 Good morning. I'm Jonathan Salvon, the chair of the OPM subcommittee for the Amherst School Building Committee, and I will introduce myself and all the other folks from the committee introduce themselves, and then you all may introduce yourselves and dig into your presentation. And I'm just going to pick on people the way I see them on the screen. So, Anthony, you're next after me. Anthony Delaney, Procurement Officer for the town and member of the committee. And then Kathy. I'm Kathy Shane, and I'm chair of the building committee, of which this is a subcommittee, and I'm also on the town council. And Steve. Steve Schreiber, I'm vice chair of the Amherst School Building Committee. I'm a town councillor, and then the chair of architecture at UMass. And Dwayne. And I'm Dwayne Chamble. I'm the out-of-school time coordinator for the district. I appreciate that. I guess we can go through and into my team. My name is Sean Sweeney. I would be the project executive on this project. Tom. I'm Tom Gazunis. I'll be the project director for the project. Brian. And I'm Brian Wolcox. I'll be the project manager, project representative. Christina. I'm Christina Hopper. I'll be your project communications representative. And Del. Del and Williamson, and I am director of cost estimating. So we're excited to be here today. Thank you so much for inviting us. I believe we have a member of our CHA team is going to be presenting the slide. So if you're ready, we can jump right in. Yeah, Sean, this is Brian. It seems our chalk is having a bit of a difficulty logging in. So I'm going to open it up and I will present the slides and get us rolling. Okay, great. Thanks, Brian. I will do my best. All right, great. Can everyone see the slides? We see your presenters view. Gotcha. Apologies. Let me see. There we go. We're still in presenters view. We lost it. From beginning. Okay, from beginning. Yeah, it seemed to be struggling with it on one second. Life was so much easier when we could actually meet in person. This is our first test on how we deal with issues, right? Yeah. Well, we have a supplement. I will present it as a PDF. I'm not sure why it's running through that way. I will do my best here. Brian, it looks like a second Brian is logging in down here. Yeah, Chuck mentioned that. He seems to be having an issue. It keeps logging in as me. That was happening to everybody. He just needs to change his name. Okay. All right, great. Thanks again. We're very excited to be here. Can't wait to get going and talk to you about our expertise and our team and how we can really be a trusted partner with the town of Amherst as they look at this very important project. Next slide. We've introduced our team today, but what I think what you'll see as we go through this presentation today, that you really have a seasoned group of professionals as well as a diverse team that can deliver the services that are required for such a project. You'll hear from each of the members of the team today that are on the call talk about their expertise and what they bring to the project. Next slide. So a little bit about CHA and why we think that CHA is the perfect fit for the town of Amherst. 30 plus years of managing public building design. So I know from introductions today, seems like folks do have a good experience in these type of projects. And you understand the importance of public procurement, the design process, feasibility, as well as managing the construction process. And so we're going to touch on those points today, but we feel the strength that CHA brings really will provide value to the town. We'll also hear from Del later today, where we talk about cost estimating value management and how we really try to work with the designers during schematic design and all the way through design completion. And then even post start of construction where we'll help with change orders, change events, and look to get the best value we can for the town. So, you know, all in all at this during this presentation, we're going to touch on these points. And at the end, absolutely want to open it up for questions from the group. Next slide. Tom. Thank you, Sean. So as I said, my name is Tom Gozunis, and I will be your project director working with all of you, town of Amherst, building committee. And my role is really to provide general oversight and help the team coordinate with all of you and our group to carry us through through all of the various phases of the project. We are ready to hit the ground running. When you make your decision later on today to hire CHA, we're on board tomorrow morning. We're ready to go. So we're very excited as Sean had indicated. And I think as you'll hear throughout our entire presentation. With us, quality really starts at the inception of the project. And it's woven into everything that we do. We're going to keep looking and reviewing the design as it comes through from the designers. We're going to look at product selections, code review, of course, cost will be included, but we don't want to deliver a cheap product. We want to deliver to you, to the town, an economical project, one that meets all of your needs for the future. Dell will talk about value management in greater detail. Christina will discuss public outreach, again, in greater detail. And now Brian will go into some of the details of the phases as we move through the entire MSBA process. Yeah, great. Thank you, Tom. And again, I'm Brian Wilcox, and I'll be the project manager and project representative for Amherst, working on the Fort River Wildwood Croker, depending upon how this shakes out there in the feasibility study. I echo what Tom and Sean had said about our excitement, our readiness and willingness to engage in this study and in this project moving forward as a responsible