The rest with the renovations that would be that wouldn't be changing any walls Necessarily, other than really updating it.
if we go back to the building condition survey and you look at the interior walls and Doors and especially sinks and casework district wide, you see things
that you would never have in your house, right? But the room is still the room.
and, you know, everyone does a great job with making do. I would like to say that the building makes the student, but the students and the Teachers make the student.
but it and it didn't get in the way. And you've got things aging out now that are sort of getting in the way of instruction in Option a, was there any internal renovation included?
no. Thank you. Do as little as you can. Solve the elevator issue.
replace the classrooms. But it's still a very significant intervention. We have to build a four classroom addition to basically not lose classrooms.
and the renovation of the existing building is really related to sticking elevators in There and renovating classrooms in the elevator hallways.
so that's the limit of the renovation in option one. One detail I recall from seeing siwanoy on the facilities tour is in the basement.
some of the smaller classrooms have like literally like pillars, columns, pillars like Support beams just in the middle of the classroom.
do those is that solvable as part of this plan or is he not really they're doing Something.
they were not intended as classrooms. If you go back to the original plans, they're shown as storage rooms.
or my favorite is the bicycle room, because.
and the front driveway at siwanoy is labeled carriage path.
so you're talking about something that was designed when automobiles were not really Heavily in use.
I picture one of the bicycles with the big front wheel running.
penny farthing is the technical term. Option b. So option c is a more aggressive option, which basically takes off both of the Angled new wings
and creates a large addition perpendicular to the main area that, you know, can be a Little bit more
contemporary in the inside, but I think can be designed to fit in on the outside.
we wouldn't try and mimic the older building, but you can be respectful to it.
and in windows and material selections.
and I think it could be really attractive for the neighborhood. And what that does is because you're building so much on the right side of the site, you Can regain playground on the left side of the site.
you may be able to work around your existing outdoor classroom, or you may want to Reconstruct it somehow.
also, if you can see the gray on the bottom right of the yellow addition, this actually Is not as close to the property line as your existing
building. And we would use that area to have a service drive to serve a kitchen and have Some handicapped parking spaces off of manor
lane. But you're sort of net play space would be about the same here.
and the phasing plan would be to take off one wing, which really takes your auditorium And art room out of service, so you'd have to get by
without those two spaces. Build the new addition, have that usable, and then renovate the remainder of the existing Building.
but this would get you two brand new common areas, a cafeteria and a full sized gymnasium That would open directly to the
playground. And you would build eight class, four classrooms on this level, six on this Level.
so you really getting a lot closer now to having full sized classrooms for all grade Levels.
and it really is a fairly clean plan.
and again would be fully accessible and you would still have the
just the one elevator so you don't you don't take the classroom out of service. On the left side of the building, on two levels.
to create the second elevator. Russ the size of that gymnasium.
what is that comparable to? It's the hutch sized gymnasium.
so a double regulation. It's the same size as the middle school. Absent the bleachers.
it's a high school regulation basketball court. You could have a smaller gym for an elementary school, but our experience is that most Communities really want a full
size gym. If you're going to build one rather than one, that's 1800ft² that you can't Play basketball in.
and sorry, it's besides the gym, which is a common area, will also have a cafeteria slash Multi-purpose,
multi-purpose, I guess room where assemblies could be held or assemblies could be held.
it's thousand 400ft². So you're going to be able to get a lot of students in there and loose chairs.
and you'll get probably two grade levels in there for lunch.
so you'll be able to serve lunch in three seatings, which is what they're generally Designed for.
we put it in the front of the building, which is good from a security point of view.
nice view out. And we can have a dedicated kitchen and delivery area out of the way of everything else.
an alternative which we can explore would be to have the cafeteria face the playground.
but that makes the kitchen access a little difficult. But as what was mentioning earlier on, these are concepts we don't really want to get Into the details of design.
it's going to be about the same size is really all that matters at this point.
would this option c offset some of the other infrastructure for this one since it's brand New.
would that be. That's right. This time you'll see the hot water steam number go down significantly because the two Wings that we were converting go away.
and the cost for a heating system in the new wing is built into the price of the new wing.
so again we'll, we'll re-analyze that once the selection is a little closer.
but you'd see a significant change here. And, you know, it would really feel like a new building.
yes. So option c is a renovation of the existing building, which would mean
the center would be unaltered and that would leave that historical piece of siwanoy as Right as is the axial
front entrance would still be there, which is very prominent in the neighborhood.
what you're going to lose is the angled wings that were new a few years later.
and on the split level. And it would be a two story addition.
so we would be at a net add of six new six classrooms, ten, ten, ten classrooms, ten.
but we're going to net, I think eight. Thank you. Sorry. Net eight. And that includes the new special education spaces as well.
you've got an 812 room in there on this upper level at 550ft², which is the state Minimum.
a few other small group spaces, an office.
the new addition in option c here will also be on the split level because we want the Lower floor to be at grade.
and right now the existing building has the is split to grade.
so it's a half story up which was common in those days.
because the streets were dirt and you wanted all the dust to not get up to that upper Level.
but now that we have ada, you really want your main floor at grade?
so, as you mentioned, keeping that central part of siwanoy.
that's esthetically pleasing. You've also mentioned, you know, if option c is selected making the outside of it the Addition kind of similar
esthetically to blend in with the neighborhood, which is important. And I know you did a wonderful job at prospect hill.
you can't tell the difference until you go into that building that that area is brand New.
so would that be also kind of like some of the conceptual plans to make it look Similarly?
similarly, we would like a little more time to look at the architecture.
and thank you for the compliment on prospect hill.
I think you had a wonderful architect on your building committee. Who? Demanded that it be that way.
and we were happy to comply and glad it worked out. When you add to historic buildings, there's a couple strategies.
if it's a small addition like prospect hill, you try and match it, make it go away so you Can't tell the difference.
when you do something a little larger, maybe like this, sometimes it's better to have a Little link between them that separates them and clearly says, this is the old
beautiful thing. This is a new, beautiful thing that relates to the older thing.
and, you know, we could go on with architectural history, but if you're ever in boston, Look at the boston public library and you'll see the old mckim, mead and white building
and the new philip johnson building. They don't look like each other, but in size and material.
they have a crossover and they fit together beautifully. And that probably would be a better approach which, given the size of this addition.
but to be determined, I have one more question to add regarding the net difference.
so the sgi classrooms, those are the smaller classrooms.
given our current enrollment, does it leave room, does this leave room for an increased Enrollment or, you know, like that sort of
anticipated growth, or does it fit the current needs? These are really about right sizing based on your current enrollment.
if you move back into your basement, you could increase enrollment.
but the goal here would be to get out of the bicycle room and get out of the room with The columns in it.
how many total class full size classrooms is this option?
I'm remembering when we were sketching this up that the goal here is to have 18 full size Classrooms and siwanoy.
okay, because I'm thinking, yeah, that's how many do many do you have today?
well, I'm just thinking how many sections we have. Give me two seconds. I can find it.
