 Who's the I am the host. Okay. It was recording. We have a couple of members in the audience. Okay. So I'm Kathy Shane and I am chair of the elementary school building committee and I'm going to call this meeting to order at 732. I'm going to call the committee. I'm going to call the committee. I'm going to call the committee. Pursuant to Governor Baker's orders. This meeting is being held with remote participation and virtually and we will. Put up the zoom. Connection for those of you who are listening. I want to call on the people. On the committee to make sure they can hear me. And it's in effect a roll call. I want to make sure they can hear. So I'll do. In the order of pictures on my screen. Paul Bachman. President. Dwayne Chambl. President. Anthony Delaney. President. Steve Schreiber. Here. Mike Morris. Here. It's John Mcnano. Yeah. Allison. Hello. And Jonathan Salbon. Good morning. And Rupert. I'm here. I'm calling the meeting to order. And I'm not sure who. I can put the agenda up. If it would be useful to me, if someone else could put it up so I can continue to watch faces, but does anyone else have the agenda? I did. I do have it available. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. Thank you. If I can find my. And can you make it just a little bit larger? Thanks, Anthony. I also, Anthony, are you a willing volunteer for minutes for today also? We do have a minutes discussion later on the agenda, but I just wanted to make sure. I can be. I at this point, maybe we should just assume it. Okay. I want to point out if we do do a rotating minutes takeout, this won't be forever. This will only be until the OPM is selected. And generally the OPM. Starts taking minutes. At that point. So. It's not a lifetime commitment to other people want. If we start rotating this. Well, I think we'll have a, a brief discussion on minutes later, but if you're willing to do it today, let's. Let's see that way. So the agenda is up on the screen. As I think. Most people know, if not everyone, um, we did get a letter back from MSBA with enrollment and we have signed the letter. So we have a certified enrollment. And the first item on the agenda is going to be Mike explaining. The contents of that and any discussion about it. And then the next item, and we talked about it in December is forming a subcommittee for selection of OPM, because we're now in the next phase of moving forward. Um, both what, what does that subcommittee do? Um, some sense of timeline, how many people. Um, and first a discussion of what it is and then volunteers. And then a group discussion of values that we want to, um, uh, I think we have a public comment at the end of the meeting. Um, I think we have a public comment at the moment, an OPM, um, that would inform the draft request for proposals and selection criteria. And you can see the rest committee minutes. So I just want to, um, right now, public comments are put at the end. Um, I think I'll leave them there for today, but I would like a quick discussion of the committee at the end, whether we'd rather move public comments to the beginning of the meeting or not. Um, uh, they can make a comment on that as well. We, when we seek public comments, it's not a back and forth. We're just going to be asking for comments and we will take them. So I think with that, Mike, um, I'd like to just turn it over for you to. Talk about the enrollment certification we received and, um, its implications for us moving forward. Sure. Thank you, Kathy. Um, See how to do this succinctly, but clearly that's my goal. Um, and so, uh, basically the way the enrollment certification process works is districts can request multiple enrollments to study. And MSBA takes that into account and then offers enrollments. Um, That can be studied. And so in this particular instance, um, and I apologize, some of you may have heard this before because I spoke about it last week at a school committee meeting. On behalf of the district, I requested three enrollments. Um, the first enrollment was 420 students at a K to six school. Um, just, you know, just dealing with the Fort River school. Uh, the second and the 420 was based on the current common aunties to a language program and then having one monolingual class as it aged up through sixth grade. That's if you think of three classes per grade level and seven grade levels. Um, that's 21 classrooms times 20 students which is roughly our average. Uh, and you get forward to 20 students. The second enrollment that was requested was, uh, 520 student. Um, school and this would have, uh, replaced Fort River and Wildwood. So we've moved to a two school district as opposed to a three school district. It assumed, um, that there would be a construction progress process project on the town, the town funded construction project that would have expanded Crocker farm school and, um, you know, I think we could, I landed at 521 could have landed other, but it would have to relatively even side schools. Something I shared with someone who asked is that, you know, evenly sized schools are theoretical construct. It's not the reality. If you think of Wildwood and Fort River, those are literally evenly decided to, you know, built schools for even populations. Uh, and they've rarely had the same population throughout time and actually it's wax in the wings where Fort River was a lot larger. Uh, in recent years, Wildwood's been a lot larger. Um, so, so, you know, I just have to take the evenly sized pieces with a grain of salt, but it would add two more similarly sized schools. And the last one is would have been the 600 student K to five consolidated schools. So taking Wildwood and Fort River offline and having the sixth grade move to the middle school. Um, and so those were what were requested. Uh, you know, we had multiple conversations. Paul Bacchum was involved in the planning department because they had a lot of questions about future growth in the town because they're trying to take that into account as they think about this. Um, and then at the end, you know, what we received back was two enrollments that we were permitted to study. Uh, and they neither were exactly what we requested. And I think I can walk, walk folks through and Kathy and Paul certainly can jump in in terms of the conference call that we shared on this topic with MSBA. Uh, the two top two enrollments they certified for us were 320 students. Uh, K to six at Fort River. The reason they felt 320 was a better number than 420. Uh, not better was the number they were willing to certify. Um, was that they look at district wide capacity and enrollment. So the fact that we have a dual language program is they care about it, but that's something that's sorted out in the feasibility study, what you do programmatically. This is purely about capacity. Um, and they looked at our expected student enrollment. And they looked at the capacity of all three of our elementary schools. Uh, they concluded that 420 students was too large. We would have excess space, excess classrooms in the district. And on a factual basis, I will say, you know, I understand where they're coming from. It does create some. Programmatic challenges for us, but again, that's, as they emphasize, that's what you do in feasibility when you're writing an educational plan, but, uh, they express multiple times that they are, uh, have to be respectful and conscious that they have many districts in the pipeline, many districts trying to get in and they can't, uh, approve a project that builds excess capacity for one district when other districts, uh, don't have that opportunity. So that's how they landed at 320. It wasn't a knock against a dual language