 Good evening. My name is Jeff Thielman. I'm the chairperson of the Arlington High School Building Committee, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's forum. The building committee and the design team have been working on this project for quite some time. Tonight, we're remembering a good friend of ours, Brian Reary, who was a member of the building committee for the past five years. He joined the committee at the beginning in 2016. We lost Brian last week. We remember him and we're going to be inspired by his wisdom and his guidance for a long time to come. He was very critical in a lot of the key decisions we made to bring the project to this point. I am pleased to announce that the building is on time and on budget. We will open on February 28th. We'll open the new school, the new wing on February 28th in the auditorium on April 4th. Tonight, you'll get a chance to look at some inside photos. Of the new high school, get an overview of the phases of the project and the timeline for each one. Hear about efforts underway to manage the construction while students are in school and receive more detailed information on the timeline and the process for phase two of the project, which begins very soon. You'll hear tonight from the following people, our architect, Lori Coles, of HMFH Architects, our school principal, Dr. Matthew Janger, our assistant principal at Arlington High School, Bill McCarthy, John Lamar, a senior project manager at Consigli, and the lead contractor managing this very complicated project. Jim Burroughs, our owner's project manager from Skanska, is here to answer questions. And our superintendent, Dr. Elizabeth Holman, is moderating the question and answer period. I want to say that the design team, the project management team, the contracting team have done an outstanding job throughout this project. I think we're at this point where we're able to open the school despite all of the things that have challenged us with COVID-19 and supply issues and other challenges because of the fine work of Consigli, Skanska, and HMFH. So now it's my pleasure to turn it over to Lori Coles of HMFH. Thank you, Jeff. Good evening, everyone. We are very excited that phase one will be opening February 28th, just after the February break. And we will have the new Massachusetts Avenue entry and lobby, the steam wing, which as we all know is science, technology, engineering, visual arts, and math, the maker spaces, and the performing arts wing, which will include the course and the band classrooms and other supporting spaces, along with the auditorium, which is a little bit delayed and will open in April. So just want to show you some construction photos. If you've been driving down Mass Avenue, you have seen this view many times. This is the new main front entrance. And the photo on the right is showing the main entry portion with the curve of the auditorium on the left and the start of the steam wing on the right. And then we have a snap of a night shot from across the street with a little bit of snow and whatnot from there, but we're looking forward to it really being finished and seeing it at night. Next. And these are two views that you probably won't get as easily when you do get there. So some good snaps from the contractor. This is coming from above looking down at the main lobby. You're getting a view of the terrazzo floor just under construction. It has been completed and it's sort of covered and protected. So if I took a picture today, you wouldn't see it. So this is a nice opportunity to see it in process. And then the other view on the left is sort of an interesting vantage point where you're looking up into the space. It is a three-story high volume space and in that space you're seeing the big curved areas underside of the discourse lab. Next. And this is a view of the discourse lab. The seating, the 120 seats are on their way. They are in a warehouse ready to be delivered and installed. And you are seeing sort of the very intricate ceiling which has a lot of acoustic treatment to control the sound in the space. It's going to be a reasonably high tech space. We have a very impressive 13-foot wide projection screen that the students will be able to use and see presentations and debate in discourse, which is what this room is about. Next. And this is a view of just one wall of a typical science classroom built in cabinetry or casework as we call it. And closer in the view, you're seeing the safety items which include the fire extinguisher and an eyewash station and a shower station again for safety in the science labs. Next. And these are great views. I think the photographer might have been lying down to take these. So we have two light wells that go all the way through the four stories of the steam wing. And they really serve to bring natural light into all of the floors, all of the central spaces. And they're about from ground all the way up about 58 feet high. So they're going to be really impressive and really make the space feel special and gathering areas and so on that surround these spaces on each floor. Next. So this is a view of the makerspace shop. And it is one of the largest spaces in the school. It's 3,500 square feet. And from this vantage point, you're looking east as if you were looking towards CVS. And the spot you're seeing the daylight at the end there is actually going to be a garage door. And once complete, that garage door will open up to what we're calling the work yard or the makershop yard where they can bring projects outdoor to finish and so on. Next. And these are two views of the auditorium under construction. The one on the right, you are on the upper balcony looking down onto the main seating area and beyond to the stage. And then the other view is kind of an interesting view that not a lot of people will have in the future. This is from the stage. So if you're standing on the stage and looking out, you're