 On behalf of the Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee seeing the presence of quorum We're going to call this meeting to order at 6 o 3 p.m Keep it pressed. Okay. Sorry about that getting used to the technology On behalf of the Amherst School Committee seeing the presence of a quorum calling this meeting to order also at 6 o 3 p.m And on behalf of the Pellum School Committee seeing presence of a quorum. I'll call this meeting to order at 6 o 3 so this is I think a well anticipated Meeting that the the committees have been looking forward to a hearing And I don't know if you want to provide introduction, but we had both had I think some internal interest on the school committee and with the district to do an audit of all our facilities including Amherst Pellum and the region and we have a report back and some information that we can share with the public We also had obviously some substantial interest in the community to understand what Facility challenges we have and I think obviously with anticipation of seeing in the future We can develop some sort of plan or strategy to knock down or remediate some of the barriers to accessibility that we have in our facilities So with that superintendent, do you want to introduce? Sure So I want to just add to what the chair of the region said which is that I think it's important to note that the the origin of the interest of getting this report done Really came from members including the audience of the CPAC and so we just acknowledge this I want I would like to acknowledge the see the special ed parent advisory councils Significant work and improving the outcomes and the operations of our district for a great many years and there were always questions about ADA audit or ADA access issues that were kind of a lot of perspectives and thoughts and I'm really glad of their glad for their advocacy to actually have a formal report by experts in the area that We in the district can then use to plan next steps. I also want to thank Fane Pierre Louis Who is from KMA who was on-site to do just about all if not all I think The buildings one of the things that I requested without due respect to you the other person I was connecting with that at your organization was that really wanted to have someone who is literally in the buildings making Kind of the presentations if there are questions That were specific to any building it's be folks who are literally here doing it not back at the office pulling their reports I really appreciate all of your both of your work and you being here tonight To share a presentation. I know there was the packets were thick with reports for each school and and What what you'll see tonight is sort of a kind of condensed version of how to approach? 88 audits as well as kind of some individual next steps or individual Aspects of a school so that no matter what district you're in what school you're looking at you'll have kind of like a Mental map of how to make sense of what's in some complex detailed reports. Is that fair perfect? Okay, so I think with that turn it over So I am Stefan Pierre Louis from KMA. I'm an associate at Kessler Magnus and associates and this is dejaal She's an architect at KMA. She works on both the compliance team and the design team So KMA is an architecture and accessibility firm located in New End, Massachusetts We provide public and private entities with consulting services related to accessibility and universal design We've worked with many clients in their healthcare multi-family housing Transportation and education sectors and this is a list of some of KMA's client in these different sectors So tonight we'll talk about the different laws and regulations that the Emers-Pellum schools district must follow Then I will explain that I will walk you through the process of auditing the buildings and they're Collecting the data and putting it all together into a report Then we will talk about the different Issues that were fine that were found throughout the schools district wide issues and school specific issues And then we will open the discussion to everyone so we can not only Ask questions, but also share your personal experience or your children's personal experience Navigating through their different buildings Once this exchange is done I'll we'll take into consideration everything that we've heard tonight and then we'll report back We'll update our reports into final reports including all their experience. We've heard tonight The next step after that would be having discussions with the school committee or parents Students anybody involved on how to move forward with the law and the best mitigations to make the schools more accessible the Americans with disabilities act is based on the civil rights of 1964 and prohibits discrimination based on disability as Related to the Amherst Pellum schools title two of the Americans with disabilities act covers non-discrimination in state and local government services Because the Amherst Pellum schools are a public entity that provide service services people with disabilities might that be students visitors teachers Anybody who walked on the ground of their schools must have an equal opportunity to participate in and Benefit from the programs and activities offered at the school title two of the ADA also requires that Anybody who has a disability physical or cognitive disability must be integrated to the maximum extent Appropriate in the activities offered at the school This would include classrooms playgrounds labs gym cafeteria Any rooms that are part of the school it also has specific requirements for the safe operation of the programs or activities offered Title two also requires the proper maintenance of accessible features throughout the building This is mostly important for mechanical parts of the school elevators lifts and The maintenance means not only making sure that they are able to be operated But also the routes to them are safe and accessible and not used as storage spaces The Amherst the Amherst Pellum district schools must also follow the rules and regulations of the fight of 521 CMR 521 CMR is a specialized code of of the from the Massachusetts State