I think we've got 13 classes section. You said it was eight.
net classrooms added, right? Yeah. Yeah. This year we are running 15 sections in the building, 16 classes, which is, I Think the biggest we've been.
but you need art and music plus art plus music.
plus small group space. Right. Plus I thought it was about 18 full size, 700 square foot rooms plus sgi space.
roughly, yeah. Is there a library in here? Because one of our current wings is also the library.
probably. No, but we can work on that. Yeah, yeah, I know, as you said, this is conceptual at this point.
so and I'm going to just I should have shared with the board too. We're going to be meeting with the elementary and secondary cabinets as we go through our Next monthly meetings, and we've shared these plans with them.
but we're going to sit and talk about exactly those kinds of things. What are the key building elements that really need to be there?
you know, the two rooms for the special education program library.
just all the different things that the, like, an elementary principal would be thinking About.
to make sure that before we get too locked into anything that we've got all those things On the radar.
one of the things I remember when we built the hutch was there was a lot of conversation About building bigger.
is that allowed its building past your capacity today?
something that could be done within reason? Yeah, I think hutch.
and with us, it's going to cost you more, but it gives you some flexibility.
and I think that at hutch, we were one room that was sort of flex, flex, flex.
and then when it was finally built. There's actually two.
so we will always keep that in mind for you. Were there state rules though I thought around building.
yeah. So that gets back to your enrollment projections.
so if your enrollment projections say that there's going to be 550 students in this Building, and you clearly design a building for 650, basically you're only going to get
aid on the 550 and the rest is on your own.
so it's going to it's going to impact your aid ability if you over build for future Flexibility.
and same thing with the big gym. They're going to say you don't need a 3500 square foot gym in an elementary school.
a playroom for an elementary school is 1800ft². But most districts, if they're going to build a gym, they believe it's more valuable for The community to build it at the usable
size, even if it affects their aid ability.
so the last one is roughly drawn here, and all we really want to show you is ignore the Purple and blue and look only at the red outline.
because if you're going to replace a building on the siwanoy site, completely tear down All of siwanoy and build a building about the size of
hutch, which is two, two and a half story building. It would be that red outline that you see there and take the entire site.
you'd have limited play area in the back, but that's about as much footprint you would Need if you take down the existing three
story center core and built a new building, and that goes all the way up to the front of The property as well.
that goes all the way up to the front of the property. No more carriage path. Yeah. And it's a major construction project.
and which begs the question is, where do the children go?
for the 2 to 3 years. So you would need to build a temporary school if you can't rent one, which I don't Believe there's any in walking distance that would be
suitable. The thinking was right out here you could put a bunch of temporary
classrooms that would function as a temporary elementary school.
it would be a one story thing. It would use basically a modular classroom.
trailers, two trailers per room times 18 or 20 times to get
offices and small group space in there. You would have to use the gym and or cafeteria in the middle school or high school.
and it would take that field out of service, and it's expensive.
there's no such thing as a temporary building code. So it would have to meet every single building code that's out there, and it would be There for 2 to 3 years.
think about things like bringing electric service to the site, water service to the site, Sanitary.
these are all temporary expenses that are significant, but would be required to have Those trailers there.
and every student who is walking there would have to cross that very busy intersection.
yes it would. Yes. And I know that we I don't know if you know the answer to this, but would you know we're Talking about a bond referendum?
would rental costs for such a portable, portable classroom school be allowable within Bonding funding?
I think it's allowable, but it's not affordable.
right. And it would be a long term payment for something that's a 2 to 3 year proposition That we'd have for three years on site.
right. Aid is like 50%.
yes. So, I mean, a portion would be able under your project costs, but you would soon hit The exceed that limit.
so the majority of the cost of that would be on you.
so what do we budget that at? I knew that question was coming and I don't I'm not totally clear.
it's over $10 million to do that exercise of temporary class. I think last time we spoke I thought we were talking 15.
yeah I think that's right. Yeah. 15 million. I think the direct the direct cost was about $10 million.
and then all those other contingencies and project costs for us to 15 just for that Portion of the work.
right. So using the same method for each.
these are the these are the budget comparisons. So option a is sort of the floor of what you would need to do to make it make it Accessible.
and then options b and c are starting to get you. Significant improvements mostly in the renovation of the existing building.
then option d expensive replacement building and a lot of money spent on a temporary School.
so that's your rough range. And these are budgets for decision making only, just like the concept designs that got Everybody quiet.
does that conclude your slides. Because I just want to. That's siwanoy. We're going to move on to the middle school.
high school. So so just just kind of to to round out the new school conversation we're Just having so that approximately $90 million, 15 of that then would
be theoretically represent the cost for the temporary school.
yes. And then the remaining is the escalated cost of a new building similar to hutchinson And the removal of.
yeah, including the removal of siwanoy siwanoy.
and that would be a big construction project in that neighborhood. I mean, I know hutch was a big project as well, but you had one side of it was a street, And this one is surrounded
by residential property and streets. So before we get on to the high school, middle school, I just think the one bit that we Kind of just want to make sure that we collectively don't gloss over is, is the kind
of why siwanoy rather than colonial. And I think we talked about it a bit, but I think we just got to I mean, the three kind of Factors for me are, number one, the square footage per
student is more in need at siwanoy than at colonial.
number two, the ada compliance is needed at siwanoy rather than colonial.
and then number three is the idea of sort of consolidating potentially special ed at Siwanoy that would then enable you to unlock that the usage of those base
classrooms for instructional support at colonial.
those are the kind of three things that I think are kind of the primary drivers for the Decision, but I want to make sure that we kind of collectively agree and that people
understand why we're making that that choice. Thanks for that. Well, yeah, I agree.
I think you've laid that out really clearly and nicely.
yeah, I would I would totally agree with that. And I would just add early on point of view, from my perspective, if you look at the cost For option d seems pretty extraordinary as far as an investment
goes. But I'm, I'm my eyes keep going to option c because it seems like a really good Direction because again you're saving
money on input. It's almost like you're offsetting some of those to get from option b to option c, and Option a doesn't really do fully, holistically what we need to do.
well, exactly. To your point, around the three points, like it doesn't really address the Three points.
so option a just feels like it's not it's like a temporary band-aid that's really not Going to address the things that we need to and the priorities that we're trying to get
to. So just throwing it out there to like, I'm kind of really that's where my kind of Leaning is right now based on the information.
yeah. Well, very nicely put. I think as a board member now for my third year, every year we do the facilities Walkthrough at the beginning of the year.
and it's always shocking when you visit some of the schools, when you compare them.
right, like in some of the classroom sizes in siwanoy versus colonial versus like some of The other schools when especially when you compare it to like a brand new school like
hutchinson. So I do totally agree. And I want to reiterate, we're not saying I don't see us not addressing colonial today as A no.
I see it as a later like we it may not be something that we could do this year or next Year, but it will get done.
it's just not a priority right now, today. Because if you really go through a walk through in siwanoy, you've noticed the need, There is just much greater.
and also, I think it's important for the colonial community to understand that the end of This, it's not like there's going to be nothing that benefits that, that that building.
I think we're heading in the direction of air conditioning. I think we're heading in the in the direction of probably a new roof.
do we need a new roof for colonial? I can't remember. Is that on the list? No. Okay. I think the cupola just had a little bit of that.
a little bit of repair. Well, okay, but I think fair enough. But the sort of new windows.
but I mean, for quality of life, both for the teaching staff and for the students. Central air conditioning, I think is something that would be extremely important to Everyone.
and again, potentially the reconfiguration of those rooms in the basement to provide Instructional support or other purposes for other things.
yeah. And just I just want to say I appreciate your team colonial, but being able to look At the bigger picture, because there are many community members that won't personally
benefit whether they don't have kids or they're not in it. And so this is the conversation around what is the community's needs, what's the what are The students needs and the priorities.
so I think that that was really helpful for me to hear from you as like somebody that is In the, in that district and your point of view on it, I'm
sure you know, everybody here agrees we are team pelham. And if it benefits one side of this community, it benefits all.
yeah. Can I ask a question too. And really kind of what darra shared originally is leading to it.
do before we move on to looking at middle school, high school, is there any consensus Around any of these options being kind of just a nonstarter.
a non-starter. For me, d would be a non starter. And a and a, d and a and yeah and I ask that because we need to know to give direction to Our architects where to put their energies.
and I would say indeed like as much as we all want something nice and shiny and new, I Feel like there's going to be some disruption to all the options here.
but I do think a disruption of that magnitude of d would really not only disrupt the Sianowy student body, but then bringing them
here where we already know we have capacity issues with the cafeteria, with the space.
I mean, we had the conversation this week about the drive at 8:00 in the morning here.