partner and extension of Amherst. We see ourselves as an advocate for the town of Amherst, working with you to cross the T's, dot the I's as we move through what is a cumbersome process with MSBA, a difficult process in working through the public outreach component of this and getting us to a position where we can have a project scope budget agreement out the door and moving forward towards detail design. The first portion of this that we address is in that designer selection. We're here to help you to establish certain of the scope, establish the evaluation criteria, establish what's needed for scoring so that we can get you the best options available for selecting a professional designer who has the experience to meet what you need in Amherst and to move us forward on this study for the Fort River Elementary project. In that process, we'll be working with your designer to get through the preliminary design program. We'll be looking at existing conditions. We'll be looking at a variety of options that become available to us as we start to work on this project and we'll be helping you to prep a detailed submission to MSBA, which examines all the available options, examines the budget considerations associated with them, examines a potential alternates that may arise during this process and we help to get through there and get you to a submission that MSBA can be informed about what your needs are and also to help us get to a position where the town council, the school building authority can help to understand what would be your preferred schematic report, what would be your preferred direction on this project. The option that works best is most responsible for Amherst and we are there to provide that leadership as your extension of it. During the schematic phase, once we're moving forward and we've established what exactly we're going to be building here, we'll work diligently with the architect and engineers to ensure that we keep on target with scope, quality and budget so that when we do submit that project scope and budget agreement at the end of this that we are in a great position. The Amherst is in a position to make sure that the expectations have been set. The tone and pacing of the remainder of the project through construction is also established and that we identify any risks that may potentially occur to us throughout the project and we work to mitigate those risks. And while I act as the day-to-day, the detail-oriented guy who communicates with all the other key stakeholders and leaders who are working to execute this effort through the Visibility Study on behalf of Amherst and for the Fort River Project. But you know that's only a part of it. We also recognize that speaking to your community, the public outreach component of this is incredibly critical to making sure that an informed community can allow your council to make those informed decisions. So I lay heavily on Christina who is our communication specialist and I'd like to hear from her a little bit about her approach. Thanks Brian. So again I'm Christina. I've been with the company for almost 18 years now. I'm a project manager and I have a marketing background as well and so I will be your dedicated project communications representative. I'll work with you the school building committee as well as the town of Amherst, school district, local organizations to try to get the word out to your community early and often. It's really important to engage the community right away in the process, let them know what's happening, keep them informed step by step throughout the process and the more information they have, the less questions I think they'll be when it comes time to actually approve the project. It's helpful for the school building committee to have that kind of feedback so I'll help you gain that feedback, gather that feedback through a variety of mediums. So I usually come in in the beginning and help you create kind of a strategy or plan for outreach. We'll identify how your community receives information, whether it's digitally, by print, by face-to-face meetings, by local organizations and we'll highlight all of those and figure out our plan to get out to the communities. Even as soon as getting the designer on board we're going to start wanting to meet with the community. During this time where we can't meet face-to-face it's a little bit more difficult but I've become much better with hosting Zoom meetings and doing online polls and I have a history of doing online surveys as well as print surveys and workshops in both a digital and in-person format. I will build you a project website because it's really important to have that singular place where everybody can find the information, the most up-to-date information. Instead of having to go out over and over again and trying to say the same thing over and over again, one place where everybody can go and get most information, most up-to-date information. I can help you create print communications and digital communications, newsletters, informational brochures, as well as we can work on video series and online presentations and livestream stream presentations. The good thing about the pandemic is there is an opportunity to reach a greater audience through digital mediums. People that aren't always available to attend a meeting in person whether that's schedule-based or mobility-based or whatever the issues are, we will explore all different options to get out to your community. I will help you lead that effort from the get-go and I will walk you through every single phase. I've done a lot of MSBA schools and I work closely with the MSBA on each phase project to make sure that they're looped in as well. It's important that they stay involved and they stay abreast of everything that's going