Building Code That covers accessibility requirements as triggered by work perform or change of views You might ask yourself well How do we figure out which areas of the school must be made accessible? You could these this question would be answered by if you ask yourself these two questions Can the students access the classrooms or any rooms in the school or any extra curricular activities without finding barriers. Can they access the labs? Can they access the playgrounds or? Even the cafeterias because sometimes students participate in cooking classes Can they access all these rooms without any barriers? Another question that you may ask yourself is what about the public? Can the public access the school and any kind of public functions at the school without and count and counting any barriers? Title two of the ADA requires that each program service or activity when viewed in its entirety Must be readily accessible to and usable by individual with disabilities that means that It doesn't mean that every single classroom and every single lab in the school must be made accessible But it must be distributed throughout the school in in the best way possible that would serve anybody with disabilities That could be made either by architectural barrier removal or by operational changes meaning either adding an elevator to provide access to the upper-level classrooms or Bringing some classroom to the first ground Making it accessible of course bringing the classrooms to the to the ground level of the school to ensure that people can access it without having to go through stairs or inaccessible ramps or any Upper-level on barriers So we talked about 521 CMR, which is a specialized code of the Massachusetts building code It is triggered by work perform or change of views 521 CMR covers all areas open to the public and The ADA covers not only areas open to the public, but also employees only areas another major difference between 521 CMR and The ADA is the fact that MAP 521 CMR applies to buildings only applies to buildings where So basically the language of the code says if you touch anything in the building that exceed 30% of the Estimated assess value of the building you have to make everything accessible Whereas 521 CMR just requires proactive effort to keep making the building more and more accessible The audits were conducted at the request of their MR Spellarm Regional School District as part of a district-wide evaluation of the four elementary schools the middle school and the high school The purpose of these audits was to identify all areas of the school that do not conform with the applicable state and federal accessibility requirements There are two different types of audit There are regular audits where we walk through a building and we just assess general Barriers that do not comply with the code and there are Comprehensive audits as we did for the MR Spellarm schools where we walk through every single classrooms To make sure that we have an exact number of how many times the issues are repeated throughout the building Once all this data is collected we put it all into a report We assess the week the data collected is evaluated Against 521 CMR and against the ADA 521 CMR for all areas open to the public and the ADA for not only these areas But also employee only areas. I will show you the well will what Wildwood? Sorry elementary schools report as an example of how the data collected on site is Communicated back to the schools in a report We typically have a cover page with the name address of the school and a photograph The date the audit was conducted and the date the report was submitted back to the school And then we have a very general introduction stating which came a staff perform the audit The purpose of the audit a general description of the facility and we go into a very brief Description of the different codes that we are Auditing the building against and then we have the scope of the audit which is in relevance to the the different areas We audited in the school and Then we have a summary of founding based on the building building wide issues toilet rooms classrooms, etc We have recently added this section for the Amherst Pellarm District, which is what I was talking about earlier where we will Listen to the different feedbacks and questions that everybody have And then we will develop this section with everything that we've heard with proposed mitigation based on what we've heard tonight So the Second so give you a chance to catch your breath as well before you keep rolling So I think just to let the committees know that Dr. Brady who's in the audience organized a survey that went out to all staff and all families To get their experiences as well as it relates to accessibility and that was shared with so With our consultants so in addition to the feedback that they'll get tonight They've gotten or will get I think I've gotten have gotten a pretty lengthy List of commentary both from staff and from the community that'll be embedded in that Categories there's want to make sure that the committee was aware of that. Thank you So what I would like to add to that is the fact that so we went through the different the feedbacks that we received and It what it felt great to see that a lot of the things that are in their packet that we received were also already flagged in our reports So it's already in the report, but because it is it was raised as concerns we can talk more about them tonight So the major part of the report consists of her table listing all the issues we found in our audits of the schools The second column is a description of the issues along with the section of the code. It does not comply with the third column lists standard proposed mitigation with a cost estimate and a quantity indicating the number of times the issue these issues were flagged in the On-site or within the building itself Once we state all the issues with the exterior the site the parking the playgrounds the curb ramps the sidewalks We go into the interior of the building and we talk about Basically, we try to navigate the building as a student or a parent or a visitor entering the building What's wrong with the doors