seeing all the catwalks both at the stage and above the auditorium seating, all the ability for lights and changes to happen throughout different performances and for students to really learn how to how to put on a performance that as we all know, we're looking forward to having those performances happening again. Next. And then beyond that in the performing arts wing, the photo on the right is a view of the 2500 square foot band classroom. Not complete. Of course, you can see the ceiling is waiting for the rest of its acoustic ceiling tiles. And then on the left is a view of sort of the central node or gathering space within the back of the house of the performing arts wing where it's kind of under wraps there, but there's a whole built in bench seating area, gathering area for the students either in between classes or when they're waiting to go out on stage. Next over to you, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you, Laurie. And Amy Spear from the Building Committee and I and Dr. Holman walked through the building last week and it is it is just spectacular. I can't wait for the students to see it. Many of our staff have already walked through it and is breathtakingly beautiful and inspiring and we are excited to have students in it very soon. In this slide, you'll see our timeline. Before I get to this, I just want to point out that this is a $290.4 million project. There's $84.7 million dollars coming from the state of Massachusetts to fund it. It's a very complicated project and the project had to absorb a lot of different delays and challenges, some due to COVID-19, some due to other reasons. And as a result, the building team led by John Lamar Constigli and Jim Burrows of Skanska decided to make sure we can open the new wing on time, even if that meant a slight delay in the opening of the auditorium. So as you see in this transition timeline, we open on February 28th, Monday, February 28th, students move into the school and we begin our new a new life for Ellington High in that school in March. We begin the demolition of the old school and you'll hear about that in a minute. In April, April 4th, Monday, April 4th, the auditorium will be complete and we'll be able to use that for various activities. And then phase two construction, which you'll hear more about in a minute, will take place through September of 2023 when we open up the second wing of the new school. Next slide. So on the next slide, you'll see an overview of the four phases of the project. We're finishing phase one. As you see on the chart, our students are currently attending the school throughout the current or soon to be old school. Phase two, the humanities wing, central spine, cafeteria, library, preschool and district offices during this phase of construction, students will be attending school in the new steam wing. That's the one we're opening on February 28th and they will be taking classes in part of the old school. When we go to phase three, the athletics wing will be constructed as that construction takes place, students will be taking classes and having activities in the new school and they'll be using the red gym. And finally, in phase four, we'll be using the entire new school inside the entire building will be complete and work will be done on the exterior. Some of the exterior finishes of the landscaping around the building and then the finishing of the athletic field and everything associated with the athletic field. So that's a reminder to the community of the phases of the project. And now I'm going to turn over John Lamar. John is going to talk, give you a detailed updates on logistics of the project. Good evening. Thanks for having me. So we've been in your neighborhood since March of 2020. We broke ground, started early enabling phasing and in doing so we've been what we'd like to say like to think that we've been a great neighbor in your front yard. We're going to talk in a second here about how we're going to move into your backyard, which is phase two could be your side yard, but we'll look at that graphic when we get there. But the key to our success and the key to what we think we've been working with the school in the department, the town, excuse me, is that we've done a lot of planning, a lot of communicating. We're going to do something large in nature, noisy. We communicate with the school directly in advance. Make sure that we're working around the best we can, MCAS, SATs, all the different type of testing that goes on in the school to try to mitigate the noise. But it is construction. There will be noise. There is noise. And we've been mitigating that with a lot of different measures in respect to, for example, we have the heavy equipment that's on the site. If it's here for more than three days, we have mostly to refer to backup alarms. What we do is we have squelch alarms. So we're right up against the existing building. So you hear a squelch or a white noise as opposed to a backup alarm. That's just one of the items that we implement to keep the noise down. The other items such would be dust control. We have water trucks full-time on the site and that stage of the project, as well as street sweeping. Constantly street sweeping if we're doing heavy hauling or anything to that, we will sweep the streets on the adjacent town and campus. Like I touched on, it is going to be in your backyard. It's a demolition of the column building and the auditorium building. And to do that, we've been preparing, doing a lot of swing work or creating office spaces in advance. Working, you all may have saw, we came back from Christmas vacation that we flew a large tractor trailer-sized boiler into the courtyard. We removed the trees this Christmas break. So we do a lot of work behind the scenes in preparation to make this transition in March, February, excuse me, February 28th, but to March as smooth as we can. If we go to the next slide, we want to talk about