I just feel like that magnitude of disruption for this community would be, well, a little Too much.
and it takes up all most of the property, right? Right. If with that, the way you laid out what the hutch size is.
yeah, yeah. Unless you're going to go with a taller build. Yeah, there's no playground. And right. Unless you were to go with a taller building.
and I think from our committee conversations, going up to a third story would then add Significant cost and would be out of place maybe in the neighborhood, too.
yeah, it would be out of place in the neighborhood because it would be quite tall. Yeah. And this is a multi-story building.
but generally elementary schools are two stories or less because vertical travel, small Legs and also construction cost.
so at two stories we're dealing with a non-combustible non fireproof non sprinklered Building.
when we go to three stories it's fully fireproofed, fully sprinklered.
and the already very expensive cost goes up again.
what's the net classroom for the option d?
it's got the full program, just like, like hutch.
so it's going to have all full size classrooms, which I believe the number is 18 plus Small group space, plus administrative space.
professional development conference rooms. The full model program that was developed when hutch was built.
yeah. So it has the most for sure. And these aren't apples to apples comparisons, but it's a it's a very expensive Proposition to build a brand new building on that
site. And then that 90 million or 90 plus million, what is how does that compare to what Hutchinson cost?
about 40. Yeah. 40. 40. 40. Yeah. There's no temporary school there.
right. So it's really sort of this the escalation.
75 versus 40. Is where you are. Yeah. Yeah. How long did hutch take to build?
two. Two years? Yes. We benefited from many. Many. I was just going to say, though, too.
I mean, you said it was about two and a and a half years anticipated for this.
is that real? Is that realistic? Because I know hutchinson benefited from a lot of different things that fast tracked it.
hutch was built faster than you told the community. Yeah. And because of the pandemic, it was the only positive that came out of the Pandemic.
so this could potentially take also three. Right. More than I guess what I'm trying to say is like, it's really potentially could Take more than three years.
really. I don't feel any enthusiasm for this. So maybe. Yeah.
what do you say? Right. So I guess yeah, it's well said. So I'm hearing there's enthusiasm around continuing to look at options b and c enthusiasm Around energy around b and c
but no interest in pursuing options a or d any further at this point from the board.
yes. Okay. Okay. Middle school. High school.
so again, the issues you're facing here are some capacity issues.
according to projections, could be 100 students, could be 150 students, depending on how You look at that.
but that's not an insignificant number. If 100 students showed up, additional students showed up on this campus tomorrow, you Would have a real hard time assimilating that.
so I do think you need to think long term that within the sort of 7 to 10 year window, you Need to be able to have some additional space at
this campus for instruction. And it seems to be high school age students.
so one of the strategies would be to could be to build middle school space and give the High school space that's now used by middle school
students back to the high school. So there's a number of different ways to do this.
and a couple of concepts that we looked at was creating a connecting addition in blue.
which would sort of be out here. It would take away a little bit of your field space, and it would be on the playing field Side of your current breezeway.
so on the left, that would keep the breeze. We'd build a new covered walkway where the breezeway is and put a middle school dedicated Cafeteria and kitchen out here.
so middle school would get their own cafeteria. That would be on the second floor of that addition.
it would contain four science classrooms, state of the art you know, 2000 square or 1200 Square foot science rooms with
prep space and some additional classroom space, which would allow you to convert the Second floor of the annex to district office space,
which could hold all of your district office on one floor.
and that would move that would require us to replace eight classrooms, which we would Replace on the third floor, where the science rooms are now,
and build new science rooms instead. Because part of the issue with your science rooms is they're undersized, so we can't Really we could renovate them in place.
that would be okay. But ideally when dealing with science space, it's better to build full size new and Especially given your history with science, the
changing demands on science curriculum, a new science or stem wing, I think could be the Real sort of capstone of the pelham
learning experience. So this would require a new entrance to be in this sort of connector between the annex And the high school building, and that would allow us to put an elevator
there so that visitors to the district office would come in, go up to the second floor, Do not have to go through student occupied space.
we'd be we'd be able to coordinate that and separate it, and you'd solve your district Office issues, your increased population issues and state of the
art high school science labs.
so this also has a stem room and additional science rooms to accommodate the additional Population
as well. So that's the quick version of option a.
option b does something similarly, but it does not move the district office to the annex.
it does take away a science room in the in this building, which is sort of behind the Offices, technology room and moves a
portion of the district office here. You would still need space at pelham dale and or another location.
so you would then need three locations for district office, but we could still do the Middle school cafeteria and kitchen.
this concept moves the new entrance to the edge of the high school.
so we take one of the high school cafeteria rooms and create a sort of commons or Informal learning area, which you would not need all
three cafeterias. If we build one for the middle school. And then the addition would again replace one of the.
the middle school tech room which is s1 new high school science labs and a stem room.
and then on the upper floor of the annex, we would renovate three of the science rooms And replace four of
the general classroom spaces. So it would also allow you with a two and a half story addition, some roof area, which Could be future classrooms.
so we could design that roof as a future floor. So that you'd have a little bit more room to add 2 to 3 rooms at some point in the Future.
so that was pretty quick. But again.
framed out option a, about $10 million more than option b.
and again, sort of our first thoughts. And I think that there's probably more work that could be done on both approaches.
obviously, this is not the nearest short term need, but we think you're going to need Something to happen here.
and we think the opportunity of creating a sort of stem science wing is exciting and Could really provide a great deal of
benefit, rather than just tagging on more classrooms and leaving outdated science labs.
so option a does not include district offices.
it does. Okay. That be full inclusion in the district office. This would get you completely out of rental space.
so which would be an important savings on the budget. I mean, that's something to consider too, as we can work with jim and your financial Advisors on how that impacts the cost to taxpayers, because even though it's 10
million more roughly the impact to taxpayers will not be the full 10 million because it Will be offset by not paying rent
at the sanborn building, and it will leave pelhamdale available for
administrative building for administrative like offices.
is that a double fundable, whatever the word is, the short answer is no.
the real answer in this configuration kind of is because we're converting existing Classroom space to district office.
gotcha. It's really only a situation where you're renovating existing building space.
I see. It's not able to build new district office spaces. That's important. So if we had flip flopped and decided to build new offices on the new Expansion wing, that would not be affordable.
not at all. But building the classrooms there and doing renovations for the offices does Then put them in the bucket.
right. It's a peculiarity of how existing renovation and new construction are aided by Different methods.
so when you renovate a building, you get a cost allowance based on the total area of the Entire building.
and you can spend up to that amount. Do whatever you want and it will qualify for building aid.
but if you're going to build a new addition, they're going to look at every room and say You get 20 building aid units for that.
you get 15 building aid units for that. And for the district office you get zero building aid units.
so that's why it's advantageous to do it in renovation.
also, this may be irrelevant. I hope state ed's not watching your video.
I'm sure they have better things to do. This may be irrelevant, but as I'm sitting here, I'm reminded that you actually have two Rooms in this building that don't exist, but could be, could exist very easily there and
there. So I don't know if that if that's of note.
yeah. We have been told that it was. See that.
they were designed as future floors. And we can look at that.
our experience with that, which we have some experiences. That's a very expensive room because it's a third floor room.
logistics, cranes, you can build a if I would rather add a building, a room to a building Addition.
it does provide you some flexibility and we can take a look at and an option that Utilizes.