once you pass the doors? What's wrong with the corridors the hallways are there protruding objects that would create hazard for somebody who has low vision? Are there visual alarms within the corridors or the code hooks at a right reach range? Do the doors provide the proper maneuvering clearance for somebody who's using a wheelchair so they can get out of the swing of the door to operate the door Once we get past the the doors the hallways the protruding objects We go into the classrooms in the offices themselves And on the other side of the doors do the doors have maneuvering clearance? How are the sinks in the classrooms the desks or the phones are other at the right reach range or their visual alarms in Their classrooms if there aren't visual alarms in the classroom Do they have these clear panels at the door so one can see the visual alarms from the hallway? The cafeterias any special rooms once we pass these we go into the toilet rooms What's wrong with the toilet rooms are the mirror at a right height paper towel dispensers urinal? do the do the Toilet rooms provide an accessible store at least if we have five toilet rooms Do we have at least three that provide we think about the percentage of the rooms within the building? so as you can see we made we We flag all the issues we found in all the toilet rooms But the obligate the obligation is not to make every single toilet room accessible it requires a strategic thinking to understand What's the scale of the school that I'm dealing with how many if I have two toilet rooms in the Underground floor do I have to make both toilet rooms accessible based on the allocation within the building if somebody's entering the back door? Would it be okay for them to navigate throughout the entire building to access the front toilet room? It requires a lot of strategic thinking, but it does not require every single toilet room to be accessible We also provide a floor plan of their of the schools where we Add numerical values that match the numbers of the table Just so we can understand how many times are the issues repeated throughout the floor plan in How many issues do we have in the gym? How many issues do we have within a quad of classrooms? We also provide an aerial view of the of the building just so people can understand the issues that we found in the parking lot on the In the accessible routes from the parking lot to the entrance or to the playground or within the back entrances So now we can talk about the district-wide issues found Basically within all six schools The major issue we found within the school is the parking lots the parking lots have excessive slopes Within both the parking spaces and the access the access aisles associated to them This creates a hazard for anyone using a wheelchair another issue found in the On the site of the schools other site furniture Whereas they're either not located within an accessible route or the furniture itself is not accessible We find that issue in the the cafeteria tables the picnic tables on the near the playgrounds And also the playgrounds are not located within an accessible route. That means that It's either the the route to the playground is not accessible or the route within the structures of the playground is not accessible We can talk after about the different ways to make the different percentage in the different ways to make not the entire Playground accessible what parts of it accessible? Another major issue we found throughout the schools other is the ground condition The ground condition means it's either because of maintenance work Because if you think about it, we're in Massachusetts. There's snow There's all those season seasonal changes which create changes of level and it's a hazard for anybody using a cane Anybody who's lower vision and not even using arcade or somebody in a wheelchair or somebody pushing a stroller It's a hazard for anyone really the sports the sports fields are also not located in an accessible route There are no accessible routes connecting the parking spaces to the sports field or the school the buildings It's themselves to the sport to the sports fields Also within the accessible routes the major issues would be the curb ramps curb ramps are What connects the? Parking spaces or any kind of routes leading to the entrances of the building if the curb ramps do not have the appropriate slope Somebody using a wheelchair has to cannot access the the entrance of the building without support from somebody General build building issues include the room signage tactile or braille signage is required to be provided on the latch side of any doors in a building also, it is required to be Located on the latch pull side of the door because if you think about it If somebody is taking their time stopping at a door to touch the braille signage They need to be outside the swing of the door in case somebody tries to open the door in the other side Also the door maneuvering clearance as I mentioned earlier This distance needs to be way bigger so somebody can get outside the swing of the door again to operate the door Also, we found many protruding objects in the hallways and in the classrooms also protruding objects are hazard for people who are low vision because They need to be mounted at a certain height where somebody using a cane can detect them and get outside of the way basically So they need to be either lower so the cane can detect it or higher above the required headroom General classroom issues include the classroom sinks where they do not provide removable cabinets So somebody can roll underneath the sink and either use the soap dispenser or the The knobs the controls that are located sometimes along this wall Also talking about protruding objects This would be considered a protruding object because if somebody was Walking towards the sink in this way they would hit this because it's not low enough for a cane to detect it And it's not high enough for them to avoid it Also other protruding objects include the phones Which for the phones we found different issues where not only are they protruding objects, but they are also Located too high where the controls are not within the reach