 Good morning, everyone. This is the Friday, April 8th meeting of the elementary school building committee. And I see we have a quorum. So I'm calling the meeting to order. And the first thing I need to do is just make sure the committee members can hear and be heard since we're conducting this meeting by Zoom. And I'll just call out names as I see them on the screen. Sean. Yes. Paul. President. Jonathan. Here. Allison. Here. Mike. President. Ben. President. Tammy. Hold on one minute. Okay. No, you're here. Okay, thank you. As other members join us, I will acknowledge them. And I see that, let me see. Simone has just joined us. Simone, can you, I'm just doing a voice check on everyone. I can hear. Okay. So I think we'll start the meeting as others join. Alicia Walker told me she's not feeling well, but we'll be joining and probably have her camera off for most of the time, but she'll be listening in. So I am going to turn it over to Margaret just to preview what we're doing today on the agenda. And it's a quite full agenda. So if we can't get through all the topics, some of them will be moved to the next meeting. So Margaret, I'm just going to turn it over to you now to just give us a preview and then we go to Donna. Sure. So good morning, everybody. So as Kathy said, it's a pretty full agenda. We're going to, I'd say, Kathy, this comments on the preferred schematic report, were there any comments that we're going to be discussing today? So the PSR table of contents we looked at last, the last meeting, are there comments that you wanted to talk about this morning? I think the only thing is that we sent out the minutes to everyone. We've been collecting the comments or questions people had had, and a couple of them, well, I can answer them, a couple of both members of the committee and members of the public had asked, will we be seeing the detailed information that sent to cost estimators? And then will we be seeing the detailed cost estimates? And at this stage, we will and we're actually sending it, as I understand it, the estimates for the preferred option will be sent to two cost estimators and we'll get quite detailed back. So I just wanted to make sure people know that information is coming and the minutes are collecting comments. And I think some of them are going to be addressed today, but many of the comments or questions do apply to the design and the information Dinesco is bringing us. So they'll be answered as we go through these next stages. Yeah. So I think in a nutshell, the stuff that we're hearing in meetings from the committee members, as well as from the public, are getting collected in the meeting minutes. And that's the update on that. We have a pretty beefy presentation from Dinesco. And then Kathy and Phoebe, if she's here, I think are, yep, there's Phoebe. Gonna talk about some revisions they made to the evaluation criteria that hopefully you all had a chance to look at. Then we have an update from the net zero subcommittee, which is also has some substantial new information. And then we'll talk a little bit about the timeline. This is an important piece at the end because we have tentatively scheduled some community forums interlaced with the elementary school building committee meetings. So that is the overview. So I'm gonna take this down now and we will turn this over to Dinesco. Awesome. Good morning, everyone. We, let's see if I can share my screen. Hold on one second. I think I need to open it first. Hold on. And I can get me to open my presentation for that to work. Zach, let's try it again. Friday morning. Tim's always on the ready if I don't get it, but can everyone see this? Yes. Okay, awesome. I shouldn't answer for everyone. Thank you, Kathy. It's okay. It's okay. If everyone can see it, I'm sure everyone, if you can, everyone went. So we've been refining the designs or I shouldn't say designs, the concepts. And what's most important is making sure that we identify the appropriate spatial relationships and adjacencies for the programs and how well they'll work. So again, taking this all the way back to the educational program is really informing the design. So here's the spatial relationships large overview identifying all of the spaces, the purple, both light and dark represent the core educational components as well as the special educational components that ideally are integrated in with the general classrooms. In addition, we have art and music and we have a STEM space as well that we feel that could be engaged with some of the other spaces. The red represents the 4,000 square foot gym, the media center and then the cafeteria stage. And we feel that the relationship with the music associated with the stage for performances would also be important. So we try to identify what is really focused solely on academic use and then how the core programs could also be used for community use. So when we start laying out the program you'll see that there's kind of a divided line here and we've been refining it and have gotten a lot of input from the school department but would also like to talk a little bit this morning about what you feel from the building committee's perspective as use for community. And this will start, you can see start shaping the building. So our goal with the building is to maintain the educational program net floor area with a not to exceed 105,750 square feet and quarters and locations of spaces really do inform the overall square footage of the building. So we've developed several concepts, Mike and I, Tammy and Allison are on the call. Sorry, I'm doing a lot of problems this morning. It's been a long week. We went and visited a school in Springfield, the Brightwood Lincoln School, just so everyone could get a sense of what a three-story building feels like. When you have 100,000 square feet and it's on a single floor, as you know, years are 82,000 square feet. That's a really long distance for students to travel and that takes, eats into kind of time on learning. So we went through and walked through the Brightwood Lincoln School three, it's a three-story building, just to get a feel of what these spaces may feel like. And Mike or Allison or Tammy, maybe I'll just ask you to chime in on what your impressions and feels were. I can start. It was a really, thank you for doing that. That was a really helpful experience. So as that indicated, it's a 480 student school or it's kind of like co-located schools with the one we visited was on one side of it. And I think the thing that stood up to me, it's a new school, it's beautiful, it's all those things that I don't need to share because I think you would expect them was how quiet it was. And some of that was based on not having one floor long hallways, which is what we're, even at Crocker Farm, it's more or less that way, because it's just that a couple of classrooms upstairs at the end that they have to use the same hallways as the kids downstairs do anyway, the upstairs hallway doesn't go anywhere, right? Just it's a very narrow, small hallway. So it just, it led to the sense of community as a floor that surprised me for a school that was built for 400 ended up with 480 kids because of just enrollment changes in the city of Springfield. And just there weren't kids in the hallway very much when they were, they were intentional to break out spaces. We saw them use routinely and consistently as an additional space, we heard some teachers comment and I heard, I don't know if everyone did, but a teacher stopped me and said, how much has changed their instruction to have this additional space? So those are the things that really stood out to me, but I certainly deferred to building folks in terms of Allison and Tammy to jump in with their impressions as well. I'm more than happy to speak. Yeah, walking through the hallways, very bright, very open. It felt clean. It felt like there was plenty of care to the safety and health of the environment. And I kept thinking to myself, what is it that's making this feel like, it feels like a healthier space than walking through the hallways of my current school? And I think it's because the ceilings were high. They had a lot of light filtering through with cutaways for windows so that the light from the classrooms could travel through to the hallways easier. And it just felt very clean with the, the walls were a very light color and it just was well cared for. So that's something that I definitely noticed. We've definitely talked a lot about the stairwells and what that means when a student or a person is having trouble with their emotional regulation. What does the stairwell need to have to make sure that they're safe? We talked about the size of the classrooms. Right now at Wildwood, we have enormous classrooms because of the ventilation needs in our older building to create the flow of air that was necessary. And given the ventilation of a newer building wouldn't need to, it would be updated and it would have all these things. So they were able to give you a classroom that was the size of what we used to have. And so I knew right away, I was like, okay, this is going to be hard to remember that a new building doesn't require enormous amounts of space for airflow. So those spaces felt small but we've gotten used to something so large. So that will be an adjustment. And I really appreciated the different office spaces that the special education, ELL and prevention staff have access to to make sure that each person feels a sense of space and home, but then they have these options to work with children close to their classrooms in the project areas, which I think are a wonderful way of looking at how to create opportunities for learning that's directed by children and directed by adults. So those are some of the things that I really was excited about in seeing in action. So I think everyone felt, please correct me that having a multiple story school is not an impediment to navigating, the stairwells and everything else that the co-located spaces work. We have shown here in concept one that having a three story school really can work. Students travel at stairwells either at the ends in the middle or even at the front of the school so that they're not traveling down very long corridors and interrupting all of the other programs and spaces but they're able to easily navigate the school. So a three story option, I believe our takeaway was that this is something that we should pursue. Okay, so what we've done here is, this is concept one for floor plan layout and we've located all of the core spaces at the entry. So the entry would be entering from the right, entering into the building. Administration would be here. We have the gym on the first floor, which we heard was a very important component to have the gym access on the first floor and then the cafeteria, which has a stage. So it's going to be your assembly performance space as well as your dining experience. And having that on the first floor is very important. So kids may leave the cafeteria, cafeteria, enter out onto the play spaces and also for it to be a community use space. You could take the stairwell going up and we've identified our music in the stem to have a nice kind of area on the second floor so that all of these spaces and activities can be shared with the maker space in the middle. And then we've located the media center, the library on the second floor so that that has easy access from all three floors. We could, I hate to say lock off, we could close off the purple, which is the academic wing. So during off hour use that the spaces can be used with appropriate toilets, et cetera, for community use while not having to enter into your academic spaces. So if you look at, you'll see very similar layout for the