I know also that I hear a lot about the cafeteria and the need for the cafeteria and sort Of the interaction that students have in
the cafeteria. I just wonder if you can speak a little bit about the level of like, need Or benefit of kind of being able to kind of bring that into
the high school. So, I mean, that's something we've traditionally struggled with because when, when this Building was built, I think there were some renovations done to create the cafeterias as
they are today, but it is not big enough to support food service for both buildings.
it's big enough for the middle school. This year, as I've shared with the board, we tried to schedule most ninth graders because Ninth graders don't have open campus, so most ninth graders have been scheduled for lunch.
seventh period because cafeteria was wide open. Seventh period. So it has made a significant difference on the when you look at the Hallways and the stairwells, which is what a lot of what people were
hearing about in the past. Huge difference there. So I think we're dealing definitely with much better capacity than We were in the past and that so I think overall it works much better.
and I think it's manageable. As long as the weather is nice, it doesn't address the need.
when it's rainy, when it's cold, when our, you know, upperclassmen don't leave the campus For lunch.
so I think that that will always be a piece of need. And unless we have more of a cafeteria space.
I'm trying to think there was another piece to the cafeteria issue that's I think that's Really the main one.
one of the things that I know we've talked about it before, too, is the desire to give High school students kind of that student center.
and again, that's a programmatic quality of life, if you call it that, to think about, Are there ways that we can give them more of that space to connect personally where
they've got a little bit more autonomy? It's what do we say? It's less serious than a library, more serious than a cafeteria, something that could be Used flexibly as a learning space.
if a teacher wanted to bring a class down collaboration space.
so I think especially with current learning theory, with the desire to have students make Greater connection, build community, I think there's philosophical and educational
reasons to have a space that could also be flexed to that.
and the reality is, we do have a little bit of space in the cafeteria, even during the Middle school lunch periods, and we have designated portions of the room.
we've got. What used to be called the cyber cafe, is now a high school room and there's About 50 seats on one end.
the cyber room. On hot days you will get high school kids in because it's air Conditioned.
but the other space, they just don't want to be there with middle school kids.
so you know, maybe that would change over time, but. So it's better now than it was, but it still doesn't fully meet the need, especially if All students were in the building.
you know, and I. Yeah. I'll just stop there. I mean, it's just good to know. I know it's not one of the, you know, there's security issues.
there's that, you know, there's the annex. But I just wanted to hear a little bit about the value, you know, and, you know, the Security side, if there ever were a situation where we didn't want kids going out for
lunch for, you know, a period of time. We don't have the capacity to have them all in the building and really sustainably have Them in one place.
you also probably hear from your kids about long lunch lines and things like that. That also comes from having all students trying to access an undersized cafeteria.
yeah. So in in scenarios, it would allow for all high school students to stay in for Lunch.
it would be a separate cafeteria. So there would be room for the entire high school.
okay. Yeah. So that's the program choices that we're currently looking at for the middle school, high School campus and that we wanted to pivot back to
something. Sorry. I just want to add one quick thought, because just looking at that $10 million difference, Like there's probably would we be able to also look at sort of in between an roi, you
know, of the rental versus the not like what would be the value over a period of time. Right. So that could be a very easy, obvious investment that could make up the difference To make up the difference.
so it's not actually, you know, it's just investing I guess is it doesn't make up the Full difference.
I would imagine that that's what I'm saying. That feels like a little bit it could be a no brainer for this.
you know, this particular one. Yeah. So are we interested in continuing to look at both of these as well as look at Evolve these ideas a little bit more?
I don't think there's a clear like the elementary school. The last conversation there seemed to be like a two clear standouts for this doesn't feel To me as clear of a, you know, but and I also think
like there's only two options here. So it's worth exploring and developing.
you know, each of these options. I do think when we explore, if we know how much the rental space is today.
yeah. So for me, it maybe because I am in the facilities committee.
you know, option one is the clear winner for me because it gives us everything we want. Plus it enables the admin space to move in, leaving some space at colonial to eventually Do what we need to do there and really consolidating
more. Plus, putting an elevator in that directly goes into the admin space and not have To go through the kids in that cafeteria space.
I mean, once you have a kid in the middle school who has to eat at 10:00 in the morning, I think having their own cafeteria would definitely make sense.
I know it's a good to have. It's not a must, but it will free up the other cafeterias that are in the high school.
how many people are in sanborn right now roughly? 13, 14.
14. 14. Valerie is saying to me, 14 like, like so much in life, it's like comes down to parking.
is there like enough parking to absorb, like an extra 14 cars, you know?
well, that's always an issue here. We'd have to, if any opportunities came to increase parking.
we you know, we do have a good relationship with the village as well too. We could certainly have some conversations around that.
we could potentially explore another street to allow for street parking. Yeah, we do have we do have folks parking down at glover.
actually. We have staff that park at glover during the school day, which isn't great.
it's a nice walk and I mean on a nice day, it's a nice walk. This might be more of an anecdotal question or I can't get this mic right, like too loud Or too far away from it.
sorry, sorry. But are there benefits?
right now, our admin staff, we have, you know, you guys are at sanborn.
then we have jim and his team over on pelhamdale.
and so having all of our, like, all of the, the staff in one building, that would be a Huge benefit for productivity
or just, you know, there's a lot of benefits to that for the workday, for the staff to Being with the students.
like we were all on this campus before the current projects, and we needed the classroom Space.
so we moved off and separated. So yeah, there's definitely efficiencies that are lost. There's collaboration and cohesion that that, you know, we work great together and google Meet is, you know, solves a lot of problems.
but the ability to be together would definitely make work more collaborative, more Efficient.
and anne marie said it, the big piece that we lost was being with here with the students.
yeah. So, you know, to get up from your desk and go take a walk down the hall is very Different here than it is at sanborn.
yeah. I mean, to me, I'm going to agree with natalie. It seems like the that's the difference, right?
like that's the big difference. And it. And I'm going to assume it's actually absorbed by the savings and being able to Do that.
so it seems like the benefits of everybody being together. Plus it's not really going to be additional cost if you look at it about the investment Over time I'm guessing.
so I would be leaning to the option a, because it just does seem like it covers the costs To do that.
and it benefits everybody the students, the administration, the, you know, to do that.
and it's that's sort of where my mind is going as well.
I mean, like quick math on the rental savings.
I mean, I'm going to be making these numbers up completely made up numbers.
again, these are made up numbers. But like if we spend $500,000 a year in rent, which we probably don't.
200. Right. Okay. So spending $200,000 a year in rent, that's ten years.
we are saving $2 million. So it would take like, what, 20 years to save the $10 million of the, you
know, to make up the difference. But some of it some of it is [inaudible] it's not it's not a 1 to 1, you know, savings Ratio.
but like that's sort of like rough quick like what we're looking at. Do you have like. Yeah right.
like a ballpark. I don't put you too much on the spot. If you're not comfortable that's fine. But if you had like a ballpark.
well, I did speak to our financial advisor, just kind of giving an idea of what our admin Roughly of $200,000 a year.
how much could we borrow if we had 200 k as an annual debt service?
so in the range for between 4.65 to 5.8 million, depending on what your term is, whether It's a 15 or a 20 year term, depending
on aid levels. And the big part is you're looking at those aid levels as building aid units and how That's going to shake out.
there's not a lot of clarity on that at this point. So it's difficult to really lock in on a number.
but that number, if that estimate is correct, that could be half the difference right There.
right. Yeah. It's about half. Yeah, definitely. I think it's more material than, you know than that.
yeah. All right. Any other thoughts or guidance to give to the architects on this before We move on to the last pieces?
I think it's worth exploring both of them, but I guess my initial reaction given all the Other big
numbers that we've seen, I don't know, this like incremental 10 million doesn't feel like A use of the next 10 million
compared to. Siwanoy like for $7 million, you can have a two thirds new school compared To
like renovating the existing annex.
that feels like a lot more bang for your buck than getting, you know, moving the district Offices in and some other incremental
things at the high school. So I guess for me, my bias at the moment would be more towards option b, but I think it's Worth exploring both of them.
yeah, I think to that point in my mind, we'd have to look at the numbers.
if you look at the eight, if it's 50% of that 10 million, then you go like long term Wise, around 200,000 every year.
if it if it kind of nets out, then it then I think it's a good investment.
but to your point, if it's 10 million to spend 10 million then it then I would say no, No, but I do in my quick mind in the
math, if you think about then the sort of like other benefit that little piece of like The 15% around having the staff together, I would imagine it needs to net
out to zero with those other aspects of it.