some site logistics or how your students and parents and staff are going to get in and out of the project. So right now we have two main entrances, main entrance number one on Mass Ave, main entrance number two off of Millbrook at the rotary or the circle in the back. That is going to come offline in order for us to perform phase two. So we're promoting and requesting and it's just going to be the best approach is drive up to Mass Ave and be able to come straight in. The main new main entrance that Laurie showed you in those pictures earlier, straight into the school. You can access from Mass Ave through the steam and or auditorium building. We've created what we call a connector. Thank you Amy for showing us that. And it's a large connecting temporary building that allows the students to move from the new phase one through Fusco blue gym over to the red gym to the downs. So you will have the ability to move from existing to new. We still have the existing elevator in the Fusco building and you're going to have a new elevator right in this main lobby of the new phase one. So in the spring because we're turning this over in the wintertime, spring the front lawn won't have to be a lawn until March or April. So we do have some hardscape walkways to get in and out and means of progress for safety. But you're not going to see much change there until the spring and we'll finish that in the summertime. But the demolition. I'm going to do a baitment which is we make the building safe. We go inside the building. We separate the link lobby. We separate the Fusco stairwell and any corridors that go back and forth between the existing school and what we're demolishing. So there's a separation of students and mechanical systems. And then we start in late March, April we'll be doing the demolition of that building. That's going to take two or three months to take down. That is a noisy operation. We are restricted with some hours when we can start in the morning. The town ordinance for heavy equipment is eight o'clock in the morning to start. So we'll work with the town to see if we can start earlier in the morning to try to get the day done earlier or we'll start at eight o'clock which get all the students and they come in at eight thirty but we'll work through that those particulars. So the last thing I want to touch about on this is pile driving. In order to put the new building on a foundation we have to drive piles. So we did something similar to that in phase one. We did that in the summer prior to students coming and staff coming and returning to the project. We anticipate in June doing those same tests or piles starting in June, July and August. So when students return we'll be starting structural steel in late August. So that's a large overview of the logistics. I'm sure we're getting questions and answers. We can get more specifics but we'd like to think what we've already done to date. We're going to continue to do which is be a good neighbor. Respect the campus, respect the town, students and staff. Thank you. Over to Matthew. So thanks very much John, Laurie, Jeff. So before I launch into what's on these slides I was thinking we've been spending, I personally have been spending a ton of time looking forward to what's happening in about four weeks when we move into the new wing. But it made me think about looking backward for a second. So I just want to reflect for a moment on how we got here from an educational perspective. I was looking back through my files and it was in 2013 that we began what we called the Future Building Committee and that committee began gathering information about effective practices and buildings that supported those effective practices. It was in 2018 that we wrote the educational program as the outcome of a community-wide visioning process that evolved students, community members and parents and teachers. And we came up with a set of guiding principles. It's a full page of guiding principles so I won't go into all of them. But they included collaboration, inquiry, creating and creativity, support for students' social-emotional needs, teaching to the whole child, inquiry-based and hands-on learning, also envisioning the school as a community hub. So it's a space that will be used outside of the school days by others and sustainability. And so there's an educational vision that we hope to bring alive in the building. The architects have done a remarkable job of bringing that vision alive in the layout and facilities. And we really hope we'll take advantage of it. So going into this next move, one of the nice things about the way the processes work is we've already had one move experience. We've already moved into the new cafeteria. It's in the blue gym in the pit. We've already moved into the new libraries. And our experience with the move team, the architect's construction has been that that went relatively seamlessly and the students have adjusted really well. And we'll use that model. We had an extended advisory or extended homeroom on the morning when the students came back so we could explain where and when and how to use those new spaces. And we'll do more of that going forward. So as we go through the next four weeks, we expect to have an advisory on the third to go over with the students some of the logistics of how things go with this school. We'll also have some extended homerooms when we come back. The last day, just remember this if it's not on your calendar, the last day before the spring, the February break is going to be an 1130 early release. So the teachers can do the final planning and labeling and making sure their stuff goes to the right place. And then the Monday on February 28th, when we return, will be an 1130 late start again to allow the teachers to set up so that they're ready to teach again. We do expect that I think people should be realistic about it, that particularly for the art, the science, family and