academic spaces for a second and third floor. You require three, sorry, five classrooms per grade. And what we've done here is we have integrated your special ed programs and we're still working those out what floor those belong on because not all of them have three classrooms. So we're still working out school department where those spaces belong, but those are mostly full-size classrooms. So what we've done is we've created three classrooms per grade shared by a large project area, which is where the lockers or cubbies would be. So the classrooms are 900 square feet with the exception of kindergarten, but it's fully for instructional use only. And then each three classrooms would be across the hall from the other two classrooms for that grade with an integrated special ed program. So you have a nice cluster for collaboration for an entire grade across the hall from each other. And then the other grade level would be probably the grade up or down. So if it's kindergarten one on the first floor, two, three on the second floor and four, five on the third floor. And this just allows for vertical collaboration both with staff and with students. So this is one option that we've talked about and we'll just go through it and how that informs the site. Tim, do you wanna jump in? Sure. Taking the concept as Donna has described it, you then have to put it on the site to see how it works with all of the elements there. Firstly, the building is located south of the existing building in the area that is developable with all of the wetland river zoning setbacks. The fields are replicated in kind as we are assuming right now. And then the circulation on site for cars and buses is similar but a little bit modified from what exists now. There's a drop-off loop for cars to the south of the building separated from a bus queuing lane to the west of the building that would separate everything for maximum safety and ease of use. And then it's all completely separated from the parking now which in the existing condition we drive through. And then we are looking with our landscape architect and traffic engineer for ways of controlling the traffic flow, maybe taking some of the exiting traffic to the south exit of the site just to make things work a little bit better as you exit. But the building fits in the area that we have identified as developable. You get the north-south window orientation of the classrooms that it's desirable. That is not to say that there might be some geometry introduced into the building as we act to the site as it gets designed. But the Fort Riverside is larger so there's a little bit more room for the building to be straight here than maybe the Wildwood site if we go to that one. So the only other thing I'll add is we are, as far as traffic is concerned in working out circulation off the streets into the site and the separation of buses, cars and also the vans. And so we're refining those. But we just really, for the purpose of this conversation is just to show the differences of how compact a three-story building is and how much more site you have for outdoor learning and outdoor play. So here's the same concept on the Wildwood site with the Wildwood car and bus circulation shown a little bit differently than we have in past meetings and differently than it exists now. It's one larger loop, access from Strong Street and bus and cars are separated as you come to the south of the site, the left side. So there'd be a separate queuing lane for buses and cars that would lead to the main entrance at the west side of the building where all of the core spaces are. What this grouping of building function, vehicular function and play space does on the site was, it gives a contiguous green and play space to the north of the building access from the gym rather than ever having to cross vehicle traffic to get displaced or go around it to get to it on the building as we show in some past games. This does not currently have a separate pullout lane or drop-off loop for vans, which we are working with our consultants for the best place to fit that or to modify this scheme. This is the same building plan as on the other site and it may make sense to flip some of the program elements in the plan as we react to the site, the cafeteria is currently facing south, but there'd be nice views, sun coming in, but it may be appropriate to have that face, the most of the playground in the green space above as kids exit to the playground after recess. So those are things we have to consider. And this building also is a little bit pushed into the hill. This would assume a retaining wall of about 10 feet, which would allow access to all sides of the building. There are ways that we will look at to make that transition into the hill as easy as possible, possibly changing the geometry of the building and introducing a slight bend in the middle that would pull it away from the hill, maybe a little to the north or maybe adjust the plan so that the second floor slides, but these are the things that we have to look at as we are reacting to the site. Wildwood as we know is a little bit tighter and it will probably push and pull on the building footprint resulting in a different shape for this concept on Wildwood verse four per ver. I should also mention we are continuing to look at even more means of controlling traffic on Wildwood, which would be a second curb cut to strong street, but we'll see if that is in fact possible due to the grades and just the geometry of the street. So as you can see here, just a comparison of the two sites. The other thing I'd like to mention is that Mike spoke with the PE teacher at the middle school and he was pretty emphatic that the school itself does not use the play area to the left or west of the tennis court. So we have an opportunity here to introduce this space. We know it is a community resource, the field is a community resource. So we could possibly and we still have to have that conversation with the regional school district but possibly be able to put our geothermal wells below the field and then actually improve the field somewhat to have it more usable throughout the year. So we're still exploring the location of the geothermal well field as well. So another consideration, understanding this is 575 students, what would it look like if we took each grade and made the core the center so that students have less travel time to get to the activities? Here we have the cafeteria to the south, the gym to the north still on the first floor. The main entry would be located, the green is the administration. So the entrance of the building would be between the gym and the main, the green spaces, the administration. We have located the music and the practice rooms adjacent to the stage so that that could even represent green space, green room and connecting it to the stage even for additional programmatic uses. What we did here is we separated each grade. So they have their own community. So kindergarten would be located to the left of the core spaces, first grade located to the right or the east of the core spaces and the same would occur up above. The initial feedbacks we got rightfully so that on the third floor while they'll say this is fourth and fifth grade would have their community, there's really no connection to each other. And the vertical connections and collaboration is important as the students graduate from grade to grade. So we'll consider or continue to look at how we can bring these two grades together with a connecting corridor so that they don't feel isolated. But I think again, I'll defer to Allison, Tammy and Mike that this has benefits but it also the negative attributes are there is no vertical connection and students don't see the other students as much as they go through nor do staff. Yeah, I think I can share one thing, if I put it down, I was probably more excited about this than Tammy and Allison. And I think one of the things that Allison said that stuck with me is just you don't really see the graduating up of grade level as visibly in this model. The thing I liked about it is it just reduced the number of, I'm always thinking of how long it takes to get to places because that's lost on time on learning. We have a ton of that at Fort River and Wildwood just because of the current structure of it in Crocker Farm. Again, the second floor really doesn't add any benefit in that. So I like that point but I think Allison's point in particular was really worth considering of that there is some real purpose. And I think from some of the specialized program spaces that are integrated, they're sort of better integrated on the concept one because it's more obvious that those are shared between multiple grade levels whereas here it doesn't work. I think Joanne was on that trip, Joanne Smith or one of our student service administrators and it seemed less clear on that one. So I think there's pros and cons to everything but I just thought Allison's point and Joanne's points were really well taken. So you'll see as the footprint expands, we say our buildings have to go on a diet. We are gonna have to push and pull and make these a little smaller to meet the 105 but we're confident that that could be done. But as you can see here, as you put it on the site, it starts to elongate the building a little bit. As Tim mentioned on Fort River, we have an opportunity to perhaps kind of break up a long linear building so that it fits maybe a little nicer on the site but the concept still remains here. What we were doing because the building does get longer is relocated one of the fields. All the fields on the first phase concept were kind of surrounding the building into the north and here because the building is longer, we needed to put a field down below. But again, these are, this is as you can see now how really the program influences the layout of the building which truly influences how it's laid out on the site. And then at Wildwood, again, actually would be built a little bit more into the hill given that we just need a little larger footprint. And then here's just a comparison of the two. Again, recognizing we're gonna continue exploring the opportunity of using the field on the Wildwood site. So here's a little, oh, go ahead Phoebe. I actually have a number of questions but I'm gonna try to, we'll go back to some at a later time. Because you were just mentioning, of course, having the field down below at the middle school for the Wells and we've been talking about that the whole time, does having the sixth grade move to the middle school impact the use of those fields at all? The sixth graders are used to being in an elementary school, having that outdoor space for recess, those kinds of things. I know it works differently in the middle school. So I'm just wondering if that's, if there's any anticipation of them using that field more. Mike. So I ask that question. The summary of the comment was the field is far enough away from the middle school that unless you're doing a walking class, it was not a recommended use field that the field outside the softball field, which is hard to see on here, but a significantly closer to the middle school would be the field that would be used, whether it's recess or gym classes and it's sufficiently spaced where multiple large groups could be out there. But yeah, there was a strong feeling that the field out there, even though it's large and flat and would be, you know, from a use point of view, it would be good. It's distance from where students exit the middle school made it less viable for youth, whether it's sixth grade or current PE classes at the middle school. But I guess I would just also add that once the construction is complete, if the wells do go