I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, we have, you know, 55 million of infrastructure.
maybe we don't do all of it, but, you know, that's the baseline. We have 35 million or so for siwanoy.
we're talking about 35 or 45 here. And we haven't talked about air conditioning yet. Like the numbers are getting really big and we got to think about where.
they are big, where incrementally maybe it's not, but here's at least from where I view This.
we've addressed the administrative offices problem back in 2018, when we moved the Offices out because we needed the
space. We bought the house and used it as administrative offices.
we know we have a plan for that land, so we will eventually have to fix this problem.
like this is not a I feel like we keep kicking that can down the road and that can is Going to hit, and we're going to have to fix it whether we fix it today or whether we fix
it in five more years, it's going to have to be fixed. So if it's going to cost me 20 million to figure out what I'm going to do with the Administrative situation, and 5 or 7 years or ten years down the road versus
just add it on. Now, while I understand it's a lot of money, I'm like, to me, it's like I'm just Postponing a problem and I'm going to have to fix that problem.
because anything we do with colonial relies on getting that space.
so I just I just feel like if we're going to do something, I keep thinking bold.
and you address the problem once and for all, because I feel like we are we're not Addressing that problem, and we're going to continue to every 6 or 7 years, every time we
talk about facilities, we're going to come back to the same where we put the Administrative staff.
unfortunately, we're landlocked. So we got yeah, it's not like we could rent a lot of space for cheap or get free space.
I mean, I would love to get some free space somewhere to confirm. Just to.
oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to say to confirm the difference between the two is Basically bringing all of the district, all of the administrators back to the main
campus. Is that the main difference between these two? Programmatically? That's a primary difference.
there's also the size of the addition, right? We have in option b, we've reduced the size of the additional.
but so there is the potential for kind of a hybrid between those options as well.
okay. And, you know, I was going to talk about a little bit later on, but a lot of work We've done to date is estimating.
so trying to assign costs to a drawing that we've prepared and a program that we Prepared.
there's also the art of budget development which is a little bit different. That's saying we have x amount to spend.
and in a case like this there may be a decision point. Say we really don't want to spend the incremental 10 million, but we really want to find a Way to get the district office in there.
how can we rework that a little bit for 36 million?
and there's also a little bit of art to that as we weigh priorities as well. But developing a budget is equally as important to developing a program.
but in both cases, we're talking about a new cafeteria. Yes. Yeah. A new middle school cafeteria.
but option a also has replacement of all of the high school science labs.
yeah. And option b doesn't has some of them. Some. Okay. So option a gives you more square footage.
yes. Which I know I just said about fixing the fixing the problem. But if it one day we do find ourselves back in.
we need more space. Those could potentially then be converted to yet more classrooms.
yes, you've been known to convert things and convert them back, right? Yes. So would it be possible then for the next round to just maybe hone in a little bit More, crunch some more, because it feels like it's a little bit down to the numbers game.
right. Like, what do we think the aid is going to be. What is the rental versus that sort of some of those returns.
can we kind of just hone in on that a little bit more and maybe it'll help us all kind of Feedback.
my guess is you're going to see an option c. Okay. Which is somewhere between option a what do we have options.
we like options. Well it's important. This is a huge decision for a community.
so this is what this process is about I hope we don't get up to option h which is where We landed.
we've done. Yeah. And then you didn't do any of them. Built a new building.
but the no. This is a good feedback, but we do have a couple of other things to talk about there.
sorry. The other piece of feedback that we want to do is, again, when I meet with the Administrators, we don't want to just, you know, build one more science lab than we have.
and then it turns out that it's not enough. So we want to take the time to be really thoughtful again.
about what? What exactly do we need to make sure that we get it right to, to natalie's Point earlier about
needing to figure out space for pelhamdale's current use when eventually there's a Colonial project, is there a way
to build this or design this so that when pelhamdale is no longer available, we have an Easy way to build
district offices at that point. So we defer the cost to a later date when it makes sense with another project.
yes. Okay. Is that? Yes.
anything can be done or. Yes. There's probably a fiscal. Right. Now, what's being proposed for the district office is to take eight, 800 square Foot classrooms.
got that floor and make it district offices. We could very simply leave two at the end as classrooms until such time as you move out Of pelhamdale, which would lower your renovation costs
now and give you the flexibility to do that later and design an addition so we could add Two classrooms to that addition at the time you do that.
okay. Thank you. Yep. Okay.
can we move on to air conditioning?
so apologies. On a day like today, it's very hard to think about air conditioning.
yes. But I know we have to. Yes. I'm thinking about my windows in my house. And I will note the governor did sign the bill over the holiday break, I believe.
so this is reality that reality that we need to deal with. Yeah. And is that all classrooms or just elementary I forget.
all. All. Yeah. There are some additional spaces as well, I believe, besides classrooms, but it's Yes, it is a new reality.
it's more than just a preference now to a degree.
no pun intended, but so.
oh, no. No, no. How to pay for it? No fun there.
so we've prepared estimates for what it would take to provide air conditioning in each Building.
these are lump sum numbers. Apologies on our cascade here.
but I'll just read them quickly. The to provide.
well, let me say the air conditioning is not just providing an air conditioning unit.
it's all of the infrastructure associated with it as well. And in many cases it's providing a ventilation system.
a mechanical ventilation system where one does not exist. That's capable of providing air conditioning as well as heating, but it's more than a Window unit.
it's more than putting a unit on the wall. These are comprehensive system upgrades that include the hvac, hvac components, as well As electrical components.
so providing air conditioning is a dramatic increase on the amount of electricity you Need in the building.
so we've included all of that in these numbers. And it's not a one system fits all in every in every space.
there are a lot of different systems that we're talking about modifying here, but the Bottom line is to do that work at colonial, about 8.5 million.
and then again, that includes all those factors we talked about before. Siwanoy is about 5.5.
prospect hill about five. And the big one is the high school, about $23 million.
it's a lot of work. It's a lot of square footage. And these are big systems.
I will just going back to the point we were talking about earlier. This is a case where there may be a significant amount of overlap, depending on what Option is chosen.
the amount of work, particularly that's done at siwanoy that would impact that number.
and there is the potential to have prioritization within these numbers.
so these are all into all the spaces. It may be that we want to look at doing portions of buildings.
particularly maybe at the high school. Prioritize some spaces. And you know, the 23 is a lot a lot here.
so there is some variation within that as well that we could explore.
the next slide is geothermal. We're going to talk about that for a second before you leave air conditioning.
remind me, is there a different incremental cost if you stayed with steam versus Hydronic.
those are very closely related in terms of how these costs would play out.
the simple answer is I'm not sure.
but what I can tell you is in air conditioning system will tie in to the hydronic system.
the components would be of a family, as opposed to a steam system, which would be Providing
steam heat to systems. And then we'd have a separate cooling plant that would provide a different medium to Provide cooling to the systems.
so the simple answer is a hydroponic system is going to interact in a much nicer way with The air conditioning than a steam system.
and it would interact even better with a geothermal system.
so I you mentioned around sort of either piecemeal or certain priorities over can you top Line sort of
where you saw those like really key urgent priorities versus the other.