program. They actually are quite fond of that and interested in that. Uh, but they can't utilize that to build on five more classrooms, essentially, than what would be required from a district wide capacity perspective. So, um, the second enrollment they certified was 575 students, uh, for K to five, um, school that would take Fort River and Wildwood offline. And so that we would end up with two schools. So one distinction is in option A, we still have three elementary schools and Amherst option B. We have two elementary schools and Amherst. Um, and you know, basically the difference in 575 and 600 was how they looked at our enrollments over time and projected enrollment. It wasn't, you know, they came up with a lower number at first actually. And then we discussed it. We discussed our class size policy, which is quite a bit lower than the average in Massachusetts. Uh, our elementary classes are fewer students than the average elementary class in Massachusetts. And that has implications for a building project. And I want to thank them for being flexible and understanding that our local policies of the, of the elementary school committee, uh, dictate class size policy that is different from their norm. Um, so that's how we landed at 575 in terms of the middle option. Uh, they expressed really clearly that, um, if we wanted, if we being the town wants to do something about Crocker farm, that that that's a town's discretion, but at this point. They're ready to roll. They've been, they've been in the process with us. They're back in the process with us. And if we're not sure, and by not sure they mean don't have, um, in Crocker Farms case, committed funds and a decision made that there's an expansion, then we should drop out of the program. And reapply when we have all of our ducks in a row and all of our commitments made on that one. Uh, in terms of six weeks, the middle school, they're aware that that's a vote of two committees. Um, that doesn't require funding. We shared all of our external reports with them, the Crocker Farm expansion report and renovation. The Fort River process. Obviously they had the Wildwood. Uh, all those reports on hand as well as our, um, you know, looking at six great to the middle school report. So they, they had all the information, uh, that we had to give. They know we're well positioned in terms of information. I think they equipped that we have more information than almost any other district they've ever worked with, who's at the stage in the process. And that's a good thing. Right. That's going to help us as we move forward. Um, so that was the rationale for approving only two enrollments and at the numbers they stated. Um, at that point in the chair of the school committee, the president of town council, myself signed off on the enrollment. Um, it's not really a negotiation at that point in time. Um, it was one additional document. Uh, that we had to just say how we were going to, how we were going to, you know, that we had approved the, the town had approved the funding for the feasibility. Um, and just, you know, a rough ratio of how we anticipated being spent between the OPM, the designer and some other costs. Uh, and the really good news from my perspective is we got a confirming email. I think it was yesterday. Um, Kathy, it's been, it's been a, the fact is Wednesday morning is surprising to me. So, um, uh, but we got a letter that confirmed that, uh, we are slated to be everything's off to MSBA legal. Um, and we are slated to be on the February 11th board meeting, uh, to fingers crossed and bided into the feasibility study, uh, which is a good thing. The last thing I think I'll share as an update and then I'll stop and take questions or comments is that, uh, at that board meeting, I know I'll attend. I think Kathy, you know, said that she would attend and perhaps others will as well. It's a virtual meeting. So it makes it quite easy to attend. And assuming a positive vote of that meeting, Kathy and I will have an orientation, uh, and Paul, if he's able, um, on the next phase in terms of, um, designer, OPM selection designer selection. And they said, based on their process and their timeline, we should anticipate, um, a June or July finalization of hiring an owner project manager. So in their timeline, that's what it takes. They did. And we'll talk about this because it's on the agenda. They did encourage us to start that process in the way that Kathy has designed the agenda. So that we're ready to go because everything needs to be submitted weeks ahead of, uh, not just MSP board meetings, but for their, so, you know, their support in terms of that selection. So I think we're well poised to, to keep on hitting the milestones. We need to keep hitting to be on track for this process. And, um, you know, I think that's, uh, as quick a summer as I could do of all that information. So I apologize. It's not maybe the most exciting, but, uh, hopefully I hit all the key points. I don't know if Kathy and Paul had other things to share from when we met with the MSBA about the enrollment certification, but that that's looking back at my notes. That's what I've got. Um, Paul, do you have anything you want to add? I think that was a really good summary. I think they were, um, they're very supportive of our, they re, they know the building. They know Fort River. They understand the needs. Um, they're very supportive of the process. They wanted us to succeed, which was very, and they saw themselves as partners with us. Um, but that being said, they also recognize their larger responsibility to the Commonwealth and all the other schools that are, you know, in the district that are in their line, um, waiting for fun. So I think, um, I think the town is well positioned, as Mike said, to move forward. And I think they, they work in a very deliberate process and they give your, your dates well in advance and have, we have the opportunity to hit those dates. And so it's good to see these states laid out going forward. And what we have and what, when we'll hit their meeting dates, they only meet every other month. So if we miss a meeting date, it's a, it's a problem for us. So we don't want to do that. Yeah, the only, I just would add, um, two other things we heard on the call, um, we asked, um, Mike asked any advice or coaching advice going forward. And the one answer was communicate, um, at every step of the way. So one of my questions for today is should we, the committee, should the school committee, should the council put out some brief statement about the enrollment, you know, the decision. And I have to write something up for the council. So it could be as part of the council report, but just so townwide people know that the, the ball is starting to roll, you know, and this is, and these are the implications that, that was one. And then when Mike said the June or July, us moving with OPM, they gave us, it wasn't just a little bit in advance, but I think, you know, to be on the agenda for June, we have to be ready by the end of March or, you know, in an end of April for July. So it means we need to be very focused on the OPM process of getting, getting that process, getting that process moving and doing it efficiently, efficiently if we want to make the June or July decision thing. You know, so I was, to me it was like, whoa, they, when they say a few weeks before they didn't mean like, you know, two weeks before they meant really before to get on their agenda. So those were the two other things. And we did push pretty hard about on the, the three models that Mike had submitted. And their answers were, as he said, you know, if we had put money on the table for Crocker