here, it would then be brought back to a field. So should that shift in the future, it would be available. It would just be offline during construction. Kathy. I just wanna build on the question. Phoebe said she had a lot of questions, but I'm gonna stay with the one she just raised right now. If we could do the geothermal wells there, is there any possibility that could also be a play area, just a running around area for the Wildwood kits? I know there's a hill and you'd have to probably put some protected path running down. When I visited one day, the kids were already running down the hill. I mean, they were using that space, but it wasn't officially part of Wildwood. So Mike, I just, in the discussions, whether that could officially be possible as opposed to unofficially use now is my question. Okay, to jump in, respond to that one. Thanks. I know Phoebe had others, so I didn't mean to slow it down that train. So I think that's a question that we'll have to bring to the Regional and Amherst School Committee. It's never used now, but during the school day, I think it is important to note that it is used by community and school, middle school athletics after school. So I think in terms of like, oh, we could just put the building there. I think that, I know that's what you're asking, Kathy, but I'd rather actually answer the question before it gets asked. I don't see that as a viable pathway, but in terms of like literally kids using it, I see Wildwood kids rolling down the hill sometimes when it's a nice day and using it. It's a very, very large field. So I think to Phoebe's question, even if there were occasional use by sixth graders, which again, I was told would not be likely, there's a lot of space. It's a full-size field. So I think if the committee wants, I can bring that to the Amherst and Regional School Committees. I think it does offer the potential of opening up the site, especially as the building will be further set back from Strong Street, so closer to that field in the same way that Crocker Farm uses a field that's down a hill. Routinely, that's where students, that's the green space that's most often used for soccer games, things like that, in the nicer, drier weather. So that's not a question I can answer definitively. I think that's something that we could bring up, but I think is there potential there to improve site dynamics and make a field that has close access to the building and a secondary site? I mean, I think the current, like I'm looking at the screen, it looks like there's a pretty good green space in concept too that you have for Wildwood, but that's not to say that an additional field and additional site would be good. That would be very, very close to where folks are. So it's something that I wanna get direction. You know, it doesn't require a vote, but from the building committee, whether this is worth exploring, for Ben and I to take back to the School Committee, not that commit to doing it, but to assess the viability of doing that. So I have another while we're on this picture and then Phoebe, I didn't mean to cut you off at all, but on flipping to the River site, there are two things that I saw in this picture. One is how it looks like almost touching the current building it is. And I know you've said you can build very near to an existing building, but right now it looks like a corner touches Tim. I know this is just a drawing. Yeah. Actually the first one, the first one I think actually is more than touching. The first one it overlapped, you have picked up on a graphic error and they would not be overlapping and there would be space. I mean, they don't need a lot of space, but they do need some, certainly more than this drawing would indicate. Okay, and then my question on this drawing is that when I went out and walked the whole Fort River site, not this weekend, but a weekend ago, as you get, if you take that south end Fort River and you walk a little south of it, it's really wet, meaning I had rubber boots on. So where the school is built, the new school you have built, but then going over to the forest area, it was even wetter. So is this something that if you were gonna do something like this, you'd have to go through the conservation commission and ask about wetlands, how close to, I know you're within the flood plain, but it's just a question of the foundation and the location of the school in terms of that part of the site. So if the Fort River site is selected, regardless of the configuration of the building on the site, there will be, it'll go before concom and the whole plan will be reviewed and approved. Just as for the context, for this concept on the Fort River site, the eastern edge, the right of the building is just at the existing flood plain definition. It is well within the revised, but not yet approved flood plain definition. But that, once we, if we decide on this concept and it's a good scheme, those are the sort of site factors that would push and pull on the footprint of the building and maybe end up in it being the building slightly rotated, moved to the south, some sort of angle in the middle. We are just at the edge of the setback. So yes, that would all have to be evaluated, possibly adjust the footprint. It would all have to be reviewed and approved by concom and the things that we would do to a new building here or anywhere on site to mitigate groundwater would be part of the construction. Thank you. Can I go back for just a second? Yes, please, sorry, yes, please. Thank you. So in terms of to go sort of back to the potential maybe use of that bottom field, if we're thinking about that at all, whether or not it was gonna go back to the school committee or regional school committee, would we then also have to think about accessibility because that hill to my sort of memory is quite a bit steeper than the one that we see at Crocker. So I wonder if that sort of enters into the picture. The answer is yes, if it's used by students as a formal part of the school day, it's gonna have to meet accessibility requirements, one in 20 or ramps down to it. Okay, all right. Mike, did you want to answer that also? If I could just comment a little bit, I think that's right and it was interesting. I was over there just literally walking up to Wildwood for a meeting the other day. It's getting nicer at this time of year. So it's easier to walk those, it's quicker to walk than it's the drive. It's funny to this. And I was surprised because I've been on the hill, I mean, my kids have slotted on the hill and there are certain points where it's a lot steeper than other points. So I'm not good at visually comparing it to where the hill is at Crocker, but it's kind of like Crocker. So if you look at certain points at Crocker, it's really steep. And then where the ramp is down is at a lower point. And so I can't make a comparison, I can't do that. But for instance, the hill where you're going down to like the softball field, which we wouldn't be accessing is really steep. And the further you go, yeah, exactly. There are some places where it's levels off more, which I should know, because there's places my kids like to sled and don't like to sled and they like the steeper parts, right? But without snow on them, I hadn't really ever taken a look. So I mean, it'll be up to architects to figure out how many curves you need and the rail and all that kind of stuff. But I think to answer your larger question, absolutely it would have to be accessible. And if I'm being honest too, that's been something that's come up with from the community for a variety of reasons over the years, whether it's lacrosse games, it's not an accessible site for families who are watching a child or a friend or a neighbor play on that field. There's no real accessible way to get there. There's that sort of old broken pathway that goes down, but it only gets you to the edge of that hill. And where it goes is on the other side of the tennis courts, right? It sort of wraps around. So I think there may be some community benefit regardless of the nature of the school day project to make that field more accessible because it is used a lot in the community and it's not accessible for families. So that's all I wanted to share, but I can't answer the question more or less. I just know it really varies along the slope depending where you are east to west. Okay, if I can ask like a couple more questions, hopefully they won't be quite as long and then I'll save some for later. In terms of, because we're on the, talking about the wildwood site a little bit, in terms of the retaining wall that you were talking about, Tim and building into the hill, when do we, and I have to say, I didn't completely look at the list of here, all the meetings we're gonna have and the things we're gonna talk about, but when do we talk about those things that were not necessarily in the original costs being added to projected costs for those things? Is that after we decide on the site, is that before like how much of that comes in when? Cause it seems like there may be more of those if we're looking at possible second curb cut, possible building into the hill, retaining wall, all of those things. The big picture items, like a second curb cut would be a big picture item, a major retaining wall into the hill with some of these schemes would be captured at the PSR estimates. That said, the item that the option that is selected is going to be refined and the height of a retaining wall if it's there and or if it's there, will potentially be refined through SD. So I'm sorry if that's not a perfectly clear answer, but it will be captured to an extent big picture in PSR and then as we get to the end of SD where the project funding agreement is made, we'll have a very good estimate of what is there. So CB, these are the estimates that are being done in late May that we're going to be looking at in June. And they're still not, clearly not, these things won't be drawn in detail, but they will be included. You will see them as line items in that estimate. Right, so now that we have a much better understanding of the program and even recognizing, best to minimize the footprint, we just see that there's value and maximizing the site by taking advantage of some of the hills. So again, I don't know if we'll have resolution on cutting into strong street at that point. We can talk about what we might wanna carry just for comparison purposes, Phoebe. I think what you're asking is how the scope of work, if it is captured as much as we possibly can to have comparative cost estimates when evaluating the sites, right? I think that's where you're going. It is and it's also because I'm just coming off of and we'll talk about this after you guys go through all of this, but our matrix of comparison, right? And so I want to make sure that when we actually get to that and we're doing it, we're as close as we possibly can be to being able to compare these things, whether it's cost or otherwise. And so some of these things, how do we get our kids and our community onto the site, off of the site is a huge piece. And so I know there's different options for these kinds of things floating out there. And I wanna make sure that when we actually really start to use this comparison that we are gonna talk about and we'll ultimately finalize that we really can do that with as many pieces as possible going into it and cost obviously is a big piece of that, not the only piece, but it is a big piece of that. All right, can I ask one more kind of on topic that we talked about before? And then I'll save the rest for later. In terms of when you guys, so I wanna assume, I think I got this that when you went and looked at the Springfield School, it was a three-story building. Correct. And