I probably can't go into detail about each building, but for instance, let's say at the High school, if there are spaces that historically have gotten, you know, been less
comfortable when it's hot out and, you know, maybe we could talk about doing the upper Floors of buildings that will have a dramatic effect on the building.
not only will the cool air kind of trundle down, but we're taking care of the presumably The hottest spaces in the building, and it will improve overall comfort.
it may be that we don't need to air condition every space. There are certain classrooms that are important and other areas that are less important.
so I don't have a simple answer on that one, but I just wanted to offer there's a lot of Variability potentially here to prioritize.
and we could look at, you know, offering the kind of be interesting to see, sort of based On even the new bill, like what needs to happen.
and then what would be nice. Yeah, I think as far as the bill the bill is concerned, I would confidently say our top Floors are going to be our problem.
the top across, across all buildings. Okay, so maybe that's where we start to saying like, what would it be to do all the top Floors and see if we can look at that.
that makes sense. With the new bill, was there a time limit as to when we would have to Have everything done?
september. Oh yeah. When we open school in september, we have to have a solution.
so jim and john have been working already to the wiring I think we've talked about has Already been done in two buildings, third of the elementaries, third is
next to come. They've been stuck. All three are done. Thank you. Three elementaries have been wired.
our crew is built, our staff is building some installation pieces to try to make them as Efficient.
it loses money, you know, so we don't lose as more than we need to.
and in a secret place. We are stockpiling the units.
so we have them come the spring, because everyone else who's in the same situation as us Is going to be out going, out getting.
so yeah. So we still have to get the high school still has to be wired. But that will that will position us by september to have all the top floor instructional Spaces with a window unit, a window unit which is a
start to solving the problem. But that should be enough to get us through to keep us under that threshold, you know, in The short term.
and I guess that's you know, that's the other question. When you talk about phasing, to what degree is, are people, you know, satisfied with Window units as a solution versus, you know, moving to a fully air
conditioned situation? Yeah. So, you know, for the heating components, the air conditioning components we're Talking about and really the new additions and
renovations underlying all of that are sustainable systems and energy efficient Equipment.
we'd be looking at heat pumps in all of those solutions.
but one option we want to talk about that is specifically kind of a more sustainable Approach is geothermal or ground source heat pumps.
and I just want to say air conditioning is a prerequisite to use that type of system.
it relies on a balanced heating and cooling load.
basically uses the earth as a heat sink to discharge or take heat out.
depending on the season. And if you only run it in one mode all the time, it'll kind of like be like the freezer In my basement that just gets all the ice build up on it and stops working.
it does require a balanced heating and cooling load. So for those of you that are not familiar with ground source heat pump or kind of Referred to as geothermal this is a system that uses piping to
turn the ground into a heat sink. The ground temperature is always constant.
these systems go down about just under 500ft into the ground. They're closed loop.
so it's kind of like your car radiator. It pumps a refrigerant or a water through the piping so that it always returns at a Constant
52 to 54 degrees. And that allows the heat pump, water cooled or water based heat pump to extract or Discharge heat energy into the system throughout the year
so it can operate in a heating or cooling mode. And what does that do? Well, it takes the place of a fossil fuel fired boiler and a fossil fuel fired chiller Plant.
so now we can move from fossil based fuels to do heating and cooling to a clean electric Mode.
so it basically discharges our fuel hookup, gets rid of our boilers, and we replace it With heat pump systems.
but that does require a balanced heating and cooling load to make that work effectively.
we did just convert a 1932 middle school. It's about 170,000ft² fully to geothermal.
this was their athletic field adjacent to the building. This is a drilling rig.
it drills 495ft into the ground, installs a plastic pipe, and the pipe all returns back to The former boiler room, which is the heat pump room now.
and then once that installation is complete, this whole system lives six feet.
the tops of the wells are six feet underground, so once they're there, they're kind of Inert.
the expected useful life is 100 years, and there's going to be a playing field and a Playground built on top of it, and hopefully nobody sees it for another 100 years.
and the piping is a welded plastic pipe. It's kind of portable.
it's hidden from uv exposure. It'll be there for a long, long time.
so once it's installed, you don't see it again, but you do need some real estate. It takes up a little bit of footprint, and for that reason we are not recommending or Proposing a colonial.
it just isn't the space to put it. And if you did put it there, it kind of it would restrict your options in the future for The types of additions we were just talking about.
but at siwanoy and prospect hill, the order of magnitude is about a $2 million additional Investment.
so this is net of boiler upgrades. So this is really the cost of the well field and swapping out the heat pumps with the Boilers so that the heat pump work in this in this estimate
is neutral compared to the boiler cost. So assumes we're upgrading the boilers no matter what.
and this would just be the add for the well field. And at the high school it's about $6 million.
so these are additive costs to the heating and cooling system, but would significantly Reduce or even really offset all
your fossil fuel usage for heating and cooling. And you said these would have to be paired with air conditioning upgrades as well.
so it would be the system heating system upgrade ideally to hydronic plus the air Conditioning plus the well the well field.
yeah. And air conditioning upgrade. Not not in phases like we just said.
not window units for sure. Yeah. Not window units.
I would think so, yes. I mean, we want to talk to our engineers a little bit more about what's driving the Sizing of the system.
because in that scenario, they're going to look at both heating and cooling loads. So peak demand on degree design degree days.
there may be an option to do particularly at the high school. Probably the smaller building is. No, it's just the whole thing.
there may be some option at the high school to do a partial geothermal system with Partial air conditioning.
and these systems could go on forever. Like a lot of times usage of them.
yeah. I mean, the ones we've installed and we are working on with districts that are Almost fully geothermal, like putnam valley central school
district, is almost 100% geothermal. Yeah, about 25 years ago, they converted the high school.
their middle school and portion of the elementary school was done about ten years ago.
this year they're going to convert the whole thing. The expectation is those systems will be there for 50 to 100 years without really any Maintenance of the well field.
the pumps that circulate the water through the pipes will be replaced over time.
but the, you know, the expected useful life is 50 plus years. It's probably 2 to 3 cycles of a heating plant systems.
I know, I know, there isn't time necessarily tonight to go too deep into it, but I know That there's we've in the committee, we've talked about potential grant opportunities to
offset costs for geothermal upgrades. That obviously would not come off the amount that the voters would need to approve, but Those could be opportunities to assist with funding and tax credits.
yeah. Just to the extent they thank you. Tax [inaudible]. Yes, yes. So very quickly, there is some funding that's available through new york state For geothermal.
but right now it's only limited to high need districts and high need neighborhoods as Defined by the hud parameters.
what is available is a tax credit that's payable to municipalities and school districts As a direct payment from the irs.
however, that is a piece of tax code that could change at any time, and it's subject to a Final submission once the project is complete.
it's almost impossible to build a financial model around, but there is a chance that there Could be incentive money at the end of the project with geothermal.
the good news is, if there is geothermal, everything that's tied to geothermal is also Potentially part of that incentive and in that system.
so it's not just the $2 million, let's say, at time when it would be all the air Conditioning, the heating, that whole thing now becomes part of the geothermal system and
could qualify for that incentive money. Thanks. In addition to that, is there any kind of longitudinal, like, savings, like Outlook, like I wonder if
there is just a way to look at it from that perspective, understanding, like there's no Guarantees or there's nothing to it, but just to be able to look at it as far as just
that, the cost, the taxes. Yeah. Just to be able to understand like this is the full investment.
and then this is sort of what, you know, like what those returns are. Is there any.
yeah. We've actually done geothermal wells on one energy performance project in new york State, which has to have a total umbrella payback of 18
years. I can tell you the geothermal well, fields didn't they weren't the driver on the 18 year payback.
they exceeded 18 years. But it's not a 70 year payback. It's much sooner than that.
and it's interesting because much like your slate roofs that have been there for a long, Long time, you realize that payback kind of after the second life cycle
of like a boiler plant, let's say, or a fuel tank and, you know, necessarily fuel tanks, But it's the back half of the system.
the payback really accelerates, which is great for an institutional approach.
right. Okay.
any more questions on geothermal?
so we have a little bit of a cascade here again. Well, I can fix that in a second, but we did want to take some of the numbers and just There's a lot of numbers out here and just start to compile them a little bit so we can
get a sense of how they add up. One second I'll fix all these dollar signs.
it looks like maybe a google slide translate issue, but they're not in any particular Order, but we just wanted to share how these costs can come together.