expansion, then, then yes, but if we're not ready to do something, they would be asking us to come back similarly, you know, on a couple other questions that we had. So, so they, not just were, they were totally enthusiastic. They were cheerleaders, you know, you're going to have a new school. This is wonderful. I'm glad to help you. So it was green lights on folks. Mike. Yep. Just to clarify one thing I think they were saying, and I think I should have said it earlier that the OPM doesn't go back to the full board. It goes to something called an OPM review panel. It's the same idea. They don't meet all the time. They're not on the beck and call. They meet on every, you know, I don't know exactly how often, but with regularity. But if anyone's looking at board dates, that's the wrong dates to be looking for. It's, it's, I think it's literally called, yeah, the OPM review panel. And so, you know, those are certainly open meetings, but that's the, what we need to hit is the dates for that group. And I can read them out loud. Actually, I have them here. If it's actually, you know what might be helpful is if I think I'm allowed, am I allowed to share my screen on this one? I think so as long as whoever's host allows us. See if it lets me. Yeah. I'm going to share my screen. It may be hard to read, but I'll email when this meeting ends, I'll email the state out because it actually lays out the June and July dates and exactly what submissions need to be when. So let me. Yep. You're doing it. Is that a large enough for people to be able to read? You can adjust your, people can adjust their own screens. Okay. So, you know, when they're talking about June or July, it means the add in, if we want to hit June, which I'm always pushing for the sooner, right? You know, that means add in the register March 25th. You know, appears on the 31st applications due by April. Received the MSPA by May. The full package by May 26 and having gone through this before. It's, you know, it's a lot of work. But it's a lot of work. So we want to be ahead of those dates because the tail end of those can get, you know, challenging in terms of scheduling the interviews and all that. But, you know, this document probably lays out the dates that we need to hit to check off the boxes so that we could be in June or July for that review panel. I hope that's helpful. Yeah, that's very helpful, Mike. And if you send it to me, we can make sure we both post it and everyone has it. I think we're just starting as every, I think everyone here knows there is now a webpage. It will get more organized once OPM comes on with lots of sections, but we're posting all of this material in packets. Paul. So two things one on that one, I think we should say decide today what, what meeting we are targeting as a committee. We should say we want to hit the June meeting and then start to talk about what does it mean to get there. And then secondly, in terms of your communication piece, Kathy, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, if you are going to draft up something for the council, we can take that and we can put that out through the town and through the school communication networks so everybody can hear it. So I think if you want to take that first crack at it, if you're planning on doing that anyway, that might be a good first step. And I would, I'm planning on making sure I share the draft so that it uses the words that all of us can be using, you know, the words that we're talking about. I think we should be careful about that. Right. Be, be careful about it to be both careful, but also clear. You know, people don't read in between the line, something that's not there. All right. So I think. Does it make sense to choose a date? The meeting we want to end. I think that to me it does, Mike, anyone else? Yeah, I just want to give people, I said a whole awful lot in the beginning and we never, I, we all just, you know, had a lot to share. I just wanted to, you know, I just wanted to, you know, I just wanted to ask any questions on stuff I said, I think, I agree with Paul's, your suggestion about drafting something, Kathy, thank you for doing that. Paul's about choosing a date, but I just want to make sure if there's questions, the committee, they get an opportunity to talk about stuff. That's not just those two things. Thank you for a very gentle, but clear reminder. So I'm looking at all the faces. You know, I think we're small enough, Jonathan, just raise your hand this way rather than the hand thing. Jonathan. Any other comments? It's just, I think it оз conversation. A little something that can save you myself. I just, just for clarity, Mike. What was the grade configuration on the larger. Population that were permitted to. To study? What was that? Yep. So it's K to five on the larger population and K to six on the. Fort River, only 320 student. There are multiple parts of my school committee life last night. But, you know, I think, you know, trying to think of how to engage people on that particular question, whether that sits in this body or that body or some combined body or between the Amherst and the region is something that we'll have to sort through over the next few weeks. Questions, comments. I'm not seeing anything so I know I actually didn't watch the first school committee might when you presented this but the school committee members quickly jump to that and said, Oh, so this means, you know, if we're, if we're down to two schools, if we're going to do just to rather three it means the sixth grade is moving we better folk week we should be starting to focus on that so it is, it has a clear curriculum implication. Anyone else. So I guess. So let's go. The next item is to talk about the formation of a subcommittee that would be part of the opm selection, and Paul's and timeline so Paul's suggestion that we aim for June which would mean that the paperwork on this has to be in no later than March 25, according to what Mike just as everyone comfortable and is that it set trying to set that is the goal. Yeah, I don't see anyone going no I mean it's a tight goal, clearly, because we're not going to be invited. The invited in happens on February 11 and meanwhile Anthony is starting to draft everything. You know, but we're not. Yeah. This is a much selecting an opm for this is much simpler than when we tried to do the feasibility study at Ford River. It's, it's a very defined document we're really just filling in blanks. So, assembling the the RFS the request for services will not be an arduous process for us. And I'm glad to hear that I think just the one thing to be aware of anything that gets done in this process needs to be vetted and approved by MSBA so whatever timeline you see there. You have to back up and and what's maybe not as explicit in that timeline is that it needs to be submitted MSBA legal needs to take a look. Before it ever hits the register central registry or whatever it's called Anthony sorry I'm not. As you know, as you've learned well I'm not, I'm not well well burst and procurement jargon. But just, I think just, I'm glad to hear that because I do know that there's going to be a delay on the other end because anything we do along that step needs to get the check from from Boston there before it goes out. Do you want to say a little bit about the role of the OPM, our subcommittee to do the OPM, because the next step after that role is looking for volunteers to be on it. So I think that the committee of our committee that would be not just working with the RFS but also I'm assuming doing to extend we do background references, you know, finding out about the entities that submit pieces would be