on with the project as well. They really appreciate being linked in through that process and I will help you walk this process all the way through to construction completion, close-out, and your ribbon-cutting ceremony. I think that Brian's going to give us a little bit more information about some of our other team players as well. Thank you, Christina. I think it's also important to realize what Christina just mentioned there in the end. While we are focused on this as a feasibility study right now, we understand that project lifecycle and getting to the tail end of this is really the larger picture for us. Understanding that getting you into either a new building, a renovated building, multiple renovated structures is the key outcome here. While we do laser focus and we do narrowing on the feasibility study portion of this, it is important to think of the long-range goal. We actually see that we're excited about this opportunity to also explore working with some of our WMBE partners that we have good relationships with throughout the region, especially in Massachusetts. We've done a lot of work as an organization and working through utilization goals and engaging local partners or even just regional partners who are qualified M&W firms or DBE firms as well. We look forward to this exciting opportunity. We've actually had some already engaging calls. We actually see this as a real opportunity for us as we get later into detailed design and through the construction phase. Internally, we have some exciting people. Alicia Monks is a registered architect. She's lead certified. She has net zero experience. She comes with an incredible background in doing design review, constructability review, and really QAQC documents as we move forward. She will have an eye on things as we go through that feasibility study. As part of this process that Tom mentioned and that I know Del will also get into is this idea of managing quality from the get-go so that we are always keeping our scope schedule and budget in line, just traditional values and project management. We think highly of schedule. I'm a big proponent of having solid schedules, good milestones, and a lot of traceability between accountability and accountability. We've partnered with Dynamic Scheduling Solutions and Heather Boonecki who comes with a 20 years experience in Massachusetts providing state work, doing high-level scheduling in order for us to be able to manage this now all the way up through turning us over to a contractor or a CM and being able to do those reviews. She's got a great experience in managing impacts and claims. I'm very excited to have her as part of our team. We think VE, we think VM, and I don't really want to get too much into talking about that, but we have a great department in CHA and a lot of experience doing this to help make sure you get the best value for your project and I'm going to turn it over to Del to share about that. Del, you're muted. Sorry. Thanks, Brian. That pause just gave you a moment to see the graphic. It's a very simple graphic, representing where our service adds value to the entire life of your Fort River Elementary School project. Firstly, early benchmarking during the feasibility design stage. Christina mentioned earlier about early and often. This particular approach applies equally to cost estimating, as you can see in this graph here. Secondly, we engage during the design phase as another set of eyes on the design package. This is a collaborative process with Alicia's constructability review. Brian mentioned that service earlier. And then lastly, during the actual construction phase, we are supporting our project managers with cost analysis and change order review. As a current example, our Lincoln School is currently under construction. This is a challenging renovation and addition that our cost estimating team has been engaged with from early feasibility to now. Earlier, Brian mentioned scope scheduling and budgeting, which is where we pride ourselves. And it's a matter close to my heart. One of our tools in this is the value engineering. Value engineering is better represented by our efforts to value manage, which, by the way, does not compromise quality. It's all about dollars. Rather than the value management process, excuse me, the value management process makes your construction dollars go as far as possible. Our goal is to provide the best cost, the best, excuse me, I'll start that sentence again. Our goal is to provide the best cost data available so that this building committee can make the most informed decisions. Handing it back to you, Sean. Thanks, Del. So a lot to unpack there, right? And I know we're going to move on to some of the questions that you asked earlier, and we're going to give time for you to access questions as well because we can dive into this a lot more. But at the end of the day, why is CHA the right choice for Amherst? And what we truly believe, and hopefully you're beginning to see as we talk about our team and our approach, that we deliver certainty. We've been doing it for over 30 years in Massachusetts on public buildings. We've worked with most architectural teams and construction teams in the area. We understand the market. We understand the pressures on the market, whether it be with subcontractors, labor forces, or even materials. But we also understand the feasibility, which of course is the first part. And as Christina mentioned, Brian mentioned Tom and Del, it's really a team effort, right? We all bring our abilities to that effort to help the town of Amherst as a really not just a OPM firm, but truly as a trusted advisor. Because at the end of the day, we know the committee, we know the council wants to do the best thing for the town, and we really want to be that