have we seen, and that was a school that you guys had done, am I correct about that? Correct. Okay, have we seen, and when I say we, I mean anybody on the committee, have we seen a two-story that you guys have done? We personally, personally as in Denisco, have not done, I don't recall the last time actually we have done a two-story building. Typically, we, for all of the reasons as we're exploring here, mostly it comes down to availability of site. You're very fortunate to have two, more than two-acre sites to consider. A lot of times communities are forced into it, but that said, as you can see, and we have a two-story concept, but a lot of districts are choosing to go with a three-story, not only for to minimize the footprint, their cost savings, there's energy savings, but most importantly, there are site reasons to minimize the footprint. But Kathy, I don't know if you saw a two-story building. Yeah, I saw one, Phoebe, and it's not like I've seen a total of five, maybe, but what they had is they had a site with a hill. So you could have part of the building be on top of the hill and the second story was behind that. And it also, it was a huge site. So one of the things Donna was saying is they didn't have to build where another building was there, it was just a big site. And so they could take advantage of that slope to get the second story coming off kind of the back of the school, but they could also run a whole parent drop-off versus bus drop-off down around the back or up around the front. So all the others I saw were three. And I just did the outside of one, and it might have been two, but I'm not sure if there was another one in Worcester that I didn't get inside of. I think the other consideration, Phoebe, is the number of students with 575 students. It's a lot different than 390 students. So really the number of students also influences that. And is there gonna be further opportunity to go with you guys to view schools or, okay. Yeah, so even just to get into the Springfield School was a challenge still, thanks to COVID. They had literally just lifted a no visitor ordinance. So before we used to, I don't wanna say walk right into schools, but it was a lot easier. So as we move forward, we'll absolutely go through it. And maybe the summer might be a good opportunity if the students aren't in the schools. Okay, thank you. Paul has said enough. Yeah, so can we sort of do a time check? Are you going to go through all your options and then collect our, because I always like Phoebe going first because she usually answers, asks about three of the questions I have, but in terms of things like that. What's our time? Are you gonna go through your whole, are we finished with that concept preview or not? Yeah, no, no. So we're gonna go, we'll go quickly. And then again, I think laying it all out up front, Paul, you'll now see how the building, there's not much differences. Here's the other three story building option concept, which does very similar, has a very similar layout, three classrooms or three classrooms run by a project area. Our goal is to try to get more natural light in. Again, any of these decisions do not necessarily need to be decided today or during PSR. We can continue to refine them going forward. The difference here in this scheme is we actually brought the music down to the first floor so that it could be integrated a lot better with the cafeteria and stage, which seems to be a very preferable solution. But again, as you can see, this building, this layout two starts, it's a little more compact than having the two class two grades, one grade on either side of the core, you can see how this really becomes a little more compact. And again, if it's just a little tighter than having the concept two in place. And then this is what it would look at Wildwood. And again, very similar to concept one, it starts just informing the site. And here's a two story scheme. There are many iterations of this. This is similar to the scheme concept two, where we have the core in the middle and then we have the grades kind of off to the side. So definitely benefits. Again, we were recognizing that if you have three grades on a floor, what's the distance that a student's gonna have to go? So this is probably the most efficient for student time on learning rather than traveling in quarters. But you can see it really starts to get quite large. And to respond to that, here's what something like this would look like. So whether it's in this configuration or you have all of the classrooms at one end with the core in the middle or two grades, you would just extend this purple bar one way or another. But you can see how it really starts to shape the site. And minimizes the use of the site. And we didn't update the traffic and the parking here. But as you can imagine, if the parking was along to the west of the building or west of the site, again, you can see how the building really just starts to grow into the site. And we wanna talk about the renovation addition, right? We haven't forgotten about that yet. This is your existing footprint of your existing building, right? And all in the middle here, these are internal spaces. There's no natural light coming in. So when we start looking at what we can do with the existing buildings, trying to minimize the renovation portions, maximize it. What we determined is in order to provide all of the natural light that's required for all of the occupied spaces was to remove the inner interior spaces and create a courtyard. And so this would allow natural light coming into the spaces that we could utilize along the quarter. What you'll see, it's a little less efficient because it's not a double loaded quarter for the existing building. We've located the media center over to the west or the left of the building because that would be used primarily for the students in the building. And we located the core spaces in the new addition. So the new addition, there's a red line here that we would, you'll see that the existing building would be to the left of the red line. And then a two story addition would occur. What you're seeing in the dotted lines here, that would be demolished, that's the existing building. And then we would build a two story wing off of that. And then when you look at it on the site, that's what we have identified. And then how that impacts and influences we would, of course, rotate it because of the existing building on the Wildwood site. And then here's, here are these, but you can see how it becomes less efficient. So I know some people were wondering why this was slightly larger. We have single loaded quarters rather than double loaded quarters, but we have to maintain natural light in all of the spaces that are occupied. So that creates a little bit less efficiency in the building. The other component utilizing the existing building, and we, this is a concept. Could we create pods or project areas outside of the classrooms? Sure, we would have to make the courtyard smaller than we would have to consider the classrooms that we've located to the right of the courtyard because that's, we can't block those classrooms, but you can see that it becomes a very long linear building and probably doesn't meet the collaborative nature of the other options. It works when you start constructing an addition. That makes it a lot easier, but the existing building just, again, natural lights are critical in this conversation. It just doesn't lend to the collaborative nature of the new options. And this is what it would look like on the sites. Again, not fully taking into consideration the field on the middle school. So that really is sort of the end of our quote unquote presentation. I think there were a couple of conversations that we wanted to quickly bring up with the committee and ask for your input. The, I'm just gonna go up to the very first. The, in talking with the school department, they feel that the gym, and let me go up one more actually. The gym and the cafeteria with the stage are really the primary community use spaces and that's why they felt both of those belong on the first floor and centralized in the building so that the academic wing can be closed off. So those can be used by the community. The media center is probably more heavily focused on the academic side and therefore that has the ability to move upstairs where the community may or may not have access to. So I think we would like to get your feedback as a committee. If you feel that those are appropriate spaces, if there's more first floor use, what goes on the first floor as you can see that really doesn't start to inform the shape of the building and the footprint of the building. So Donna, would this be a time just to stop and then get all the questions on what you've laid out with the various layout options? Sure. And I'm Paul, I am more or less watching the time clock but why don't you, I think you had a series of questions. So why don't we do that now? And it also relates to the when we will know what as we start to look at the next meetings, Paul. So I have three quick comments and then two little questions. So one comment is the three stories. You know, my kids all went through three story schools and I've talked to them about it. They liked the three stories because it gave separation between grade levels and they felt more secure, they said, because they knew in their hallways were gonna be other kids their size. So big fan of three stories. The pushed into the hill, love the concept of I think this helps for energy efficiency. It's the cafeteria and gym access to the first floor is really important. But in some of the schools that I've been part of, they had the cafeteria and the gym adjacent so that you could open the doors and have a much larger space versus just a cafeteria and a gym. I'm not sure what your experience is with that. Sometimes it becomes too loud but just that was one of them. And then two questions. One is, is there a design expect, is there a design advantage to long hallways versus sort of a bent building where you might have shorter hallways so you're not looking down along. It makes the building feel a little more intimate. Question one and question two is, have you talked with our DPW or town engineer about a potential roundabout at the entrance to Wildwood? Because in their minds that is the most efficient, like sort of a mini roundabout that makes everybody have to turn right. So in terms of safety, they feel really comfortable with roundabouts versus two separate entrances. That's my list. Thank you. So we, let me just go, to having the gym and cafeteria adjacent to each other, there are absolute benefits to that. There are some schools that do do that. The question is how can you utilize the space? So if you, let's just say, you took the cafeteria and put it to the north, right? And next to the gym, are there enough spaces? Where do you enter? What's, so we can continue to explore that. Again, our goal has been to minimize the footprint, right? Which is really important, especially meeting the MSBA guidelines. But for the most part, having them across a hall, we have not seen a lot of need or use of taking advantage of the entire gym and cafeteria. I know of one building, one school, which is actually was a combined lower upper. I think it was a, it went K through eight that had them next to each other. And when we toured it multiple times, no one had ever mentioned that they actually utilized it. But sound transmission is an issue, right? And then the other consideration is how sturdy is that wall? Although you can make movable partitions sturdy, if you're using the gym and you need it for runoff or the people are gonna run into the wall, those are all