doing that so you want to talk a little bit about that Mike Anthony anyone who's been through this before. Yeah, so the first role of such a subcommittee would be to work with me on actually drafting the request for services, which again is is mostly a fill in the blanks exercise. And for people to fill in background information on the goals of the process and perhaps why we are looking for certain specific things. Unique to this district. So that's a bit of history on previous projects because I only came in after after after after the Fort River study individual project started. So that's not a very arduous thing, although at least some people on the commit subcommittee should probably have some specific knowledge there after that. So we get into interviewing the opm. Our people currently is MSBA still having people travel for that Mike or that's all remote right now. So we can probably assume it will still be remote. We won't have to travel to Boston for those things. And yeah doing reference checks that could be delegated to one person that could be split up among multiple people. I think that's think that's the main stuff on my end anything else Mike. Mike. Yeah, so I'll send over a document to the Catholic and share with the committee. It's pretty dense from MSBA but it's about the process as well and, you know, I think, I think a couple things to back up to Anthony said, you know, why do we need an opm the opm is a support for the town and the committee. We're not the rest of the process so you know whether or not literally building the building. They are essentially the betting agency that we have to control costs to make sure the products that we're receiving is good. As Anthony noted to lovingly take notes so it's no longer Anthony or someone else's responsibility, but there are go to people and it's a really critical role in my experience. So, you know, the short story is Anthony will do a lot of the front end piece. It does need to be advertised in central registry for at least two weeks, we may want to do it. More than that that'll be a decision that we want to talk about. In typical times it'd be an informational meeting and a site inspection we might just be an informational meeting for interested vendors. You know Sean you're involved in that last time we had pretty good turnout. Last time with people who want to know more about the project they want to understand what the goals of this committee and the town are so that when they're doing their applications, more or less. They're really clear on what the aims are and what we're looking for it was really dovetails the next agenda point Kathy but you know I think that's why it's so critical that on the front end we're clear on what we value what we're looking for so that we're being transparent about that with the potential vendors. Once we get those. We'll take all all available information into account. There's a ranking process for people who are on that subcommittee that is short listing. Each of the shortlisted respondents are invited for a presentation interview by that subcommittee and you know you're looking for can they do the job can they meet the schedule. Do they have the key personnel to be able to do that. There's a reference check process at the tail end of that. All the references need to be checked for everyone who you interview it's not just I like this person I'm only going to check references for that person. Again it's very very formal. Structured processes Anthony describe. And then the shortlisted candidates to be ranked, you know so you're ranking all the people who apply. You're interviewing the people who you shortlist, you do references for all those people. There's rankings. You need to retain those because they may be requested by the MSPA. You need to have a rationale for why you rank them the way you did. Again, this is a lot of forms and a lot of those pieces. And then it goes to as I said the MSPA is owner project manager review panel. And you do have to justify why it is that you're choosing wanting to or choosing the vendor you want to. And then you have to come to a contract agreement based on fees. And so, so it is a cumbersome process. We're so lucky to have Anthony here to walk us through the technical parts of it. And so that it's a lot of work and you know for me in my opinion it's really important work because it will directly influence the entire rest of the project, including parts of the project I haven't been to but talking to my colleagues who have got through construction and commissioning and all those pieces so it's a little bit of a slog to be honest with you but you know if we do this right and get the right vendor. The process will work much more smoothly. Sorry for again being long-winded this morning but I just want to make sure I'm giving the lay of the land. So how what is the time commitment that you anticipate for people who are going to volunteer to serve on this group. And does once they make a decision on an OPM or a group of three OPMs do they come back to this full the entire body to say here's what we want and then it goes to the MSPA from this body. Uh, So the time commitment for the drafting of the RFS, I would think would only amount to three or four hours probably probably one or two subcommittee meetings where we actually review it and then probably a fair bit of. Okay, can you draft this part can you supply some language for this. So, I would think five or six hours grand total that might be to that might be to more than that might be high. Then, in terms of interviews, that's probably a day or maybe two half days depending on on scheduling I would think. But then however long it takes to actually finalize a list so couple more subcommittee meetings there. So yeah so the actual selection is probably it'll be spread out but it would probably be the equivalent of a couple to three days. I would think that's basically what it was on Fort River, Mike. No, I'll take it wherever it comes from. No, I would guess, you know in my head about 20 hours. Right. For Anthony, he can read, get these proposals and probably roll through them because he's used to this process for people like me. When I got you know last time when we got proposals whether it's this or the designer. They're pretty lengthy. They're not like, like a two page resume. Right. And so, you know, I know Sean was also in that role last time I you know it took a lot of time to read through those. I think I agree with everything Anthony said on the other parts but I don't want to minimize how much. If we get eight applications. For me, it wasn't like I could read them in 10 minutes and know what I was talking about it really had to dig in. I see Sean has his hand up as well. I see Sean. Yeah, I'd say it's probably, you know, a pretty busy couple of weeks when you're reading the proposals and then when you're doing the interviews, Mike's right the the proposals for both the opium and the designer can be pretty lengthy. And it's important to have a good sense of how you're going to rank them, because, you know, when you're reading through these, they all pretty much say the same thing and you're trying to piece out like what separates one opium from another opium and you know what you're really looking for is did they read what you said. And are they, you know, are they being responsive to what the district is looking for you know some people will submit cookie cutter proposals that are just standard and others you can you'll be able to tell that they really took it took time to understand the district and the community. But it is sort of a time consuming process to piece that out because it's a, you