consumer science, performing arts, and math teachers, the STEAM teachers, there will be a little bit of a winding down of resource-heavy activities. So they'll be doing art, they'll be doing math, but probably a little bit less in the way they'll do labs, a little bit less materials heavy in the arts projects. And then that will wind back up again as they get back into the school and can start using those activities and having the space to do it in. You jumped up there, you jumped ahead to me. Can you go back to the last slide to make sure I didn't forget anything? You were trying to keep up with me. We'll come back to the auditorium later. So yeah, you can go forward, thank you. So one of the things that's going to happen when we come in, we're going to be running student tours, not for all students, but for our bridge builders, our student council, and some of our school journalists so that they can share information with their students on their Instagram and on other sources that they provide information. On the first day when students come in, the bridge builders and staff will be spread throughout the school to help people with directions to find their places and then we'll have that extended homeroom. So we've talked a lot about arrival management. The Mass Ave entrance, that entire front area will be a drop-off zone. There'll be signage there indicating that. We've asked the Arlington Police Department to have police on hand to remind people of traffic plaque patterns there. There's a bike lane that comes along. People need to pull off and then pull back in safely and hopefully we'll train everybody. But we really would ask that as much as possible car traffic for dropping off coming along that side. It's not because coming in along Mass Ave, along Mill Brook and turning around and going back out again is much more likely to lead to a bottleneck with a lot more of the construction activity moved to the back. That said, students can come in through the two entrances. Main entrance one, which is on the Mass Ave side and main entrance two, which will be on the courtyard or the former courtyard side by Mill Brook. So John talked a little bit, Mr. Lamar, about the connector between the old and new buildings. I've been in there. It's pretty wide and it's being painted and carpeted quite nicely. It will be realistically a pinch point. So one of the questions people ask every time I talk about that is how we will handle passing time. So what I've said to the students most recently at a meeting is our current passing time is three minutes. In the current building, we have a mile and a half of hallways and 25 stairwells. For many students, three minutes is not enough time to get from one side of the building to another. This has been a conversation in the school for many years. The three minutes sets the expectation that students go directly from one class to the next. At Arlington High School, we do not ring bells for the beginning and end of class. We use the clock. The teachers dismiss the students. And when the teachers arrive, when the students arrive in a timely fashion, they begin the class. So students should know that they should go from one class directly to the next. And the teachers will be accommodating. They shouldn't stress about a need to run. They should just go from one place to the next and take care of business. Next slide. So we've talked about this, and there's a lot of phasing going on right now. The science, technology, engineering, visual arts, all of those folks are going to be moving into the steam wing, which is four stories high, but as things are confusing, the Mass Ave level is the second floor. So it'll be two, three, four, five. And that's because when we go into phase two, you're going to have, the building is built into a hillside, and the first floor will be down on the field level. So I've already talked about travel time. So in April, the auditorium is still on track to be completed. However, it's such finely tuned timeline in terms of supply chains and getting things in place that planning to roll in there and immediately do a complicated musical seemed like a little bit more than we wanted to take on. The teachers need to block and figure out how they're going to do the staging in the space they know they have. So we've reserved the most session center in Watertown for the spring musical, but we do plan when we go into May to have a community event, probably something that's a musical concert, once we've got the kinks worked out of the space so that people will have an opportunity to see the building. Next slide. So I think we've talked through all of that, but this slide gives you a really good overview of the shape of the new building in phase two. So where you see A, B, C, D, E, F, C is the steam wing. That's four stories with a maker suite and the arts on the first floor, and then math and science going up either side of that building. D to the left is the new auditorium and behind that is the performing arts wing. So in the spaces F is the band room, E is both the chorus room and the production lab where ACMI will be doing some of their work, but also where our music production will continue to go forward. Then H is the old Fusco building. I is the blue gym now, the cafeteria. J is the red gym, which will be our main gym space. Athletics will be cycling through and they've been doing a lot of scheduling to make sure that everyone can serve it well. And then K is the old downs house. Math classes will have moved out of downs house. A few other odd classes will move into downs house, but mainly the history department, counseling, and the nursing clinic will be back there. Next slide. I think Mr. McCarthy, this is the one you were going to do. All right, so the office location, go for it. Okay, so hello everybody, I'm Bill McCarthy, I'm the assistant principal here at the high school. We've been working with several teams in