trusted advisor to make that happen. So if we may, this wraps up kind of the 15 minute presentation as outlined. We take the liberty to put the five questions that you've asked. And if we can, we'd like to start there and make sure we answer those questions. And I'm sure if you have other questions, after that, we can move forward with those. So if I may, Tom, do you want to take question one? Sure. You asked about a challenging elementary school. So I'm going to describe the richer elementary school project and the process that we went through with that. So the richer school city of Malboro started very, very much in the exact same place you are looking at the schools, looking at the district, looking at where things are at for you, your design enrollment, your student population. Through our process, and we looked at many, many sites across the city, it was determined that what the city really needed was to build a new school, one in addition to the three that the district already had. This helped to solve their overall district overcrowding problems. But of course, you could imagine the challenges that ensued because we went from, okay, we're going to either be building a new school or renovating the existing richer. And in that neighborhood, all of the schools in Malboro are district neighborhood schools, to then communicating with the community that we're now going to build a brand new school on a different site. After a lot of public participation and public information, the city and the city council overwhelmingly, it was a unanimous vote at the city council to approve the project and move it forward. A little other interesting fun fact here on the, what was then the richer and is now the good now elementary school through our design and feasibility study, the city determined that they wanted to look at and then ultimately pursue a model school. At the end of the day, the good now school came in at $10 million under the original feasibility budget and was delivered a month ahead of schedule. That ended up providing a huge benefit to the city as a result, not as a result of, but in the wake of the COVID pandemic, because it having the new school with new classrooms allowed for the social distancing aspects that were needed. And the younger grades in Malboro were actually always in a remote school setting. There was a very, very short window, really only the time that it was mandated by the state that everyone be 100% remote. The city was able to engage in a high in a hybrid model very, very early on. So long story there, but really it one that started out as a huge challenge and ultimately resulted in a huge benefit for the city. Great. Tom, can you take question two as well? Net zero and net zero schools. So I'm also involved in the Belmont high school project, large projects, seven through 12 school, but it is entirely fossil fuel free. Only external power to the building is electricity. We have 304, 500 foot deep geothermal wells that are supplying all of the heating and all of the cooling to the building. As Dell had, and we all spoke about value management, there was a lot of effort, energy, not to use the pun energy, but a lot of time was spent on reviewing not only the upfront costs, because of course, when you go with something like a geothermal, very, I shouldn't say very, but higher upfront costs. But overall, when you look at the life cycle costs of the buildings, because let's face it, our schools are being built for 50 years minimum. Those life cycle costs outweigh that upfront cost and there's an overall savings to the community. The entire building will have PV panels on the roof. And I also want to just say that net zero lead, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, they were like the buzz thing, the nice to have and kind of a, but they're really now built intrinsically into every school project. And as a soon to be new granddad for the first time, it has really, you know, put a different focus in my life and in thinking about what we're doing for our children. And now for me, and hopefully some of you, if not all of you in your futures, our grandchildren, and really setting the tone and forward thinking for what we're doing. So roundabout story here, but lead, energy efficiency, net zero, they're all aspects that need to be woven into every project as we move forward. And you can see from the list that I'm not going to read the names, but the two lists that are on the slide in front of you, the extensive experience that we have in lead in net zero in chips and moving those projects forward. We're very proud of that fact. And we will continue to do so in all aspects moving forward. So great. Thanks, Tom. Yep. Question three, Christina. Your third question I think was about generally engaging the broader community, challenges, successes, failures. So one of the examples I chose to share is the Knosset Regional High School Project, which we're proud to say just passed their ballot vote on March 30. This was a complicated project to get out to the community. The Outer Cave is a very interesting set of communities out there as far as how they get their information. Plus this was a regional district, which meant it was four regional towns within the official district, as well as two additional towns that were not officially part of the district. And it's a highly attended school choice school on the Cape. So there was kind of this broad outreach to reach both the district as well as the greater community that this particular school serves. The second challenge on this particular project is that we had to do it through COVID. So we started the project free COVID. There are some nice pictures there about with some visioning workshops that we had with the public prior to COVID. We did as