know, they're all very colorful they're all very nice and professional. And you're really sort of looking for like the little teeny details that you can you can kind of, you know, justify your ranking based on those so it's a little arduous when you do that part of it. I agree I did forget how much reading there is that is definitely true. I have a question shown because I haven't been through this process but I have been through on behalf of a federal government on a grant grant selection, and where they were big grants on ranking we often had pre decided on some criteria and even given it points, you know, so, so it was a reader's guide then to reading the application, did it have this or that on and very well done. So, did you have you done anything like that or is it more a verbal what you're looking for. So normal procurements are like that Anthony is it is that something that's already set in the RFS what the criteria will be. It is all it is already set and it is largely predefined what the criteria are I could. That's okay. I could show it if if we wanted. That's not your main to this particular discussion but it's fine. I totally agree I mean it was just really useful to have that when reading something so as you said you know look beyond the boilerplate for, you know, what someone said, so anyone else question on what this subgroup does. So the question that doesn't come back to the full body before because MSBA or not. My recollection is yes. And even if it doesn't technically lead to which MSBA will brief Kathy and myself on, I believe it should. You know, I don't think there's anything that precludes it but Shawn do you remember from last time I felt like it did come back. We brought back the so that my recollection unless it's changed which it could have changed there's there's sort of a narrative that you have to complete that shows you know your process how many received how many you shortlisted. And I think you mostly just bring back the shortlist, and, and that's what the opn review board sort of looks at, and then there's some sort of back and forth process I have to refresh my memory around the negotiation of it. Because I think we set a fee but of the double check and then there's there's a little bit of a negotiation around that so. I believe it does come back to the this committee this group first before it goes off to the MSBA just to take a look and we can explain for the subcommittee can explain how they got to that shortlist. I also think even if that isn't a required step, I think it's an important step because our meetings will be posted in advance so we need to set up a meeting to make sure that happens and that'll be the broader public knowing that we're getting to that point. You know, and they're 13 of us so it's also just a healthy weighing in. Yeah, Paul. Yeah, the subcommittee means are public meetings as well. No, I know they're public I'm just saying that it means that you don't have to go to every meeting of the subcommittee to know that it's going to come back to this meeting I mean there are some people that actually I think love to watch all the meetings that we're doing on committees but there are others that would like some readers guide to tune in for this one it's it's it's a it's a biggie or no I realize everything is public and it's really been very helpful for those of you have haven't seen it with zoom. Zoom has been really quite fast in getting faster on posting the videos, the zoom videos so if you couldn't be to a particular meeting you can watch it, and it's happening for some can, any of our public meetings that are held under zoom. And I think with that background. It's people volunteering to be on the subcommittee and what I heard is we need. Ideally we, we need Anthony on it but we need someone who's been through this before so that history section and Mike. So just on a, the kinds of people we need and then I'm just going to ask for who would like to be on it. I'm going to be volunteering to be on it because I think I need to go through this step so I'm assuming I will be on it in some way. I'm just doing yeah I would definitely like to be on it, you know fully immersed in the project and it seems like this is going to be a big piece of it so I want to jump right into it and jump into the fire. I'm just going to be on it. If Sam was up also I just, yeah, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use a digital hand but I, I'll volunteer, I would like to be part of this if that's possible. Okay, I saw Paul you put your hand on Jonathan is up I'm just looking, I'm looking around. Yeah, I just want to say I definitely do not want to be on it. Sorry, kind of underneath myself. I certainly am glad to participate I can bring some of the history at least about the last project and I certainly have been on the opposite side of the procurement process. And that might or might not be helpful but I'm also willing to step aside for for new folks if if the larger group wants different folks. So I'm looking at Mike and Sean just on a you went through it with the Wildwood project and then you've been, you know, sort of the long history of of immersed on elementary schools. Do do, would you want to be serving on this Mike or is that added to a workload that already is a big workload. Yeah, I mean I wanted to make sure there was someone from the schools on there the fact of Dwayne. Thank you Dwayne volunteered for that I, you know, I shift my opinion because Dwayne is 100% trust him to bring the, the best interest of schools forward but I think your point about past history is okay so I don't know how Sean feels about this. I'm not his supervisor so I will not jump in at any point to pressure Sean but but I think you're the points well taken about having some history but you know the flip side of that is also true that maybe it's better to have some people who weren't part of the prior process. You know to have a fresh eye because likely a lot of the same people will reapply. I think that you know there's a finite number of OPMs in the area. A finite number of OPMs we're going to apply for a project in Western Massachusetts so I could look at that question either way but you know, certainly if the committee feels like I need to be then then or should be that I'll do it but having Dwayne involved makes me feel more relaxed and I know that was coming so thank you Dwayne. Right now I have Dwayne, Steve, Jonathan, Kathy, Anthony, which is one, two, three, four, five people. And we're a group of 13 so five is a good number. Sean is raising his hand and Anthony is raising, it's Sean first than Anthony. Yeah I was going to just say I think that's a good number I don't think you'd want to go much bigger than that. And I'm fully confident in Anthony to kind of guide the procurement side of it. The history I think is most important for filling out the RFS narrative which will get a lot of that information from the schools anyway. And you know I can certainly help you know work with him if there's any questions about what happened last time but I think that's a good number. Okay, so I think we have our subcommittee unless any other hands going up. This actually the fact that there weren't 13 pictures on this I can kind of scan it to see hands which is good. So I think that Paul, yeah, I was just going to say if there was some if you needed someone else from the schools or or, or, you know, who's been through it before. I was thinking, Kathy, you could serve sort of ex officio, but you know just as chair, be at all the, so that's just another option, but it becomes a very large group then, you know, so. What's the optimal number for the subcommittee