range of somebody sitting in a chair Some classrooms also have desks that are not accessible meaning either their The apron under the desk is too low for somebody using a wheelchair Or the width between the legs of their desk is not wide enough for somebody to be able to walk to roll underneath it general toilet rooms issues include The mirrors that are too high for somebody using a wheelchair the pipes underneath the sink or not Insulating meaning if somebody rolls underneath they might burn themselves and There are various protruding objects within the the toilet rooms Also the grab bars configurations are usually wrong within the toilet rooms and the toilet paper Dispensers are often mounted above the grab bar this creates a problem for somebody who's really depending on the grab bar for support The paper toilet dispenser would create an obstruction to that Also, there are a lack of there's there's a lack of accessible urinals both for somebody using a wheelchair and also for people who cannot stand Straight straight in their back to use a urinal school specific issues in Both Forth River and Wildwood elementary schools These are the two schools that had very similar a very similar layout. So we found similar issues in both these schools especially in the library where their Storytime or show-and-tell area is not located within an accessible route So if a child had a story to tell when everybody can use this area If a child is in a wheelchair or any kind of mobility device They would have to stay outside of their centered area to present their their story also the quads within the Forth River and the Wildwood elementary schools none of the quads have Accessible bathrooms when I say accessible bathrooms. They do not have the proper signage at the door They have all their previous previous issues that we mentioned for the mirrors the sinks or protruding objects And none of them have inaccessible stall so any children in this in this classrooms would have to exit the classroom and use their Toilet room that's within next to the computer lab if I remember correctly Also at Forth River and Wildwood elementary schools we found that the central courtyard are not made accessible At the Wildwood school they added a temporary ramp Which is in itself not accessible because it has a steeper slope than required by their code And it also does not have handrails on both sides At the Crocker farm elementary school. We found that the the stage is only accessible Via a lift that's not located within the the auditorium itself If you think about it again if somebody had to access the if somebody using a wheelchair or somebody who couldn't lift their Legs had to access their stage. They would have to leave the room Go down the hallway back to the back room then access the stage which is considered discriminatory Also the central courtyards at the Crocker farm elementary schools are not accessible You would think that this material which is a soft recycled rubber material is accessible in itself, but because of I would say lack of maintenance and also because it's in an Open environment, maybe rain or snow have has affected it throughout time But the connection between the different modules create abrupt change of levels Also the other central courtyard lacks total Doesn't have an accessible road to it the issues we found at the Amherst regional middle school some of them are Similar to the other ones But the very unique issue was the elevator car size which was smaller than what is required by the code Also, we found that drinking fountains which are not only protruding objects But the code requires that if you provide drinking fountains you must provide High and low drinking fountains which would help anybody using a wheelchair or anybody who can't bend to use a lowered drinking fountain, sorry Also in the auditorium we found that the route from the designated accessible seating area to the stage has excessive slopes and The stage itself is accessible via stairs Unless you use the lift in the back At the Amherst regional high school, we also found that the parking lacks accessible configuration Especially next to the sports field where not only are the signs not located at the head of the parking spaces But also they lack access higher, which means if somebody was to park here, they would have to unload In the vehicular way, which is unsafe Also the pool is not located on an accessible route just like any of the other sports field At the Amherst regional high school, we found different ramps throughout the building That are not compliant. They either lack handrails on both sides of the ramps or they have excessive slopes Or if they have the handrails on both sides, they don't have the required extension of the ramp So somebody who's used following the ramp as their handrail has as they go up the ramp They know when they're when they reach the level ending because that's when the ramp levels up and it's called the extension of the ramp So now I'm going to open the discussion to everyone just so I can hear Your personal experience with the school or your children's experience with the school and incorporated in our reports So we can update the drafts that we submitted into final report and then KMA can either help you in creating a priority list on how to make the not every not making everything accessible but what's What to be made accessible based on the children's needs or based on what the code would require as First second and third priority Also, once that's done KMA provides architectural services, which means not only would we help you understand how to prioritize, but we could help you in making architectural schemes on how to make some classrooms Rather that be in their layout or in their architectural boundaries more accessible Thank you I want to start by thanking you again for such a comprehensive report And and the school members have all received the relevant full reports for the schools and their three districts I'm not going to bore you with our governance model But it's not worth the time but that there's people who are sitting on different committees But we sort of function in this way as one district because