I'll just try to fix it quickly.
need the jeopardy! Theme song going.
it's your attention to detail as an architect.
prevents him from. He doesn't say that's good enough. No. Can't move ahead.
well, I have the total numbers are kind of important, right.
just to frame the context here.
well, it looks like we might be close.
thank you.
all right. All right. We got him on there. All right. So again, this isn't really meant to prioritize them for you, but to just see there are a Number of different ways to look at this.
as you know, there's a significant matrix of costs that can be put together here, but in Totality, we just picked a couple of options to put into this matrix.
for siwanoy it's option c and the high school, it's option b.
we've included the air conditioning and geothermal. And when we add that with the infrastructure, the totality of what we're talking about Is $176 million.
it's a lot of money and there's a lot to go through here. But obviously there are different ways that we can consider putting projects together.
and if you can give us a little bit of feedback, we can, as russ said, go back, refine Those estimates, perhaps work with jim to put together some rough estimates on
affordability and really start to provide a little bit more feedback of, you know, to Understand the impact of all these projects.
any questions on the numbers? I know it was a little painful to get there.
are you looking for feedback tonight, or is this something that we can sleep on and yeah.
and come back? I don't know that we're gonna have it tonight, but when you're Comfortable, we can start to narrow this down and refine some of the approaches.
I mean, sorry. For me, the that bottom row with the totals in it.
yeah I, I don't really know what to make of those numbers without understanding the aid Ability, but you know, the what the aid, the
ability, the tax impact. Yeah. What does this mean to a taxpayer?
right. So we'll work with jim on that. I know he's done some homework on it.
and I would say do not make a decision now because. Yeah. 10:00 and I.
yes. And I would add a reminder to, to anyone who's watching, just the reminder that Parallel with this conversation is the financial side of we know that we've got
opportunities coming up. So a debt drop off in a couple of years that will give us the ability to in a debt Neutral manner to manner to bond up to about 10 million, and then a few years after that
to 55. So that's $65 million there. So which would then go against, you know, would would be something to offset those costs.
I think it's important that we keep that in mind too, and that those numbers are not the, The thing that that the community leaves tonight.
seeing. And, you know, seeing as the the end of the story, it's really the beginning of The story.
correct. Yeah.
okay. So the takeaways that I had from tonight, as far as follow ups was to more clarity On what the offset of rent would be for us.
long term, what would the payback potential be on geothermal?
and certainly, refined options based on taking a couple off the table?
and the feedback that was shared, was there any other takeaways that the board was looking For tonight from administration or from the architects.
it's not a takeaway necessarily, but I want to. And you did say it at the beginning, but I want to make sure the community either watches The video.
or just starts asking, or just starts paying attention to the magnitude of the work that We're talking about.
yeah. And I think part of what you were talking about when you were talking about you Know.
other things to look at, I think we talked about what options there might be at the high School.
that might be sort of intermediate approaches between the options there for air Conditioning.
what intermediate options there might be for partial air conditioning and what that might Cost.
some of those other steps that I know mean more work for you guys, but would be helpful For us in.
thinking about splitting the baby maybe on some of these okay.
and maybe we'll be talking about this next, but sort of roughly what is the order of Operations in terms of surveys, soliciting feedback,
communicating this in a slightly more succinct form? Yeah. Well so we've batted around some ideas we were partially waiting to get.
we being alex and I talk about this a lot. Wanted to get through tonight and really see where the board landed on options, what We're going to be pursuing, looking going forward.
so we're going to be reconvening later this week. And we also were talking about reconvening with the board members who are on the advocacy Committee to finalize a plan for exactly that.
so we do anticipate we want to make sure that whatever we put together, that it gets the Board, the information you need from the community at the right time and the right
information. So if there if there is anything, as I said at the beginning, is there any Information you want us to start thinking about in that survey?
and maybe I'll just we won't do it tonight, but I'll, you know, reach out to you to you About.
what is that information that you want? Hearing what you're hearing. Knowing the decisions that are now in front of you.
what information will be helpful to you as a board member in or as a board as a whole, You know, in your role as a member of the board in making this decision so that we can
solicit that either through survey, if it's a focus group setting, whatever it is, we can Figure out the best way to get that.
and then we'll also, if you can get us that information, I'll send you a follow up note About that.
and then we'll talk about what do we want to do as far as engagement sessions, whether It's world cafes, info sessions, surveys, and we'll map that out and come back to the
board with that plan. And we want to marie's point. We want to also then communicate those engagement opportunities to the community so that They can actively come and be part of the process.
yeah. And I think one of the things would be helpful, and we'll talk about as we build This out is anne-marie, like you said, we want everybody to pay attention, but we have to
live in the reality like most people might not be able to watch this entire thing.
right. So as we get out the surveys, as we begin to do it, how do we really.
share that most important pieces of information in a very condensed manner to bring the Community along to answer the surveys or
to do that. Because this is. A lot of information and we've all been taking it in and some people may, but I would Imagine most people don't.
so anyway, so I just wanted to I think that that would be a great tool for us to build if We do like a comedy tour or something
different. Dress up as the different.
yeah, dress up and do like improv of like different scenarios.
yeah, people would pay attention to that. I'm going to suggest the discussion about the criteria for the decision analysis.
we just postponed till next time. It's been a really robust conversation, a lot of information to absorb.
so, russ, walter. Thank you. I really thank you so much.
beautiful job. Appreciate the collaboration. We'll we will.
I know you've got this feedback. Once we meet with the administrators. We'll circle back with you on that feedback, too, because I know that's going to be Really helpful in furthering the.
I think there was some discussion of maybe having a committee meeting as well. So there might be some work that the committee can take on to a meeting next week.
yes. Okay. Great. So we got that joint committee coming up. All right. Thank you so much.
have a wonderful night. We appreciate it. Thank you.
okay. All right moving on to 4.3 board of education committee reports.
I think we bailed on those. But we had so we did.
advocacy. Advocacy and engagement yesterday. And it was very good meeting.
we heard a lot of feedback in terms of our first proposal to go out with a survey to the To the community on facilities and infrastructure.
so we are taking it back and revisiting, readjusting, redoing.
so more to come on that. Great feedback, I do think, and I love the idea of the world cafes.
we've been doing them for the last few years on topics that really have affected us.
and the community, they do show up for those and they're very informative and also Surveys.
I know for the communication plan that was put into place and alex was able to get a lot Of focus groups and a lot of information done from that.
so again, a lot of options that could potentially happen from that committee.
so I think we're going to probably meet sooner rather than later again. Yeah. I don't know if you want to add anything.
no, I think you covered everything. It was very helpful.
okay. So then communications. Yeah, communications. I'm like, oh, we don't have communications coming from the public.
so moving on to financial reports, can we take this as a consent?
this is the one where we got the difference. Actually, I think I'll kick this piece off.
I know I shared with the board in the past the district, the state's regionalization Efforts.
there's been a ongoing discussion in professional circles and board circles about that Process as it rolled out through emergency regulations.
the state did put out a requirement for districts to superintendents to submit data, all Thanks to the cabinet and our district data analyst who helped us to assemble the I think
it's 43 page, 47 page portal of data to submit to the state, which was largely made up of Data that the state already had.
so it was not the best use of district resources, but that was what we were required to Do.
we did submit that report. And then the next day, the commissioner came out with a memo based on all the pressure That had been aimed her way, putting that on hold and making it a little bit more
optional. So as those regulations and discussions have played out, where we stand today Is now each district superintendent required to speak with their board
of education about whether or not they want the district to participate in the Regionalization efforts and to pass a resolution to that effect.
so what you have on the agenda tonight is two different resolutions. The first one is to accept participation in the regionalization plan, and the second one Is to decline participation in the regionalization plan.
so tonight we just need to talk about which direction the board wants to go and then act Vote to act and approve that particular resolution.
and then we'll just vote to table the other. So I know I've shared my perspective just very super briefly.
we have already submitted the data. So I think that was kind of the biggest lift on the front end.