group. I think we did three last time is my recollection from the last time we did this but, but it's also, I don't think five is noted, you know noticeably different. We had five on the Fort River one and that worked fine. We weren't selecting an OPM we were selecting a designer but that worked fine. That's all. Okay, you know, I also, you know, to the extent there's a section that you want other readers of some for the RFS to read it, I'm sure we will share you know so you know school committee. This doesn't have to be only this post out in a huddle and the end of it you see the So, on terms of values, I wanted to open it up for a discussion of the types of values skills experience Paul. Yeah, should we, should we make a motion on this committee. Okay, so sure that we can. This is good. Keep keep Kathy and a more formal. Okay, so I am, I will make a motion that we form a subcommittee for the OPM selection that includes, and I'll do the last names later. So I don't have to do Dwayne Steve Jonathan Kathy and Anthony. Is there a second to the motion. Second. I guess limit. Do I need to do I should do a roll call vote since we can't just do a show of hands correct. You should yes. Okay, so I will go if there are any further comments or discussion. Okay, then I will go through the screens as I see them Paul. Yes. Kathy's the yes Dwayne. Yes. Anthony. Hi, Steve. Yes, Mike. Yes. John. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Rupert. Yes. Yes. The motion passes unanimously of the 123456789 people who are here. So there are several apps and we'll, we will do this formally in the minutes to show who, who voted and who was not here at the committee. So can I ask a question now that we have, I guess, an official subcommittee, what happens if we're contacted by directly by potential applicants. So people that we think might be putting themselves forward. Mike. What will happen throughout the process. Like, you know, like there'll be, you know, construction professionals all that my advice would be that all communication to potential vendors go through the chair. And everything's, I don't mean to add work to your plate Kathy but I think if there's one central person who's doing any communicating, which is probably not that much in this particular instance but that it all filters to the chair so we don't have people doing side communication with vendors outside the process so that's my recommendation for the group. Anthony. I would volunteer to be the person that that communication goes through. I'm actually already getting a fair number of emails from OPMs and currently I'm just telling them to watch the committee page. But since I'll be the person posting the documents and I'll know where to direct people I might suggest that that goes to me. And then, you know, to the extent anything comes directly to me as chair I will just say, I'm copying Anthony because he's handling all of these so I can do something short and very short and sweet to indicate that it didn't go into a black hole. Okay, so any other questions before we talk about values. I'm not seeing anything. Okay. Any thoughts on the value of discussion. I'm going to share a screen because I jotted down some notes last night. Let me make sure I here we go. And this is meant to be super rough draft. And I'll make it as big is that big enough so people can see it. Yes. Okay, so I just, this was off the top of my own head I shared it with Mike he said looks about right and made one comment that I wasn't quite sure how I should change but I changed it a little bit with this comment. But I'll just go through the 10 or a bit is strong experience that we want to know that. I think it's a great experience for school building projects, including recent elementary schools. Ideally, since we're going to do a zero net energy that they at least know what that is. Experience with MSBA strong references I think goes without saying, but I'd like to make sure we check through multiple layers of experience having worked with them. Communication skills. I think it's both listening well and communicating clearly with us and with the public, but knowing something about their style, their methods of communication would be good. And a little and willing to able to push back I didn't know how to write this but I don't. If there are competing ideas or alternative ways of going about things they need to flush that out and explain consequences so that they don't just go with the flow but they can be. I really want to do this and talk to talk back to us as needed. Well organized and flexible with time to support the committee they're going to be doing creating website material for us to provide easy access set in here clear timelines. And then the last but I shouldn't say least is some that they believe in public engagement that they really have a strong commitment to outreach public at key junctures, and any materials they've used are clear. And I find some are better than others. That was just those were six larger value aptarotes that occurred to me. So, I'm willing to add subtract do anything but this was, I thought, instead of having a blank slate something to work off it would be great Anthony. Would you like me to share the default criteria in the MSBA is opm selection. I'm sure so maybe maybe first get any reaction to this or maybe do that Anthony and then Steve. Yeah, I was going to comment on yours but it would whatever you want to do. Well, would it be, let me ask the committee would it be helpful to see the default, having just more or less this is, this is clearly not rocket science of what I did. Keep that in your memory you want to see, let's let's look at Anthony looks look at default. So do I stop share or does that I think I can just take over. Let's see. Yeah. No, not that. It's the wrong word. Milk eggs. New share that too many windows open narratives. Okay. So, the MSBA form has minimum criteria and then comparative criteria. So the minimum is laid out first, and they have to designate a project director who is a registered architect with the Commonwealth who has at least five years experience, or seven years experience and construction and supervision of construction. And then the real meat of it is the comparative criteria. Can you just explain the difference between minimum and comparative real quick for people on the committee. So the minimum criteria will be if they don't meet it, then we basically can't consider them. If they don't have the regular whatever we said as a minimum the required experience then it's don't pass go we don't. We don't really consider them further there's not really any discussion or weighing them. They're not qualified so they don't. They're not considered further, whereas evaluation criteria are comparative and they'd be weighed firm a has more experience, but does a lot of change orders from be is less experienced but has higher review scores from previous projects. So that's not a simple thumbs up thumbs down on the evaluation criteria. And the evaluation criteria are past performance, including completion time dollar value and number of change orders at safety finds their relationship with the both the owner and the contractors and the MSBA thorough knowledge of building code ADA and other local regulations. Thorough knowledge of procurement laws and including construction management at risk if we go that way. Description of their management approach, the qualifications of the people they identify as key personnel and how much time they are devoting to the project and their experience. Their capacity to take on the project and relevant skills, their ability to. So there are other workload and whether