terms of the move to try and make it as easy as possible for everyone. So the office locations, our main office will remain down where it has been for the last year, which is down on the Milbrook entrance, the back parking lot. We suggest that if you need to work with the main office or administration, you enter in through that way. That's also where the guidance office is and the nurse's office. We'll have an entrance on Mass Ave as well, but you'll have to walk through the building in order to get to the main office and the primary parking will be out back. PE and athletics, obviously as we PE and athletics will have minor impacts at this time because the red gym will remain open and the Pierce field will remain open for the entirety of the construction. Special events, currently with COVID, we aren't having many, but as we do go forward, we are working with student groups in terms of how to safely put on those events in the building as the structures and building change. Parking. Parking has always been a limited resource here at the high school. Of course, and a reminder out that parking is limited to staff who work in the building or visitors coming into the building such as parents or guardians to have a meeting. We do not have parking for students and parking will shift a little bit, but the visiting parking down by main office will still be available to everyone. I think we've moved to the next slide. I just jump in there one second. So on special events, my notes, we're talking about one of the questions we've received is about whether we would have things like the prom. So the prom is usually off-site and we've reserved the Danvers Port Yacht Club. So that's going to be there. We expect to have a regular graduation on the Pierce field. The award ceremony will be able to take place as planned in the new auditorium. Those are the main large events that take place during the year. And as Mr. McCarthy did point out, other special events are being planned, really infected more by the COVID planning at this point than by the building. Sorry, go ahead. Also, if there are any parents or guardians of eighth grade students, we will be doing attempting to do some tours for those eighth grade students to see the new building and the old building as we have done traditionally, usually in June. Go to the next slide, please. So I know John Lamar spoke to us earlier about noise concerns around the building. We're working hand in hand with scans can consistently to keep those noise concerns to a limited amount to try and limit their impact on the classrooms. As we look for column house to come down, some of the mitigation we've done is install air conditioners in Fusco House on the walls that will on the windows that we're facing in construction site. We've also made repairs to the Downs House air circulation system over the last couple years. We continue to keep monitoring that to make sure it will be able to handle construction as it goes on. Obviously, the new wings will have improved sound and air circulation all up to date. There is some mitigation processes in the air circulation as well to help with air filtration. Also, we've been working with scans and consistently, they have been doing monthly tests on air quality as part of their process to make sure that everything is good. They test throughout the building and outside the building to make sure that athletics is not impacted as well. And those tests have all come back regularly. We get reports on how they're processed and we've had no problems so far with the construction out front. And we do not foresee problems with the construction or as we take down column house and the construction that will take place there. Go to the next slide. Sporting students and staff. So we have been working with weekly. We meet with the construction company to discuss our schedule. This is part of the mitigation process, noise mitigation we were talking about earlier. For instance, on days when we have MCAS or SATs, we put a pause on the construction happening near and around those testing areas. So that does not impact our students. On larger events, I know like Dr. Jang just mentioned graduation, clearly there will not be any construction going on near or around during graduation. For student mental health, we do always emphasize that we have multiple social workers, guidance counselors, and deans available to meet with students who might become concerned by this construction or the process. We have invited students to come meet with us about the construction process as well. We want to try and make the students as much as part of this process as we can. In regards to students on IEPs or 504s, we are working to preview the new building. So obviously change can be difficult for everybody. Whether it's the students or the staff, this will be a very large change. And we want to preview the site with the staff and students, make sure they're comfortable with it, make sure they know where they're going, and set up support structures throughout the building to help in this process. So for example, we're working with our bridge builders who will be available that first week to give directions to students who may be a little lost, who may need a little more support. I know counselors and especially liaisons are talking to students about this change. And counselors will work with students on 504s to help them. And our hope is really on that first day to get students in, they can walk around, explore the space, and have staffing available throughout the hallways, just to make sure that they feel comfortable and know where they're going throughout the day. Next slide, please. And so this leads us to honoring AHS history. So I've been here for about 17 years now. And one of the things that has always struck me about Arlington is the wealth of history that is really in this building itself. One of our goals, being on the Memorial