I don't see a downside to participating, to the degree that we are not bound to be to Follow through on it.
we're not mandated to do anything as a result of that regionalization plan, to the degree That it is a collaborative opportunity for us to see if we can
benefit, you know, create a situation that be beneficial to our students through Partnerships with other districts.
I think that's always a great thing to do anyways. We already do have a ton of partnerships.
we think of the best consortium that we have for all of our transportation, for some of Our special education programs.
we've got the boces who is the specialist at shared services. So this is not something that we're not accustomed to, but if it gives us new Opportunities for new conversations, to me that seems positive.
and in speaking with our district superintendent from southern westchester boces, he said That is his intention as he leads this work is it is none of it is mandatory.
it is an opportunity to come around and to collaborate voluntarily.
so. If that is the case, I'm comfortable moving ahead with participating in that inasmuch As it would benefit pelham and you already the district has already provided
all the. Yeah. Yeah. And the data. Yeah. And even if, even since we've provided it and we if we decided not to participate, There's no harm, no foul there.
it would just be that we've submitted it, and that's the end of the participation.
so I'm going to propose a motion to accept new york state education department Regionalization plan.
so moved. I second. And the discussion was as I shared.
so any other questions or concerns? Just for folks watching at home, what is regionalization?
that's a great question. Regionalization. It was an emergency regulation passed by the commissioner.
that was requiring that district boces district superintendents assemble the districts.
the representatives from the districts within their region once every ten years and craft A regionalization plan, which speaks to how districts the region will work
to collaborate and create partnerships and potentially sharing of services.
okay. Thank you. I know one of the things that was important to you in your recommendation was the idea That this is voluntary.
do you think that was there any discussion with the lawyers about whether we ought to be Saying that in our resolution?
we didn't have that conversation. No. This was the language that was provided by them.
so I know that I know that keenan beane works with, you know, obviously a variety of Different districts.
and I think I don't, I can't speak to our neighbors specifically, but I know Superintendents were very mixed as far as whether they were
encouraged. They were recommending to their boards, you know, pro or con.
so I think I'm going to assume that keenan bean's resolution was drafted based on their Collective concerns with the region.
I do think and I'd have to double check on this. I do think there's a provision, if we change our mind at any point in time, that we could Then opt out.
okay. It would probably be another just a notification to state. But in an advocacy meeting I attended with other districts mostly from long island, I Think some of the concerns were about just
about what they needed to do, especially because they had to provide information within a Certain amount of time.
and at that point it was a requirement, not a right kind of volunteer option to do it.
and so they were really upset because there was a requirement. And now it's changed to an optional submission or participation.
yeah. And I think a lot of the long island districts, even the same regulation.
some folks, a lot of folks that were interpreting it as it's getting late.
I'm losing my words as potentially over having the potential to override local board Authority over
using sharing of resources and participation. So but I think they made that clear in the correct amendments.
yeah, that that is not I've heard senator, mayor shelly mayor, who is on the education Committee in the senate, say that she
wants to see local school districts retain control of their decision making process and Power.
so whether that be with regionalization or cell phones they want to see local districts Be able to make decisions that are best for them.
because if you're talking about districts in northwestern new western new york.
I think they're viewing regionalization in a very different way than we do down here or Long island, because of the proximity of our school districts and the
resources each district has. So it would be it would mean very different things depending on where you're located in The state.
and so for us down here, we do have a really robust like sharing of resources already.
we do a lot of that. But if you look at districts north, really far north, they don't they don't have those Same kinds of options, the same kind of capabilities and the
same kind of funding. So I think our state's really, really big and trying to have one, You know, rule for every fit, everybody
isn't possible. So it's encouraging to hear senator mayer continue to say that she really Wants to see local districts maintain control of decision-making
process. Thank you.
so, I think you need a vote. Yeah. If no more questions, then we need a vote to.
the motion is, you know, the vote in hand is to accept the new york state education Department regionalization plan.
aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstentions. Okay, so the motion passes.
thank you. Then let's table. I need a motion to table 6.2.
the motion to decline. New york state education department. So moved. Second.
all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions.
thank you. Thank you. All right. So moving on to 6.3. So can we take this as a 6.6 6.3 to 6.6 some financial.
so there's a motion to dispose of equipment. A resolution to approve some stipulation settlement, some agreement with the pelham Teachers association.
could we take a motion? So moved. I second.
okay. Any questions? Concerns? Okay.
we're gonna have a vote. Okay, everyone.
aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstentions? Okay, so the motion passes.
now we're going to do 6.7 motion to accept the donation.
so it is resolved that upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of Education or the pelham union free district, does hereby accept a monetary donation of $50
to the. Amy, and I'm sorry to put you in this name, jason geiger, scott geisinger.
thank you. Scholarship fund that would gratitude be bestowed upon his donor, jean Cockcroft.
take a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor?
aye. Any oppose? Any abstention. Okay. The motion carries.
7.0, policy monitoring and governance. Okay, I guess I'll dive in here.
so a couple policies up for first reading. So we're not taking any action on them tonight.
but the policy committee continues to fire on all cylinders here under sid's leadership.
so I'm very excited. So our first policy is parking policy.
this actually came out of discussions with our local police chiefs and our safety Committee.
trying to really get a handle on traffic issues at glover. And as part of that they asked that we take a look at this policy to see if we could Strengthen any language just to make it very clear that they have the authority to
ticket. Um our attorneys advise us we don't necessarily need this because they do have That authority.
but if this makes it a little more clear and evident for folks, take it.
take it. So those are the red line changes that the board sees resulted in that policy That is being proposed.
any questions or anything to add? No. Nope. Just be forewarned.
if it says no parking, it really means no parking. Yeah. It's not just a suggestion.
okay. Then we had administration of the budget.
jim, do you want to just do a quick touch on that since it's your world? Yeah. Really?
minor changes. As we look at things based on recommendations from our from our policy service.
and it just also brings in the case that we have we have a claims auditor and that that's Also part of the administration of our budget.
that's added to the bottom of it. Yeah. And this was one that came up on the audit as one to update.
so any questions there?
okay. Those are very minor ones. All right. And then the third one is also 3.7 came up as well as part of the audit Evaluation of personnel.
doctor fitzgerald do you want to mention any. Just speak to the changes that were there.
really. Just so. Sorry. Thank you. So the changes just really reflect what we do in practice that we're Sort of missing from the current policy that we have.
and we do recognize to the law around appr has changed. So we're going to be we're you know, trish has been really looking you know being Thoughtful about that.
and we're just on the cusp of starting to think about what we want that to look like.
that does that need to need to be negotiated with collective bargaining units? But this should still stand.
this policy should still stand regardless of those changes.
so do we take a motion to. No, no, we don't need to do any motion.
is there. Okay. So we'll bring those back next time for second reading.
so can I just say thank you sid. You are like going through that policy book.
I mean, it's really mostly the administrative team that's been doing the heavy lifting.
I was going to say, I'm glad we're not paying you by the hour.
that's good. Okay, so moving on to 8.1.
motion to approve schedule c and instructional. So moved.
second. Okay. Sorry. A couple of resignations, that's all.
all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
okay. Moving on to nine. Pupil 9.1.
motion to approve, schedule d, committee on special education. So moved. Second.
all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Abstentions.
all right. Now we're moving on to new business. Any new business? I think we've covered plenty for tonight, but that's just me.
okay. All right. Moving on to 11.1 communications coming from the public.
again I know everybody's hopefully nice and safe and warm at home watching us on youtube Of course.
and then two 12.1.
do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second.
okay. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to conduct the meeting on behalf of jackie.
well, done. Great job. Thank you all. It's a great conversation.