many in-person, face-to-face meetings as possible, let people get a sense of what the building looked like, what its challenges were, what the educational plan meant, and what our options looked like. Post COVID, our meetings were all virtual. Our outreach was entirely virtual, but we were successful in reaching the community through Zoom meetings, through small forums, through print, through digital print media, as well as streaming videos, live streams of interviews and presentations. So we really did use that kind of combined effort, which honestly, I think one of the lessons that I learned as a communicator through the pandemic is, as I mentioned before, it actually gives us more opportunity to reach a greater number of the public by using all of these different avenues. And so NOSCIT was an interesting challenge and a success, and we're happy to be moving into the detail design phase with them and moving forward with their project, which is, I believe, slated to complete in 2025. I believe your next question had to do with projects that didn't proceed. Sean? Thanks, Christina. So I can answer the first one pretty easily. CHA has never been terminated from a project in its history. We've always seen our projects go from the beginning to the end, but we have had some projects not move forward. So Christina? So the example that we're choosing to share with you today is Tisbury. Tisbury is a beautiful community out on Martha's Vineyard, also known as Vineyard Haven. They were invited into the MSBA program in 2014, I believe it was. We joined them in 2016 as their OPM, completed a feasibility study, and in 2018, we unfortunately did not get the project passed at the ballot. So the story behind that is that we worked diligently with the town, the school committee, and the school building committee to engage the community and get information out to them. There's a little rendering of what that new building would have looked like on the upper left, and what's below it is, I did several surveys for this town when we were going through that initial feasibility study, and their two main options were to build new on the existing site or renovate ad. And you can see it was a 50-50 split as far as whether they wanted to keep the building or replace the building. And continually educating the community, we still felt that it was a 50-50 split on the main two options. The building committee did as much as they could and me along with them to inform the public on why they were choosing new construction. Ultimately, it was more efficient, it was a shorter project, and it was slightly less expensive. But though we passed the project overwhelmingly at town meeting, at the town ballot, we lost by 21 votes. So it was, the result was exactly as the community had spoken to us through those two years. It was a 50-50 split. What did happen with the town of Tisbury is they removed themselves from the MSBA program and restarted the project. And we were both grateful and honored to be invited back to serve as their OPM for a non-MSBA funded renovation and addition study, which we have recently completed and we're preparing for it to go back to the ballot this late spring, early summer. So the image on the upper right is us adhering to their desire to save the original 1929 building on the front, renovate and expand the remainder of the building. And we're doing the same thing now, going back out to the community. And honestly, we're getting a lot of very positive feedback on our efforts to save the original building. So it wasn't really an insight into any kind of failure on the part of the town or the school committee or the school building committee. It really was just a minor understanding of of what was a real priority to the community and really trying to sell the effort as to how it was going to benefit the community as a whole. But this project is moving forward well and it's actually a good lesson that we learned to spend more time getting feedback and more time educating the public on what the project means and what it costs and how it's going to come about and how it's going to benefit the community in the long run. Great. Thanks, Christina. And I think your last question we're going to ask Tom to speak to that. Sure. Thank you. So we approach all of our projects in a spirit of collaboration. Gone are the days of that antagonistic contractor owner architect need to fight each other. The projects don't proceed well that way and we have never taken that approach. I like to think of every project as a three-legged stool. One leg is the owner that includes us as your OPM and of course the MSBA having that role. The other leg is the designer, the architect and all of their design team. And the third leg is the contractor. If you take out any one of those legs in the stool then everybody falls and everybody gets hurt. Our approach is to keep that stool together with all three legs and nice and strong and have all of the groups work together collaboratively to make the best project for the town of the Amherst, our students and faculty as we move forward. That's not to say that we won't be a very strong advocate and make sure that the town gets what it deserves out of this process and out of the project. That's why we include our estimating team all along so that we can do that deep dive value management and make sure that when those change orders and we all know that there will be some change orders that will come through but when those change orders come through they are fair, fair to all three parties because that's really what makes a project run right. And you know my style and our style, Brian's style will be on the project every day with all of you and all of us together is again to work collaboratively to get the project done in the