considerations. And then you asked about the roundabout, we are really excited to come up with some options as far as site circulation. And then our first group that we wanna talk to and actually in advance of finalizing any is to have a conversation about what is important as far as circulation, drop off, pick up, separation of buses, cars. So we have noted how wonderful, it's amazing how well the circulation works both at Wildwood and Fort River right now. So it's our duty to make sure that we can build upon that and we will be talking to your public safety officials. Why don't you take Sean first since I asked some questions and then I have some that we'll build on polls. Thanks, Kathy. So this may be more a question for Rupert. I guess looking at the chart with the different square footages for the different spaces, I see the custodial storage that 375 square feet, is that enough? I guess talking to Rupert, do you think that's enough for building the size? I know that's always an issue with new schools as they build all these nice spaces, but they don't build, there's not always space to store things, to hold the stuff that the custodians need to hold. And I guess Rupert, how does that compare to what you have now at these two schools? I'm just wondering whether Rupert is here, he wasn't here earlier. I'm here now. Okay, great, great. Okay, so I don't know exactly what we have for square footage and yes, Sean, you've identified one of the problems, perennial problems of maintenance of buildings. So I think it is a good question and it's worth looking into a little deeper. Yeah, I would just like to point out MSBA has allocated a certain amount on their space summary sheet as program space. And then the other aspects that we can still capture are what you would see in the Browns, right? The toilets, we would have custodial closets that will be part of the gross square footage, but it's not included in the program square feet. So we will, Rupert, if you have our word and we'll be spending many, many conversations with you, the locations and every nook and cranny that we can turn into a storage closet, we will absolutely do. But I can say, again, MSBA gives us a square footage. They'll prove the program. We don't wanna pay for a program that MSBA is not gonna participate in. And then we are bound by the 1.5 grossing factor. So we have to get very creative in how we can maximize this space. MSBA wants to pay for educational spaces, not for storage, and believe it or not, administration. So I'm gonna wait till last, I see other hands. So Jonathan's hand is up, Jonathan. Thank you, Kathy. I would like to comment on what Donna asked right before she opened it up to the questions about what spaces should be accessible by the public sort of in the evening. And while I would definitely defer to Mike and our educators on the group, what you've shown to me or me, what you've shown so far makes sense. I can see the logic of the gym, the cafeteria and maybe not needing the media center or the music to be as accessible. And then the other thing I would comment on is all the plans have shown, what I'm gonna describe is kind of an informal seating area adjoining one of the stairs, but you didn't really talk to it, so I might poke you to talk to that a little bit. Let me go here. So you're talking about this stair, yes. So our initial ideas and concepts are that this would be what we would consider a learning stair. It would be a large open stair per se, of course, with the appropriate railings and all, but that it would also be able to be utilized for instructional space, gathering of students. We'll start showing some photos and how that might, what that really looks like and not just in plan, but in use. We need to explore this a little more though. We understand the student needs in your district and what we have repeatedly heard is that we need to be aware that certain, we have to design the building for the safety of all the students. And this might not work given your student population and that we don't want students unintentionally running downstairs that are too wide or they could potentially harm themselves. So we have to develop this concept a little bit more to see if it would meet your student population. I will let you do that exploration. I will say it's having something there at the entry that's kind of dynamic and welcoming. I like a lot, whether it's this configuration or something entirely different later. I can see the possibilities of that. Yeah, it would be, yes, we agree. But thank you for commenting on the location of the space. So that's important because that really is sort of the anchor of how we develop the rest of the space. So Alison, your hand was up. Did you just take it down? Okay, I just have a couple, one, Jonathan, on the thing you just raised, I hadn't thought of, but in the school that Denisco built in Lexington, the one I did get to see, when you first came in, there was a kind of a little apps with a seating area that did make it very dynamic. What you just said, the day I was there seemed to be violin day. And their children were milling around with their violins and chatting. Waiting is the first thing in the morning. So it gave a good feeling when you came into the school, there was a place and I could imagine when you were leaving, waiting for the bus, you could sit there. So I had a question on the timing as we're looking through these possible three-story concepts or two-story different configurations for what we need to go to the cost estimator. And you've got that on the grid on you'd go around mid-May. Would we or could we be going to cost estimates for two possible preferred? Because we won't necessarily have decided on one. So it's, could we get estimates? As Phoebe said, if we do or don't have a retaining wall, if we have an access ramp, so before we make a decision on a site, for example, that's one question. And then my more is a three-story building less expensive to build cause all of our preliminary assumed three. And is that, I'm thinking the answer is yes, because there's less foundation and you get to go up. So, and then my third question is during the net zero discussions, we've talked a lot about the orientation of the building, you know, make the way it faces. And it looks like all the new options you've given us, you can put it in a position that uses the sun. And with the ad reno, you can't do it as well. And I just wanted to verify that's what I'm seeing so that we lose some of the daylighting or the fact that we're using solar energy just to light the room or to give it. So the questions are, can we go with more than one option? Cause we won't have a preferred yet. I don't think by the middle of May and then three-story versus two and the energy efficiency of the building. So two, two versus three. Yes, that could be. I think there are Rick and Tim actually, I'll let you speak to the impact on cost of a two versus three first. Sure. So parts of the building, as you mentioned, foundation and the exterior wall are more expensive than other parts of the building. So when you have a three-story building, you're building less foundation and potentially less skin. So there is the potential that a three-story building with the same program could be less expensive. And more energy efficient. Correct. The ratio of envelope to volume that you're feeding would be lower. So there'd be less heat loss. So you would have to produce less heat. And then, Kathy, as you kind of picked up the orientation of the building, our goal is always to orient it for the north-south facing for the classrooms to minimize glare, et cetera, maximize daylight. Even in this two-story option, you can see that wouldn't be achievable throughout the whole, for all of the spaces. And then when you look at an ad reno, you're 100% right, right? We're dealing with the existing building. So you have to start with that. And I think that this representation demonstrates that, again, not all spaces would have the correct orientation. My other question is on the cost estimates, Donna. If we're not it, we picked our site yet. And we picked our new versus ad reno yet. Would we go for, let me say potentially if we'd narrowed it to two, whether we'd narrowed it to two by the middle of May, would we get two sets of cost estimates to compare? So it's Phoebe's question of we've got a criteria matrix and when will the dots stop moving enough so we can do some comparisons on it? Sure. We can, again, this will be more detailed than a cost per square foot as we saw at PDP. It will have more detail and you'll all see the detail that goes into the information we provide as well as what we get back from the cost estimators. But this will still probably, we're not gonna have all the information, but that there'll be some adjustment. So we would be able to have a two versus a three-story cost estimate. So I'm not talking about two-story versus three-story as much as two sites versus we're down to- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. We're costing both sites. Okay, that would be, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't clear, yeah, okay. No, no, that's understood, that's understood. Okay, I'm done. Phoebe and then Robert. Just briefly, hopefully it will be brief. How many, and because I don't know how many buses we have currently going to each school, how many buses total will be going to the new building? Go ahead, Mike. We just have this conversation. I was just gonna say, it's a good timing, Rupert and I just chatted about this. I think it was yesterday. Yeah. Exactly. So it's hard to say because we don't know where the kids five years ago, five years from now will live. We don't know how many there'll be, but just doing a rough back of the envelope, we'd be able to reduce buses. Currently there's, I believe, 14 or 15 buses total between Fort River and Wildwood and we think it would be between 11 and 12, right? There's a lot fewer students than are currently, right? There's about roughly 700 students at these schools now. We're talking about 575. There potentially could be more efficiency in routes, but I don't wanna commit to that, nor does Rupert, till we know who's actually there. So 11 to 12 is kind of the rough estimate. Okay, and how many vans, Mike? That one we didn't get into, Rupert, unless you have the off top of your head, which I find unlikely. But that's something we could definitely bring back for the next meeting. I don't think, I think there'd be a similar minor reduction in the number of vans because of fewer students in sixth grade is not being there. But you think roughly it's like 82% or something like that of the number of students that we currently have in these buildings. The specialized programs are both in these buildings as well as the new buildings. So I think you can scale down by that metric, but I don't have the current number of vans. And Rupert is, I don't think Wildly nodding his head that he has it on top of his fingers, but we can certainly come back to that next time. I'm just trying to get a sense of, and I'm sure that you guys at Dinesco and everybody who's looking at traffic patterns is looking at this, but how they would physically line up on a site if we're talking about, we have seven or eight at a school now, how they would, that sort of configuration I'm trying to get a sense of. So thank you. In terms of... Phoebe, can I just chime in and say, so as these plans develop, the Dinesco team is actually gonna have drawings that will show the vehicles on the site. So you'll be able to get a picture of that. Cool. I also, I know that we're gonna do more talking about two-story, three-story, I'd like to see, and maybe it's somehow we can incorporate