Committee, is to try and retain as much of that historical character and artifacts as we can. I actually brought something to show off, which you love finding these things. As we continue to clean up, we keep finding items. This is actually a gradebook from 1909. That's just to be a sense of the historical background we have in this place. So we were working with different groups to preserve these items, make sure that they carry over us to the next building. For those of you who walk through the building, we know we have a vast historical collection of sporting items. I saw the other day we have hockey stick from 1927 that they used to play on spypond. So items like that are going to come over. We have display cases. We want to really show off our history and embrace it as for larger items in the building, such as the clock tower. We are working with mechanics inside the clock tower. We work with the makerspace and the teachers in there to do something fun and exciting with that. We have multiple wood carvings throughout the building. We're working on preserving those and murals and blanking on what I am blanking on is ceramics, the wall of hands. Kyle. Thank you. We will be bringing most of that artwork over with us and finding ways to present it. Also a nice little touch will be as you enter into that lobby that Ms. Coles was talking about earlier, that three-story lobby. We will actually have an etching of the old column house in that area just to evoke that feeling of the traditional grandeur of the building. Just do want to put a plug in. We will be doing some purchasing of bricks for those who are interested. You will be able to have a brick that can be etched with different writing on it. We are working through getting that out to everybody. That will be part of the process as well as plaques in the auditorium where people can purchase plaques to honor people in the community. That brings us to phase two. Thank you, Bill and Matthew. I also get to talk about what is next. It is very exciting. Phase two will bring even more wonderful new spaces for those students and staff. We will continue the central spine through to a forum stare down to the cafeteria. The wing will include the library, the humanities classrooms, large main outdoor courtyard, and we will also have a three-story wing which will include the school district offices and the pre-school. Next. This is the site plan diagram. I am sure you have seen lots of time. Along the bottom of the page is Mass Avenue. Phase one is steam and performing arts which are just about finished. Phase two will include the rest of the central spine, humanities wing, and then again the district offices as well as the pre-school with play areas for the pre-school and so on. We have some renderings of these different areas to share with you tonight. Next. You will sort of have to imagine this but if when you go into the lobby during phase one and you imagine the wall in front of you not there, you will see straight through to spaces like these and includes a life skills cafe as well as on the left you're sort of seeing we're going to repurpose the existing main entrance doorway of Fusco and it will become the main entrance to the Black Box Theater which is a space that we won't have until phase three but it will be here soon enough and next. So once you sort of pass the life skills cafe you will come upon the forum seating and stairs which bring you down to the main first level which brings you out to the sports field and this is the cafeteria and directly above the space which I'm going to point out here you can sort of see these skylights on the upper part there is the library and so when we click to the next slide you will see that we have these light wells sort of the idea that we're doing in the in the steam wing light wells that will bring natural light down through the building and to the main court cafeteria as and forum stairs. So the library is a beautiful brand new 12,000 square foot library. It really is the heart of the school the central part of everything you can get to it from everywhere and really very excited to have this space online after we're done with phase two next. So this is a view of the new main courtyard on the left of this is the building that will be finished now which is a steam wing and on the right is the humanities wing and sort of the spot that's connecting it is that central spine the library and a quarter sort of a nice glass quarter with with will be beautiful views out to this courtyard. The courtyard is planned for gathering for outdoor classrooms for art projects and I'm sure the list will go on and on with what the school and the town will think of to use the space for next. This is a view from the sports field looking back at the school on the left would be the humanities wing and on the right will be the athletics wings and with a again a nice central glassy entrance that again you will sort of connect straight through to Mass Ave. The free school has its own entrance and likely maybe everyone knows this but monotony means flowing water so we were inspired by this to really take on a nature and natural natural theme overall to the design really bring nature into the building and that's why you're seeing the use of green and trees and leaves and that theme will continue on inside. We also have different play areas that will be secure and safe right in front of the entrance to the preschool next and lastly this is a view of a rendering view of a preschool classroom there'll be nine new preschool classrooms and you might take note of the different windows the different sizes and the different heights and that's all on purpose so that you know the younger children can see out and have different you know vantage and views to make the room more playful so that is a snapshot of what's to come next turn it over to Jeff or maybe Liz or maybe both. There goes the list so at this time