we're all three districts share a vision statement and a mission statement They're dedicated to all students So before we open up for school committee questions I actually want to acknowledge that our Facilities coordinator who is starting tomorrow took a couple hours early start and rupert roy clark decided to come given the content so that He could hear directly from the consultant. So thank you rupert for being here. I really appreciate it and welcome He will be a key member of the team Taking next steps on it. So rather than watching a video or anything like that We wanted to we asked them and he agreed to be here in person to hear the report Wonderful. So we have in the layout of the room conveniently We have amourst this way the which is the amourst elementary committee and we have tell them over here and then A whole bunch of us are also in the regional that deals with the middle school and the high school And just wanted to open this up. I mean, hopefully the committee members have had a chance to look through the report I know I received actually Copy that went through all the schools. I'm assuming all the other committee members did as well So If if you have questions or comments that we should open it up for that now Yes, it's me now What do we what do we have to do first? You mean physically So As I said earlier, we've we've flagged everything that we found in the report everything is in the report But Everything does not have to be made accessible. So what you have to be to do next is I'm not sure what the process is if you take the reports to a municipality and talk about budgeting and scoping But what you would have to do next is understand What what are the needs in the school? what What are the areas that are critical at the schools that the students cannot access What are the areas that are critical at the school that the public cannot access from there? you would have to create a priority priority list or based on Whatever scope of budgeting you have understand. Okay. What has to come first from there you can move on with renovations and architectural work why don't we Take questions from the committee or comments before we talk about those and that kind of next steps Unless you wanted to get into that I had questions great So thank you both uh for being here tonight and also for your very detailed presentation It was really really helpful and I um had looked through the Information the report that was sent via email as dr. Morris mentioned and had a couple of questions and comments one I found that There were a couple areas of the reports that were particularly troubling for me that you mentioned tonight In particular, I think the lack of accessibility to playgrounds in sports fields Across all the schools Seems to be a real barrier for you know for students to be able to participate in recess and to be able to Just get outside and enjoy time with you know with friends and everything. So I think that that is actually a real Serious issue that's been raised previously by our community But it was good to hear or not good, but at least you know affirming to hear in this report Um, I also realized that looking through this that there were quite a few things that were pointed out in those charts That you've helpfully added at the end that are either little cost or even no cost That can be you know can help mitigate some of these effects, right? And so I think you know my question there is Um in your work with other districts and communities. Have you found that addressing things like that? Can be helpful in terms of you know helping the district prioritized projects, right? So as you're dealing and thinking through the impact on budgets If you can put together a punch list of items that can be taken care of pretty quickly and easily You know, does is it helpful to do something like that first and then move on to? Maybe you know higher budget items or is it more useful to have a comprehensive plan to deal with everything simultaneously I guess i'm looking to you know, both of you for for that kind of guidance For the committee and then finally the only other comment that I had was just around the cost for a lot of these things. I think Looking at you know, the the elementary schools in particular Because that's our purview for this chair for my chair in this in this committee You know, I mean, I think no school was under 140 thousand dollars for the elementary schools And you know a couple of these schools I think are very clearly in in rough shape But honestly, I think all three of them all three elementary schools the crocker farm wildwood and fort river here in amherst clearly need help and so Um, I would love any further thoughts that you might have on you know, how to deal with some of those issues as well. Thank you So to address our priority question what kme has done is the in the past is we've added a column Right here that says priority And we've had with we usually suggest let's say we have a range from one to five What should be addressed right away and what can wait a little longer When we add this column at the end, let's say we say, okay, you have Seven accessible parking spaces. Let's make one accessible for now. Let's regrade one parking for now that would be Number five because it would be number five and then we would explain that you don't have to make all of them accessible But if you have one based on how the number of parking you have that would be fine Once we submit these numbers from one to five Then you would take these numbers to your financial team or Discuss to discuss budget you would take all the fives that we've numbered And you would and you would try to understand Within all these fives which ones can we which one which ones can we afford to mitigate right away? Once you've decided on that you could share that with us and we would let you and we would make you We would help you understand if These those different fives that you've chosen would that be enough to comply to comply with the code Does that make sense? Thank you and When it comes to the cost just as a general background of the cost KMA came up with these numbers. We've done a very big project with