it into our sort of comparison metrics thing. I can't remember for the life of me what we're calling that thing, even though I've spent the last week working on it. But in terms of comparing the two-story, verse three, because I understand that three potentially could have a cost savings, but I also know that a three-story building has less square footage on the top to put our PV, which may mean an increase in having canopies over the parking, which could be an increased cost there. So when will we be getting all of that potential difference when we get the cost estimates down the line, or when will we be able to see those sort of comparisons? So everything right works hand in hand with each other. One decision clearly influences the other. We are looking at, so the question was when, and I just wanna, that's a fair question. Tim, as we've done the energy models, and I guess the question is, are we doing the comparison of a two-story, three, and then we have mapped out the, based on the roof area, how many canopies we will need to supplement what we can put on the roof. So the question is when, I think. Well, we have started to do a breakdown of rooftop to verse canopy, for that's what gave the fluctuation in the PV arrays that we presented at the last net zero meeting. So those numbers will be captured in the documents that we have priced in mid-May. Obviously everything is at a PSR level and they're not final numbers, but the general proportion that are based on all of the things we're talking about, whether it's two or three-story, how much roof area there is, if we're deciding on a mechanical system that changes the amount of rooftop equipment, which also changes how much. So with all of those variables, there will be some different options in terms of the distribution of PV from rooftop to solar and how that affects the cost. So the answer is, yeah. So the answer is, we'll have that information, Phoebe, when you look at the evaluation criteria matrix. It's okay. If I could just quickly point out that one of the things we heard at the last net zero meeting was that there isn't enough room on the roof of even a two-story building for all the PV. So we'll definitely have some ground mounted regardless of which path. Okay. I have one more hopefully brief question and then I'll let other people take it away. Do we have any options for having multiple entrances like an entrance that the community may use when we're going to vote or those kinds of things versus the academic entrance? Or is that not viable or wanted? Well, so, I can absolutely defer to Mike and his team, but from a safety and security perspective, we try to minimize the number of entries into a building. The way any of these concepts work is we do have a main entry at the drop-off area where the parking would be and you'll come through a double vestibule. You'll be checked in at the main office before you enter the building. There are opportunities and what other communities have done is we have created a vestibule off the gym so that people could actually enter the gym separately. But as you can see, it's so integral that it would be a little difficult to be able to segregate just the gym while the school is in use. We need to provide toilet facilities for people, but we have, for other reasons, had separate entrances, vestibules off gyms. The cafeteria will have a vestibule off of that as the students leave that to go outside. So from an energy efficiency perspective, they would have a vestibule here. So depending on how you want it to use your building, that's possible, but we try to maintain just one main entrance. I have Mike and Rupert. Don, as an example of a Rupert school, they wanted to control the voting aspect. And so the vestibule that we have off the cafeteria, which is where they have all their voting, is how the public gets in and out and we put a privacy bathroom in the cafeteria so the poll workers can keep people from going out into the lobby and don't have to go out in the lobby. So small gestures like that are possible to enhance that type of other use of these spaces. Rupert and Mike. Thank you. I raise my hand mostly just to comment about cafeteria and gym adjacency. And I wanted to comment in support of what Donna was saying, that movable walls, in my experience, are problematic and very rarely used and very expensive to replace and maintain, especially in a high ceiling space where they weigh so much. So I wanted to just comment on that. If I may just comment briefly about the transportation question. The territory that we cover with school buses does not shrink just because sixth graders are at a different building. So that does, one should not expect a major reduction in transportation needs because of that. Where there would be efficiencies is where buses are now going, traveling through the same territory to get to two different schools. There could be a reduction there. And that's something that someone would probably more expertise in transportation than I would need to study a little bit more closely. In terms of vans, typically our vans are filled. And so I don't really expect much reduction in the number of vans that we need just because they're going to one location instead of two. And that's as much as I know about that for now. Thanks, Rupert. Mike. Just very quickly on the entrance piece, all this will be vetted by the public safety folks in town. My experience last time around is, as well as just in general, when I talk to them is their best, their thoughts are mostly focused on a core main entrance. Obviously there's gonna be other ways for kids to get in and out of a building and staff members, but that one core entrance in terms of traffic flow and public safety ends up being the best because it's monitored, right? And I thought, worth noting that the Springfield School I thought had a really nice entrance that it was secure in a way that none of our schools currently are designed to be secure that way, but it didn't feel like some of the new buildings where it feels like you're entering an airport, with that level of security. I thought it was warm, there's a lot of natural light, but it's the best to be able to someone to check people in. And I know from public safety, they really value that and you can't do that multiple places because you can't staff it multiple places. So I think the one core entrance is likely what would be recommended, but this will all be better by them and making sure their thoughts with us at that point. So Margaret, and then I am conscious of time and I think one of the items we have in the agenda, we're gonna just move to the next meeting, but we'll talk about that later because I wanna make sure we leave time for two things we have to do. So Margaret. So, Janesca team, this is a little bit of a question for you, but it seems like there are some really significant differences in these building plans as they relate to how the public arrives at the building. And it's been helpful to look at them on the site. We haven't actually talked about, for instance, I think for me, the first two concepts she showed as an example, one of them you're kind of entering into this sort of, the piece that is at the arrival point is the public piece, right? So you're sort of coming out of the parking lot, perfect, right? So you're arriving and there's this public piece. When you go to concept two, where the public pieces are between sort of two classroom wings, that entrance is really different. Are you looking for reflections on that today from the committee? Because I haven't heard any yet. No, I think all of your points are well taken and we really would have to think carefully how we would arrive at the entry of the building and the parking. Here we have a bus drop off loop that you could actually enter at the main entry. There are many pros and cons, distance to access. The staff could actually enter, not at the main entry, but parking. We still have a lot to work out. I think what we wanted to do was vet this with the school department a little bit more. And Mike, please correct me. I got the sense that for all of the reasons we mentioned earlier, that a configuration such as this would be a little more desirable than separating the grades. So I think we wanted to make sure that the layout of the building works best for the school department and then we would have to incorporate the site as we move forward. Your next step is to get that feedback from the school department. And therefore this is a kind of preview for the rest of the building committee to be thinking about that. And at the next meeting, you would be looking for that kind of input. Correct. Or maybe to say a little differently that the school department prefers this configuration. And what we felt was important from this committee is to receive input on what everyone believes is the core facilities and where they maybe should be located in the building. And I think we were hearing that the gym and the cafeteria are the primary community spaces. We obviously want to be able to close off the academic wing separate from that. Paul. Yeah, so I agree with what you said. I think what Jonathan said about making sure that the gym and the cafeteria are easily accessible. One thing I find really important in a building is that when you arrive that it's clear where you enter. So many of these buildings have places where you're trying to figure out what door do I use, especially if we're designing multiple doors for different purposes. So having those things front and center, having the entrance, a lot of our buildings it's pretty clear how you get in. So I want to make sure we have a pretty clear entrance. And from my point of view as a town official looking at the civic uses, like Phoebe talked about with the voting for basketball leagues, access for events. That's going to be having those front and center is what I will be advocating for. Any other questions on the various concept plans either for now that need an answer or you actually could just send them in and we'll collect them. And then Dinesco can respond to them next time as you look at this. And this set of charts is a little bit different than what we're sent out yesterday. So we will resend this group out. I think it's been helpful, Donna, how you rearrange them and we'll repost them. I know a revised set came in at about seven o'clock last night. So yeah, Jonathan. This is more a process question. Kind of what I think I'm hearing is that when we next meet we may not be looking at three options we've made. This may have reduced itself down through organic conversations with Mike and the rest of the school department to two or something like that, which I think is, it sounds like a good idea because I agree with Paul. I'm not going to touch on the academic piece of option two, but I didn't really like the remoteness of that entry. So Donna, can you go to the chart that comes after this that shows the schedule? Almost. I know it's coming. Sorry, there we go. So this was sent out to everyone. And one of the things to note on this agenda, Dave, what we sent out was what's going to happen at each of these meetings. And we put a community forum in on May 5th after the April meeting. What's not on here yet is if we're going to have a second meeting of the net zero subcommittee. But there's a point right in the middle of May where we're first seeing what they're about to send to the cost estimators. And then the cost estimators are doing work. And so by, we won't have that out. Donna, you can explain this better, but you're not expecting to get it back by the end of May, but we will have it when we're first looking at it in June. Right. So even though again, this is preferred