best interest of the town of Amherst. Thank you. Great, thanks, Tom. And one thing if I could add to what Tom just said on working on projects you know it's a little nuanced but it's a real value. As we work on you know we work on a number of school projects as well as municipal projects and we truly work together as a team and what that means to Amherst is we'll see things happening on one particular project whether it be in feasibility or design or actual construction and then say whoa this kind of shocked everybody and in our internal meetings we'll say and Tom might laugh when I use this one example we just put epoxy flooring on a school and the maintenance personnel wanted it less gritty and so we had to reapply this floor four or five times and don't we go to another project and they're preparing to do epoxy flooring so we said hey first and foremost we should do a test pass we should make sure not only that you know the school representative is happy to bring out the maintenance staff make sure they're happy with this finish and make sure it's something that they feel they can maintain and so these stories are happening every day within CHA and I think you know as a team we can definitely bring that value throughout all phases of this journey so I just wanted to throw that in there Tom because as you were talking I was thinking it's not just managing the team but it's bringing that collective experience and whether it be experience from 20 years ago whether it be from experience from last week we really feel it can help the town of Amherst so that's great so we've answered those five questions I'd love to open it up to the committee to ask any of us any questions or you want us to dive into anything in detail Steve thank you so much fascinating so I do have a question about question number four so number four is supposed to be my question but the so you answered for the firm CHA but and I assume that goes all the way back to the origins how about individually so we were also asking about individually whether or not that um any of you individually as a person in charge as an OPM has there been uh any termination not for me I can say no I have never been terminated I have never been terminated okay thank you so much I just want to make sure that part was covered also all right great thank you in full disclosure I was not reappointed as commissioner when in my previous life as the public safety commissioner for the commonwealth but that was a change in governors I have kind of a follow-up on question one which is uh not usually the one I asked when we asked them individually um it's just you answered for a challenging project I guess I'd be curious what you see as potential challenges for us with this project in in what you've seen from what we've given you what what do you think is our greatest challenge Brian do you want to start with that sure I'd be glad to and I appreciate that that question you know I think in just discussions that um that we've had during the uh the kind of the pre-proposal walkthrough it was clear that one of the biggest challenge you're going to run into or it appears that you may run into is dealing with the with the public in the community in terms of establishing exactly what it is you need to be successful in terms of the three potential schools the elementary schools that are are being looked at which is yes it's the fort river project but also incorporating uh enrollment in from wildwood and croaker into how you manage this process so I think engaging the community um early making sure that we can manage and set expectations uh is a good way for us to speak to a little bit about what Christina had mentioned during this process about getting to a point where there's a split in the community or a potential not to approach um the idea of a new fancy building a new building with steam a new steam programs a nice new fancy structure where there the community itself may feel a real connection to these schools and while they may be older how do we look at incorporating the community's view into this project so that in a long run we can get you um what you need for the next 50 years in terms of managing your enrollment and managing your programs but also upgrading you um in a way that's efficient so I think that's going to be what I see as the biggest challenge is managing expectations at the community level by doing that engagement um and and moving forward through this process and I say that a little bit because for me you guys have been through this before you've been through the MSBA process you've had this experience I think the you understand what to expect in terms of milestones but I think that it's going to be that community outreach engaging a designer who's very familiar with this type of work and the elementary school and making sure we get you what you what you need but that's that's listening that's communications and again that's setting the expectations and if I could jump in too on that point Tom and I are actually working with a district right now in the Commonwealth that is looking at one of their elementary schools which is a community school and they have I think it's four community elementary schools spread across the town and the solutions that they're considering include a a new school building on a different site with possible redistricting throughout the district and and shifting things around and and so we're familiar with this process this is not the the first time we had to do that Tom had to do it in Marlborough we're doing it for another community and we understand that that's that's difficult to go through with a community to keep them informed engaged involved and feel part of that process um when you're when you ultimately have to make decisions that's