they be able to take on this project in addition to their current familiarity with green building codes such as lead, or other or chips or other things like the life life cycle cost analysis cost estimating and value engineering. There's stability. We would probably add criteria regarding zero energy experience and other other things but that is the that is the default setup in a, in a blank request for services. And so Jonathan next year. Anthony may have mentioned this but I was reading and it kind of reminded me an important piece of this will be waiting all of those. You know, determine what's the most important and sort of prioritizing that. You know, it's not. It's not super intuitive, you know what's the most important so you really kind of got to go through each one of them and kind of think about your values for for the opm. Yeah. Jonathan you had your hand up. My question is more to what extent does the process allow us to edit or add to that list, Anthony, or are we is that a basic setup that that comes with with with the approval process. From the state. We. So the instructions part of the form says owners should designate points to each criteria listed below. Doesn't. I don't see specific instructions on adding them that I believe. I believe with MSBA approval we can add evaluation criteria I guess I would have to double check on that but I will. I believe we can it would be surprising to me if we couldn't add certain evaluation criteria that are not very specific to our needs like especially zero energy is the big one for me right that's that's the one I'm thinking about and how to frame that and and how to get make sure we're getting applicants that that have as much experience in that as possible. Thank you. Any other Steve you had your hand up when my back up it's back up. Yeah, so. And I guess one concern is always to have criteria criteria be so specific that you'll have a pool of zero or a pool of one, like in other words, experience with net zero elementary schools in Massachusetts, you know, et cetera, et cetera, all of a sudden gets you into a tiny pool. Good question I have I said I didn't see anything about minority businesses or women owned businesses was that in the criteria, you're going through quickly and I couldn't see if that was what criteria re on that we can or should use. So, I do not believe that is in the default setup. Okay, there is. There are state regulations on women and minority on businesses for the construction and, but I don't believe on the opm, or even the designer side. I believe it is, it is something we could add I believe that's not an uncommon addition. I would be I for one to be in favor of adding that as a criteria criteria criteria and, you know, to use as would I, the state has made a concerted effort in recent years and particularly over the last six to nine months to to increase the participation of minority and women owned businesses. Paul. So I agree with those things I so I think what we're saying, I think we want to call out explicitly the net zero designer, whether they have experience or not but just a commitment to that in there. And, and then I also think it's important what this is not I don't I think that's the state. The SBA is such a structured process we're going to use their criteria we understand that they've thought they've done this a million times, but I think what we're trying to do is articulate the values that we're bringing to it and the vet and the priorities. I think Jonathan and Steve had hit the minority women owned businesses one I think we we also talked about the net zero one. I also think it's really important in terms of, in terms of high value is working with the, the key contact for the town and usually if that's a facilities manager or the, you know, whoever it's going to be on our on our side, staff wise, as they start to go through the process. That relationship is really pivotal. Oh, one last thing. I also think in this day and age we want someone who's very committed to and has a robust online interactive ability to interact with the public, because that's not something that would have been pre pre thought of but that's going to be the world that we're going to be working in for the next year, probably. So somebody who's who has some tools in their toolkit that can actually energize public communication on this. Steve. So with state, or the, I'm sorry the MSBA boilerplate, the minimum requirement, they gave a choice of a registered architect slash engineer or someone with experience, I would prefer to draw the bar higher so that it's an architect or engineer, because it's, and I don't, you know, I have not worked with opm that much, but I can't envision a process where the project director is not one of those two, in particular because they will be in a way, directing people who are architects and in order to have street creds they would have to have, you know, at least that same, you know, that same education and experience. Anthony. That might be statutory but I will look at that. Okay. Those years might be in statute. I'll check that. Rupert. I like this discussion. I want to say that I really believe that the subcommittee will do a great job prioritizing things. But I would like, I would hope that the subcommittee will heavily wait experience working with MSBA in the past because that's going to be really key to guiding us and the project through. I think unless I'm seeing other hands, I'm taking notes. Anthony's a minute taken and we'll have a recording. I think this covered a lot of basis and rather than taking everybody's time once this meeting ends, I'll search for meeting dates for the subcommittee so that we can start to meet now to be ready for the February 11th. And as people saw on the agenda, the next, our next meeting is February 17th as a full committee. And that will be after MSBA's meeting on February 11th. So, so we will have some work to be done by the subcommittee before then. The next item on the agenda of people. I'm just looking around and people are moving on. I just want a really quick decision discussion on minutes. If Anthony is willing to continue to be the minute cake taker until we get our OPM, that would be great, but we haven't we have two sets of draft minutes and we're going to get a third for our other meeting. We need to decide on a process of reviewing those. If one possible way to expedite it instead of taking full meeting time is, and we've done this in the finance committee is to designate a reader of the draft, and give them the authority to approve it where anyone who sees something in the report would like to edit sends it in. And if, if we want to go that route. I'm hesitant to do this but I volunteer to be a reader. And I'm a quick and fast reader. So it would mean that you just send the draft will get posted. And so you'll have it in your packets, and you'll have an opportunity to comment on it. And then move from draft to final unless there's a big question on Paul. I highly recommend that and move that Kathy be the final arbiter of minutes. Okay, there's a motion on the floor does maybe even just do it by a show of hands. Everyone okay with that process. So we don't have to take meeting time. Next, I think, you know, I'm conscious of time yet Anthony. So according to that packet we got when we started as a committee that had that so you've been selected to be a committee member in Amherst every committee has to either designate a revolving secretary or make someone secretary. If that's true. I will nominate myself as secret as recording secretary for the committee. And I, I second that nomination or make a motion that we nominate Anthony to