Dr. Holman will manage all the questions that have come in and send them out to our panel. Sure so I'll get started with a wonderful comment and then a very important question that I know we have the answer to the comment is I love how you're incorporating the old with the new and I know that that was very intentional piece of the design and then the question that's very important is will the new building have air conditioning? Yes right it's an easy one to start and then let me go back to some of the questions that were submitted ahead of the forum and I'll come back to the questions that have come in during the forum will the new building have any common areas where students can go during free periods? So that's a slightly more complicated question the new building when completed is designed to have a central commons there's this idea that there's a space that students can congregate with a variety of different spaces it will run from Mass Ave straight through the commons down a forum stair into the cafeteria and out to the field side and so that very large space while the cafe in it it will have stairs it will have a multiple different spaces so different students can find their comfortable spots. However during the phase two there are not really congregating spaces in the new building so during phase two the spaces that students can occupy when they have unassigned time are still going to be where we are right now which is in the pit and in the cafeteria and in the library unfortunately the space that we're building right now doesn't have those common areas in it. Well students whose homerooms are getting moved have new lockers in the new building and how big will they be? Yes so as we move into the new building I was actually just talking to Mr. McKnight about this how we will be reassigning lockers so that students that are moving their homeroom to the new building will have new lockers. Laurie I do not remember the dimensions of the locker at the top of my head. I believe she said 15 by 15 by 18 so it's like an airport. That's my rougher memory yes. So it's the idea of those lockers is they're fatter they're like airport lockers or you can put your backpack in there and you can roll up your coat and put them in there they're not the tall skinny lockers that you can't fit a backpack in that can hang up a coat. When will tours for parents take place? So there will be community events in the spring we're still working on those where folks will have an opportunity to come in and preview the building. That's going to be a building project conversation for some extent we're not planning on having community tours where people are going through the whole building during the current school year but there will be opportunities for the community to come in and then my understanding is that later in the spring as the building comes along we'll figure out opportunities for people who just want to come in and walk around but community education will begin to move in there we'll begin to move in there so there will be a lot of opportunities for people to come in. Will there be anyone helping to direct traffic from drop off and pick up times at least for the first week what will that first week look like? So we've asked the Arlington Police Department to help us out on Mass Ave and then we will be out there around the other spaces directing folks getting our paraprofessionals out there to explain to the students where they should go and shouldn't go as we come in on the first week. Can you talk a little bit about how teachers have been supported to get their room set up and engage in the moving process and what sort of time resources they've been provided for that process? I'm going to let Bill take this one because it's been made with active love on his part. Yes it has so we actually started last year and over the summer staff were allowed to come we cleaned out a lot of materials that staff had collected over the years to start this process is purging and we've been purging basically non-stop since February because as you can imagine basically non-stop since September because as you can imagine building like this collects a lot of materials. So we have been dedicating some time to staff to pack up their belongings to pack up school materials. We do have some additional time coming up in the next couple of weeks as we get closer as Dr. Janger said we will be doing an early dismissal on the Friday before February break that'll give us a couple of hours for staff to finalize their packing and then on the other side staff we are still working through the schedule of the move itself and that'll really depend on how we process through that move but our goal is to give staff the option of coming into February break to potentially look around the space unpack as needed if needed and then on Monday we will have a late start a delayed start on that Monday for staff to unpack the materials. So at every step we've been working with the staff with a move coordinator with Skanska and with the department heads to support them through this process because as we said earlier a move of this nature and change can always be difficult for everyone and we want to make sure that everyone feels fully supported as we move forward. And just to be clear the move manager for the project has met multiple times with every department has met with any staff person that is requested to personalize attention about where they're going. They've been meeting weekly with the department heads now for about three weeks and will continue throughout the process of the move. Everyone's given move packets with stickers that say where things are going and how things are happening. There's a whole and we saw with the library the entire library was actually moved in two days based on the planning that went through and then reshelfed and is now a lovely space. So they really move it's very impressive. I wish they