schematic, there's a lot of detail that goes into this. And again, it's really important to capture now as informing the community what the expectations are for the cost of the building. So it will be more refined than what we did for the PDP, but both cost estimators really want at least two weeks to do the work. Then we have a reconciliation meeting to make sure that everyone understands all of the assumptions and everyone has the same scope. So it will be hot off the press when we come before you on June 3rd. So I just, and what we would like to do so that we can do our work is submit the basis of design to the cost estimator with our drawings loosely said. On May 15th, and then at the building committee meeting on May 20th, we'll go over the basis of design. What that is is all of the criteria, et cetera, that the cost estimators will be putting together their estimates on. So we don't wanna do that in advance of the cost estimating because we need this time to get it right or refine it as much as possible, but we'll go over everything while they're estimating. And we can tweak it if some of our assumptions are incorrect, but we will be getting input from Uber and others before then. Okay, one thing I wanted to note on the schedule is earlier we send out meetings and the May meetings were not these dates. They were one week later. And this May 6th and May 20th gets us away from that Memorial Day week altogether. So it keeps the meetings on Friday. So for those of you who quickly put them in your calendar, it's May 6th and May 20th would be the two May meetings. And a question Margaret raised when we were talking about agendas is if we might want to as a committee in between presentations have a meeting that just has a discussion where we go around with what are we seeing comparisons talking through things? And it's not clear to me what the best date for that is, but it's just a heads up that that might be an advantage disadvantage of the sites of Adreno of whatever before we have to make a decision and we could go around the room of the 13 of us to have a discussion. And that's not on this because this is still gathering a lot of information at each of these meetings. So Jonathan, did you have your hand up again or is that just from before? Sorry. No, I did. It's mostly, it didn't dawn on me before when we've looked at earlier versions of this, but that the next meeting falls during the school vacation week. It's just mostly to note that for other parents like myself who may be tuning in from a different time zone for that one. Okay. So that's the April 22nd date. Yep. All right. Hopefully it's not a time zone that has you at four in the morning. It's one that- Oh, it will, but I'll be in California. Okay, so this is our meeting times right now and there will be an attempt and we talked about can there be sections of this report that as they get written that could come earlier or we're gonna see one big report and we'll hear back on what might or might not be possible in terms of voting on this on the 24th, seeing most of it on June 17th but getting it a few days before the 17th. We're talking about trying to get it at the beginning of the week, hearing that people wanna have a chance to read it. Yeah, and I think, excuse me, going through, walking through the basis of design will help people. So I think leading up to the draft PSR that we'll be covering a lot of this in advance so people won't be seeing it for the first time, which I think will be important. The challenge is that the PSR really, all the sections are interrelated. So it's a little hard to put out pieces in advance until we're able to fully refine them all. So, and Kathy, I know we're always over time and there's always so much to talk about. I concur and we can have a separate conversation. We still haven't gotten to net zero and that's such an important component of this. I don't know if we throw in another meeting or something but not when Jonathan's 4 a.m. Because that would be detrimental. Well, I think we could take this down and then go to the other parts of the agenda. The next thing up, I think was to talk about the evaluation criteria matrix and Phoebe and I had put our heads together going through what was originally given to us in February, thinking, oh, there's some places that there's duplication or not clear. I'm looking to Phoebe, but I feel like that deserves a longer conversation than we have time for today. So I was gonna propose just moving that to next week, next meeting. Phoebe, do you agree? I'm just looking at you. Yeah, I think it's gonna need longer. And we have a somewhat revised one from what we sent out on Monday because we had written out a category that we think we should include, which is the equity category. And we just have questions on how we're gonna measure some of these things. So some of this discussion is good idea on a row but it wasn't clear to us how we measure. So what I hope is we'll send that out and people really look at the original, it's a potential change. And Dinesco team has not weighed in on this either. This was just us going through thinking we had duplication, trying to simplify. And the last thing to say about that, the one version we sent out, we thought the net zero discussion where we have decisions to make about what HVAC system we're going to choose. It influences how much PV that needs its own little table because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't vary by whether it's at Wildwood or Fort River or whether it's Adreno. It just needs a matrix. So we have those variations, but it doesn't vary by place. It varies by the choice of HVAC and where we're going. So at the next meeting, I think we'll try to give you what that might look like. And I'll pass that through Jonathan because he's seen some of this. So I'm just eliminating that item from the agenda and turning to Jonathan to give a report on what we heard at the net zero meeting and everyone should know that what we were looking at is posted. It's posted on the same website as our committee meetings are, Jonathan. I'll try to keep this relatively quick. And so that means I'm gonna probably go over things that people may have questions on and just reiterate your point that people very much feel free to watch our last meeting. It was being in depth. We talked about a wide range of things, all of which will have impacts. But one thing to note is that the presentation materials that we looked at last time for the net zero subcommittee were based on the conceptual energy model that was done by the design team based really on the basic massing diagrams and the initial assumptions about what our building envelope might be and the kind of plug loads and whatnot for the building that were all kind of done for the PDP. So they were less developed than what we've been looking at today. So obviously those things are gonna have to continue to be kind of refined and a new energy model after a new round of energy models, I'm sure will be done. But we did kind of learn the high level differences and what are the various components in both the air source and the ground source heat pumps. There was a review of the varying amounts of PV. And as I kind of noted earlier, regardless of whether we ultimately choose to go air source, ground source, or some blending of the two, it was clear that the PV need will be greater than what can be accommodated on the buildings, the building roof. So there will be some level of site PV as well. We got a kind of review of the 50 year lifecycle costs for both systems, which vary in the components that have to be replaced and when they're replaced and the various costs for them. We also had an initial review of kind of the costs and the cost savings, you know, how much obviously we're not gonna be using gas or fuel oil anymore, you know, those costs are obvious, but there were other cost savings and different costs for maintaining the systems as well that were reviewed. And then I guess that the big takeaway for me was that, you know, we weren't at a decision. There's still more to be learned and more to be developed for both systems or both potential approaches. And so the design team is still working on that piece. And so no decision was made as part of that. No decision was, the subcommittee doesn't have anything to recommend yet to this larger group. And so that was kind of fast, but that was kind of my essence. I don't know, Kathy, if there were other pieces that you took away that were different or you want to highlight a group or it or been, but that's my brief report. I think that's right. And I'll send the link back out to people because it was a good set of charts to start to answer some comparative questions. And the discussion was also a good discussion. So Phoebe's hand is up, Margaret's hand is up. Rupert, Rupert, did you want to comment on the committee? Okay, let's do Rupert and then Phoebe, then Margaret. I'll just say one of the things that stood out to me is when you look at the operating costs over the lifetime of the building, the difference between ground source and air source heat pumps are remarkably close. That one has a greater upfront cost, but a lower lifetime cost. The other one has a lower upfront cost and a greater operating cost over the lifetime. And they ended up being very, very close to each other either way. So anyway, that's something just sort of an eye-opener, I think for everybody. Thank you. Phoebe? So I also wanted to say that I have a couple of things that I wrote down today also, that I'd like to go ahead and possibly send you, Kathy, or I don't really know who to send it to, that possibly could go into our evaluation matrix. I think as we have sort of asked a lot of questions today, there are things that made a little bit more sense to me. I still had questions for the committee on some of the things that we did. So who should I, how do you want me to deal with that? Well, you could quickly mention them now and then you could send them to all of us and we would be not in violation of talking to the whole group. You can also just send them to me and then we bring them back as possible ads, either way. Yep. Very briefly, I just think because I want to spend some time on equity when we're talking about this at our next meeting, I think we never really did a great job about defining that and that's something Kathy that you and I talked about. So I want the committee to be thinking about what we're looking for within that category. And then I think the other thing that is not in there with regards to equity is sort of the access of, the ease of accessing the school from one site to the other, Wildwood to Fort River, in terms of if a parent doesn't have transportation, how do you pick a sick kid up? How do, a kid misses a bus, how do you get a kid there? What's the public transportation for each of those sites, those kinds of things? And that's something that lends itself to equity. And I think there are a couple of other things that I can go ahead. And the only other thing that I didn't see in there or one of the other things I didn't see in there was the measure that we're going to use. So we had talked about, there's no category in there as it stands that was kind of like neutral, like the same at one site and the other. We had talked about favorable, neutral and non-favorable and I realized only this morning that I didn't see that as opposed to unaccessible, non-adventages, those kinds of things. So that's the other thing that I wanna make sure goes in there, but I'll type these up and send these. Okay, so we'll get, so what we'll do is we'll send that back out again, today's Friday, probably Monday or Tuesday. So we just talk, so it'll be something everyone