be our secretary. Is everyone comfortable with that. Yes, I think so. Thank you Anthony. Over and above. And on the agenda the next would be opening it up for public comments we do have participants. Let me just see. We have five attendees. Anyone who would like to make I see one hand. I'm not the host for this meeting so arena. I see two hands there are two people with hands up. So someone else would have to promote them. Okay. I think, I think, I mean, if you unmute yourself, I think you have been brought into the meeting and we're, and again, comments we will listen to you rather than responding but we will make a note of your comments. My name is sitting in the company. I'm a former I was in the four river school building committee and the sixth grade reconfiguration and other committees. I have a question about the enrollment. The 575 is conditioned to moving the sixth grade to the middle school that report hasn't been presented was part of that committee. There was no outreach. There was, there's not a final report. So, what happens if it's voted down, or is it a mute. This point is going to be a mute process in the sense that if we go with the 575, it has to be approved, unless if it's. So the question is, I'm thinking that's not if not Crocker farms needs to be expanded. And we have to locate funding for Crocker farm. If it's voted down, if not the other alternative is the 320. So, I want to know what's the committee going to be doing regarding this, and how I'm going to tackle this because we haven't, the report is not out. It hasn't been outreach. And yes, let's do it. It was, we should present person cons and then there are several votes that needs to go ahead before it's been approved to move to the sixth grade. Or is it going to be made just it's kind of putting pressure. I think that vote should have happened before presented the Roman now is too late and we know this year has been weird. At this point, everything is conditioned on that boat for the 575 or extra funding for Crocker farm for the expansion for Crocker farm because otherwise the students don't fit. So that was my comment. Okay, so I think we all heard that comment and I'm going to leave it to Mike working with the school committee to get back to you arena. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. With right now. But we, we have taken your comment. Thank you very much. Thank you. That we have another hand up. Tony Cunningham. Hey, Tony, you can unmute. You've been brought in. To our world. Thank you. My name is Tony Cunningham. I'm a member of the. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction to the committee, including the sixth grade advisory board and the Crocker farm study. And I wanted to thank Kathy for bringing up the point from the from the MSBA about how important communication is. I think that's that's vital at this point. And I just, I just reviewed some of the. And I understand that once the OPM is on board that they will manage the public engagement, but that's six months out. So for the next six months, it's on the building committee to make sure that the public is brought along. And some of the points that were developed during the Fort River study where the website, which you mentioned already, having all materials that are considered and produced and those submitted to the MSBA clearly organized on there and easy to find. Having an email address, so people can send questions. I know Kathy has a Amherst am a address, but is there going to be a address for the building committee? So people can target questions that are meant for this process. Press releases. So there hasn't been anything other than mentioned at the school committee meetings at the last two school committee meetings. There hasn't been anything in the press about this yet. So people don't know. At least in the bulletin and the Gazette, they don't know that we're basically down to either sixth grade moves or we have three schools. And the size of school that's been approved by the MSBA for a K6 does not fit the program we have in it right now. So they're really not realistic options or good options at this point. I mean, not that the 575 is a bad option, but it's not much of a choice. So making that clear to the community at this point. And then op-eds. So last time around in the Fort River study, both the school committee chairs had op-eds in the papers. This time, perhaps you can consider joint op-eds between the building committee and the school committee so that you're addressing the curriculum implications as well as the facility and building implications that are under the purview of the building committee. And then finally, the videos of these meetings have been very slow to get posted. This is the first time I set an alarm so I would get up at 7.30 to tune in. The other three meetings, I had to wait for them to be posted and I had to chase them down with the town staff in order to get them posted, all three of them. The third meeting took almost a month before it was online. So it's not accessible to the community easily to find out what you're discussing. So basically to reiterate what the MSBA told you and what Councillor Shane brought up at the beginning of the meeting is that communication is your responsibility until the OPM is on board. And so to try to put some time and effort into that, whether it's an item on the agenda to make sure you're covering all bases, figuring out how to reach different parts of the community that might not speak English, that might not be tuning in, that might not be reading the bulletin. You would now have those Sufa signs. Could you put something on the Sufa sign to advertise to the people walking by downtown that this is going on? And just the key milestones that are coming up just to allow people to feel like they're brought along and they're not told what the solution is in six months time or whenever that sixth grade decision is. I mean, we'll know what the building is gonna look like once that sixth grade decision is made. So anyway, I thank you for your work and thank you for getting up so early to have these meetings. And I'm hoping this is a very successful process. Thank you for your comments, Tony. And we are taking notes and it will be captured. I think I don't see any other hands up in the audience. So I think we are coming to the close. There are no matters that weren't anticipated by the chair. It looks to me like there will be some in the future but right now I don't have any. So I wanna take an opportunity for anyone to make any other comments. Jonathan was just adjusting his glasses as I do all the time. I'm just looking for any other final comments. Reminding everyone that the next meeting of this committee is February 17th at 730 in the morning. And we will probably once the subcommittee meets we'll get out to you how often we're gonna be meeting our best guess of how often the full committee will need to meet in March, April, to get something more, are we going to more than once a month? There'll be a subcommittee meeting but we'll get some more formalized structure of meetings we've right now we're on once a month. Any final comments? I don't see any. I wanna thank everyone from getting up this early in the morning. I am an early riser so it fits me but if this were my daughter she would not be a happy camper. So thank you all very much. We are at the beginning of a process that will produce a school for the community if we are successful, not just for the committee. Thank you all those of you who volunteer for the subcommittee. I look forward to working with everybody. Have a nice day. I think we are adjourned. I'm just gonna do it by hand.