would come move my house. For students arriving on the 67 bus from Mill Street what do you recommend with regards to pedestrian access from Mill Book Drive? So if they're walking down Mill Book the sidewalk will still be there. When they get to the little bridge they should cut right which has been there is a signage there that explains that the walkway cuts to the right and then comes in through the park there and then there will be the sidewalk that will continue around past the park spaces. There will be additional doors there at the accessible entrance when we first start the project. Phase two and then there will be after a little while a covered walkway to the left that will allow students to come around to that door as well. I think you've answered this question but I just want to reinforce that yes the students can still walk into Main Entrance 2 from Mill Street after February break. Yes Main Entrance 2. I mean students are past traffic things show students coming walking about equally from both sides we wouldn't expect them to walk around the entire building but our big recommendation is to try to keep the car traffic out of that back area so students walking in are not in a constrained space. It's a bit of a hike right you're going to be coming now into Main Entrance 2 by the attendance office and you'll now have to walk down the the length of the red gym across the links and then up into the main building to get to anywhere but history. There is a question about that walkway through the Milbrook Park. Is that cloud in the winter? I believe so. I believe it is. We can find but I can find out. We haven't had very much snow so I haven't been attentive to it but we'll make sure that it is. Let's see. I had one more question. Oh the courtyard. So what is happening with the center of the of the high school and the courtyard during phase two? So what'll happen is as Comhouse is prepared to be brought down they'll be fencing and the courtyard will be closed off. The center courtyard will be closed off. Eventually once the links which is the bridge that you'll see from the Mill Street parking lot comes down there'll be a covered walkway that will connect from the parking lot into the building for people to exit from. We will also be adding additional doors as Dr. Janger said to Main Office 2 to accommodate the traffic that the foot traffic normally comes through the courtyard. How many student restrooms will be available in February? What's the impact on restrooms once we open the phase one building? We're getting more bathrooms. Very excited about that. And an extra elevator. So every floor in the academic wings there's two academic wings but one opening now. Every floor has a bathroom suite and in the bathroom suite there are both gendered and gender neutral toilets. There are always gender neutral toilets. Any time there is a bathroom suite. So in any place there is so there's four suites of bathrooms in the steam wing. There are at least two suites or sets of bathrooms in the performing arts wing. So I'm going to guess that that more than doubles the number of bathrooms available in the school. There is a question about furniture and the and sort of how decisions are being made around what furniture goes over to the new building versus what furniture stays. Specifically a question about abandoned orchestra couch whether or not that's going to move over to the new building. Maybe Laura you can talk a little bit about how we're going through those spaces and making decisions about it or Mr. McCarthy or Dr. Janger because I know you've been part of that process as well. Well I would just say that we are purchasing new furniture for the new spaces and we worked through this with administration with teachers with each of the departments of what the classroom needs would be the specialty spaces needs would be and all of that is actually being delivered as we speak that had started a week ago and so we in fact are not planning on moving over old furniture or the old couch in the bedroom. I do want to add to that which the couch is very specific. It was very specific but furniture will not be making its way over to the new building. There is some equipment that we was recently purchased that is still in good shape that will be making its way over. For example the kiln in the art department will be making its way over so specific equipment might make it will make its way over. General furniture will not but I also do want to emphasize we are working with a company that will be going through and collecting the furniture which is still in good shape for donation purposes so the furniture is now going to be going to a landfill unless it is already falling apart. We are looking to recycle and reuse as much as we can. Those are all of the questions that I have from the community right now so I wonder if we can pull up our closing slide and talk about ways to stay informed and then if we have any other questions come in from folks who are watching in the next few minutes we can do that. So we want to thank everyone for joining us tonight. If there are any other questions you can email us with questions at ahsbuildingatearlington.k12.ma.us. You can follow us on Facebook and you can sign up for construction and e-bulletines. We are very excited about the opening of the new school. Some of us have had the privilege to walk around it and we're looking forward to seeing students and teachers inside the school in just a few weeks and I want to thank Dr. Janger, Mr. McCarthy, their staffs, everyone on the staff at the high school, the entire design team, John Lamar, Jim Burroughs, Lori Coles, Dr. Holman and I especially want to thank Amy Spear from our building committee who has put a lot of effort along with her sub-communication sub-committee in preparing for tonight's forum. So thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to seeing you in the new school very soon.