can look at for a good solid week before we meet again. And what we were looking for in this is things that would vary by our choices, rather than, ideally some would be a little bit better here, a little worse there, rather than the same, the same, the same. So that was one of the things we were looking for when we were adjusting. So Margaret, I think we're done with, almost done, we've got invoices and public comments. So yeah. This is just a follow-up I think on what Phoebe's saying, which is just to clarify, if it would be helpful to have an intermediate meeting between now and the next presentation, and also just to confirm that we can have a quorum for the next meeting, even though it is in school vacation week. So I guess that was a question, Margaret, is are we gonna have problems, are enough people not gonna be able to make it on April 22nd, or does it work? It will be a Zoom meeting. Is there anyone that can't make it? Anyone who can't make it, let's do it that way. There's no, Mike cannot. I'm not sure. Sorry, my schedule's not yet firmed up, and it's not about break, it's about other life stuff. So I'm uncertain. Understood. The meeting should be held up because of me, but I just wanted to be clear that I'm not sure I can make it. Is it looks like, and Jonathan? I'm gonna try to attend, but we will be in a different time zone. I'm assuming there's a like a, you know, most hotels these days have like a place where I can get out of the hotel room and do a meeting and help. Does it help if we do the meeting a little bit later that day? For either of you? Selfishly for me, that would be nicer, but I think you should do it around the group at large and I will make it work. Okay. We can do a poll whether starting, since it isn't a school day, we can do a poll on whether starting later would work. It looks like we will lose one and maybe two people. So I think we're gonna just hold the date. Okay. So I do wanna leave time for public comments. We have invoices and we need to do the invoices today. Is that correct? I mean, I think we can do the invoice quickly. It's Dinesco's invoice, which just was just received this week in which I emailed you about yesterday. So I can pull it up. If anybody has a question about it and we can take a vote. I have reviewed it and recommended it for the committee to, here we go. So as you're pulling it up, I'm gonna make a motion to approve if I get a second because I did read it. I will second it. That's Rupert seconding. Okay. So, Margaret, as you pull it up and- So this is just my summary. It's the highlight is the invoice, which is for a total of 56972 and it includes the anticipated billing for Dinesco based on the cash flow they've given us as well as work on the traffic study and the geothermal study, which we have been starting to see the results of. So if there are any comments on this, otherwise I am going to just go around the room for a vote. Jonathan. Yes. Kathy is a yes. Phoebe. Yeah. Rupert. Yes. Tammy. Yes. Ben. Yes. Paul. Yes. Mike. Yes. Sean. Yes. Allison. I'll abstain because I had to step away. Okay. Simone. Yes. And Alicia. Alicia, if you can hear, can you un-Mike, otherwise we'll- Alicia had emailed earlier that she's not feeling very well so she may not. So we'll have Alicia as not here right now. And Angelica was- Sorry, Kathy. I'm a yes also. Thank you. Okay, good. And Angelica was here, but I don't see her right now. So we have one missing, one estained in the yes-yeses. So any other comments before I see whether there are public comments? Okay, seeing none, and Paul and Sean will help me with this. There are two hands up for public comments. So can we- Yeah, I'm promoting Tony Cunningham now. Okay, Tony, you're with us. Hi, thank you. Tony Cunningham, Owen Drive. Thank you for this presentation and discussion. It was interesting to see the different concepts and the new test fit drawings. For the Wildwood site in particular, I think it's really critical that you develop and share all of the additional costs of the site before making any decision to reduce the options. I'm thinking of things like the second curb cut and driveway if it is viable. The cost of a roundabout that was mentioned today at the Wildwood entrance, if that is appropriate. As I could imagine that could potentially require the taking of some land since strong street is pretty narrow there at that bend. The cost of adding a signal or a roundabout to the strong street, East Pleasant Street intersection if that might be needed. The cost of building into the hill in the east of the property, cutting down trees and building a retaining wall. Any needed soil improvements and aggregate piers required to build at Wildwood. The cost of relocating the utilities that cross the site to the middle school, addressing the culvert and making the middle school feel accessible either by adjusting the grade and adding an accessible ramp. I would imagine all of these things could add significantly to the cost of a project at Wildwood. So I think it's really important that the committee and the community understand all of these factors before narrowing down the options. I think it would be really helpful if Denisco could share the pricing narrative well before submitting to the cost estimator. So this committee can review it in advance. And lastly, I was wondering what impact is expected to the construction duration of building at Wildwood. It has appeared that the more cramped site might necessitate a temporary driveway and parking, temporary playground and the need to move the contractor lay down area multiple times. Thank you. Thank you, Tony. And there is one other, there are now two hands up. Three, Bruce, you are with us. And I see two other people have asked to speak. Bruce, you are here just on mute. Okay. I too was very engaged in the presentation of the various options. And it may be premature, but I don't think so because it seems to me that the diagrams, more than diagrams, plans, conceptual plans that were submitted show pretty strongly that the two-story concept and that the Adreno concept really don't come close to satisfying the level of spatial efficiency, functional and adjacencies, energy efficiencies, and certainly daylighting. On any and all of those fundamental, pretty fundamental criteria, it would seem very strong that the more compact three-story options are very strong contenders. I think the concept too, I'm not sure how strong a driver this is, but it seems pretty clear with the way the roof was broken up with the separation of the spaces on the top floor that the roof plane would be less functionally effective as a location for PVs, either because there isn't as much of it or because of shading between a different variation in roof planes that would seem to be appropriate up there. So I found myself being much more drawn to a three-story concept than I perhaps had thought initially, but this series of diagrams, plan diagrams, Donna et al was very helpful and very clear, I thought. And it seems to be heading in a very good deliberative direction. I commend you on the way in which you've thought this through and the way in which you're presenting the information and it does seem as though we're going to get to a very sound eventual conclusion on this, notwithstanding the fact that I may have jumped the gun, but I thought I might share my conclusions on the basis of today's analysis. There was something else I was going to say, but I can't remember exactly what it is now, so I'll pass and just say congratulations. Thank you very much for what you're doing, very helpful to me at least, and therefore I hope to others. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Maria, you are with us if you unmute. So I want to say that I had a different take on what was presented here and I want to specifically address what Bruce just said. He, I think that it is probably accurate to say that this is being guided into a certain direction, but I think that's really problematic at this point. We're in the PSR. We need to develop all the potential options with enough detail to make extremely good and accurate comparisons between all of them before we come to a preferred solution about sight, about approach, about a lot of things about HVAC system. So the pricing narrative that we keep talking about is going to be critical to this, and I think that that needs more than just a presentation before it's handed off to cost estimators. I think that needs a lot of discussion because all of these details about what this would mean between a two-story and a three-story, between all these different costs at different sites need to be discussed and that material has to be presented well ahead of time so that you can make sure that you are getting the full picture and so that we aren't being shepherded to a predetermined conclusion for the preferred solution. So we need all of the information. We need all of the pros, all of the cons, all of the costs before we can get there. And quite frankly, some of the changes that I saw proposed in the matrix also seem to be guiding this to a specific conclusion. So I really want to caution against that. I really think we need to look at everything and not make decisions at this point when we don't have a lot of the data. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Let me just double-check. I don't see any other hands up. Am I right, Sharon? Okay. So I think that concludes public comments on any remaining committee comments. Jonathan. It looked like Rudy is in the meeting. I just want to make sure you didn't accidentally miss someone. Rudy was in the meeting and his hand was up at one point and then I don't see him there anymore. I tried to join the meeting. Am I in it? Yes, you are. Okay. A couple of quick comments on the matrix. I don't want to hang people up, but I think there was a note about possibly deleting transit impacts. I have to agree with Phoebe that especially if you get caught without a car and you have to get up to the school, you want to look at public bus routes that are nearby public. So it's not just private car access to the schools. Optimizes connections to the outdoor and indoor spaces and integration with the site. I think there was talk of maybe deleting that. I think that's actually an important question between both the sites and the one, two, three-story options. Construction impact to a butters. There was talk of admitting that. It looks to me like especially if you drive into that hill there may be more impact to some of the neighbors than others than say at Fort River. And also I would add I didn't see it on there whether you can use chapter 149 design bid build. That might be a significant advantage to one of the options for the other. And whether or not there's a better use of embodied carbon or whether you're having to start over with all your materials. And then lastly there at the top of the chart it looked like the figures on the site sizes were wrong and reversed. The PDP says that the Fort River site is 31.5 acres at page 41-1 and that chart has 11.46 for Fort River. And then for Wildwood the PDP says Wildwood site is actually the smaller one at 14.3 acres. That's a page 4-42. So I wonder if those got mixed up somehow or there's some explanation for that that's not obvious on the chart. Thanks so much. Thank you, Rudy. So as people heard those were comments on some of this potential revision and Phoebe and I both heard those. And we had some questions on what the definitions of a few were. So it wasn't trying to delete. So I think with that I don't see any public hands. I don't see any committee hands. I think we can adjourn the meeting at 1031 which is rather remarkable, but we are adjourned at 1031. Thank you.