best for the district and best for the town itself but but that is important I agree with you Brian that that you know that I think that challenging piece of getting out to the public and informing them is a challenge for all districts all communities across the Commonwealth and it's sometimes their greatest challenge because ultimately you need buy-in from the community you need parents support you need your senior citizens support you need all of the support this isn't just a school for the students that are going there now it's students that are going to be there in 30 years it's you know people that own property in town it's a town asset and and we'll make sure that we we craft that message and explain that piece to all of your project stakeholders um Tom I don't know if you want to jump in at all on the on the redistricting efforts that we're doing in another town I have to apologize to the to the team I have an emergency I have to deal with so I'm going to put myself on mute but I'll keep listening but I have to deal with something great thank you so yeah I think biggest message we can say regarding the redistricting is informing the community informing the community as early as possible as soon as you start to head in the direction and knowing where you're going with that redistricting if it's necessary that that information gets out because what we've seen is that it the we don't want the redistricting to or the new project let me put it that way the new project to give the impression that it is causing the redistricting if it is not in most cases what we found is that redistricting is required regardless of where the new building if it is a new building would be located and that message needs to get conveyed early and often because it gets lost great thanks Tom thank you we have a a little bit more time I don't know if there's other questions Kathy yeah I just wanted to ask if any of the projects you've had you've had to work with choices on are you building a smaller school in terms of student size or a larger school where the intimacy of the school was an issue in the community I don't know whether that was clear you know that on you know okay I understand exactly and that was one of the very very strong factors in Malboro because in order to again alleviate the overcrowding issue that they had the one option was to create a very large elementary school and the the superintendent the principals the the district the mayor all determined that they did not want an elementary school that was mirroring or actually even larger than their middle school so that was one of the definite factors in determining that it was better to build a fourth school than it was to renovate and expand at the existing richer school thank you did that answer your question Kathy I hope I might also jump in here and cite the the bridgewater elementary school project that we're working on that's under construction right now they did an analysis on the enrollment the MSBA had given them two certified enrollments for a pre-k to two and a pre-k to three they're a larger community they were also dealing with the same problem they have a lot of kids they have a single elementary school that they wanted that small school feel and we did the study with the different enrollments to to figure out what was going to work best for the community as well as spreading the grades across all the schools within the district properly for for parity to all the students and they went with a pre-k to two and the design although it's a school that's built for 750 kids because of the enrollment in the town the design included essentially pods scaled down areas to make it feel like more of smaller community spaces within a larger school while also being thoughtful about access to shared services the gymnasium the cafeteria and all of that as well as access to the community spaces for after hours so it's definitely I think a challenge that that many districts have when they're trying to create that small school field this particular district they're the building that they replaced used to be three small houses in a single building and they wanted to kind of recreate that that small school feel in the newer building and and we're we're helping them achieve that thank you any last questions great well thank you very much that was very informative and did you have some housekeeping if you could send me the slides just for our record after this meeting email those to me this recording will be put up on the town's youtube channel in time and we'll see the committee for the next interview in 10 minutes yeah get to you we log out of this right and log back into the yes it's a totally different zoom room so you have to log Brian did you have something to say before we yeah I was going to ask you guys one question maybe somebody can pick up on it it's just uh we know that you've been through this experience before with MSPA we assume you had an OPM and I don't need to know the firm's name but I'm just curious what you thought of that experience and if you had kind of one thing that that firm could have changed from your perspective not to get this through in the past but what could they have done a little bit differently to have met some of your expectations that's that's a somewhat hard question to answer as most of the folks on this committee weren't actually on that prior committee um and and well most of us were here in town um you know I don't I don't know that I have a good answer off the top of my head you know it was it's sort of a different time and place and uh and sometimes communities need to learn by doing okay I appreciate that and thanks so much for the time we're really excited for the opportunity very good thank you all right thank you everyone thank you