beth israel And we worked with an estimator on who worked on different ADA projects and we came up with these numbers based on The different works that we've done with him and with other estimators These numbers are general ballpark of what it would cost to fix these issues And again the the total report the total cost of this report is very high because this is a comprehensive audit We are flagging every single Issue that we find we found in the building, but again not all of them Need to be made accessible. So if we agree on adding the last column one to five If you think about the different fives that you would pick It would make that number drop considerably as long as we can have a Mutual understanding on what can be affordable by the school and what can meet the law at the same time First I just like to echo thanks, you know, this is really wonderful to have actually taken this step and done this audit I I'm wondering just, you know, and this may be taking us a little off track But we're about to hopefully in the near future replace some of our elementary schools and this audit has really highlighted I think another reason why it's important for us to make that step forward, but One of the things I'm thinking is Amherst is a community that often prides itself in accessibility and You know, obviously we we've fallen far short of that and we have a long ways to go as we move forward what I'm wondering is This is laid out all of the Guidelines that have to do with the law But for example, you know our town has just adopted net zero bylaws You know and we clearly want to go above and beyond what's needed to make a green building For example, um, if we were to go want to go above and beyond potentially with our new schools and make a truly You know accessible building that maybe goes beyond what's required by the law Do you have any recommendations on how we could do that or what where we would even want to start to look as we move forward just because it seems like Given everything you've shown us it it would be good to be proactive because it seems like we're always learning more about ways to Make our buildings more accessible. Thanks So what I would suggest is so I can explain the process um that kma usually goes through when dealing with towns or schools with ADA projects Let's say you have an architect Who's working on a brand new school who submitted drawings early drawing early schematic drawings of the school If you already have an architect in-house You would submit the drawings to kma or any Accessibility consulting firm where we do something called plan reviews It's where we have the drawings in front of us And we just like I explained we do the audit We literally walk through the floor plans as if we were using a wheelchair or low vision And we're flagging every single thing in the drawings that do like that do not comply with the ADA or 521 cm Or the state or federal's local Building code Once this is done We submit The marked up drawings with a report not only do we cloud Barriers in the drawings themselves, but we also write a report With numbers just like this that match the clouds that are in the drawings and we submit to the architect These marked up markups drawings are changed into design development Once that other step is taken they send the drawings back to us for the same process And we we follow the drawings all the way through To building permit submittal where we stamp the drawings and we we give you the Guarantee that everything is accessible within the drawings Then once construction is done or during construction we do something called Post-construction audits where we come with the drawings that we marked up Where we said everything in those drawings is accessible We come with these drawings that are perfectly accessible and we walk through the built The the building and make sure that Everything that we flag that was wrong in the previous set is not repeated in the construction or There are no construction tolerant errors within the building itself So this is this is something that you can do with any accessibility from working me Now if you don't have in an architecture or an architecture from one architect and house to do the drawings for you We've worked a lot with the msba So they usually have architects in in house that send the drawings to us So this is another step that you can take reaching out to them if you don't have an architect in house but at the end of the day the drawings must go through and Accessibility consulting firm to make sure that they are ADA okay I guess my second question was just trying to get at whether or not there is a level above ADA compliance. Yes. That is kind of a gold standard For accessibility. Yes. So when we do these these ADA work, there's something called best practice which goes beyond ADA but best practice is It's usually done when You are in touch with the people using the building Because if you don't know what they need you can't meet their need You're just going by the letter of the code and the code is very black and white but sometimes Somebody might need for example, if you think about a door that's not compliant You can add a paddle next to it and somebody can use that door, but it doesn't make the door compliant It makes the door accessible Which is not something that that the code would say the code would say make the door bigger So somebody can use it But you can also just make use a paddle and the door opens by itself And the person using the wheelchair does not even have to interact with the door So these things are called best practice. They go beyond the the code I can't say that it's something that you would find in any building code But it's something that you would find In understanding who will be using the building and just like we're doing hearing feedbacks What do people need? How can we help? And that's how you do best practice and go beyond the 80 or 521 CMR One of the things that A couple years ago, I got familiar with an organization in Boston I think it was called the Institute for Human Center Design Yeah, and what I found It shouldn't be revolutionary, but it was revolutionary to me anyway was designing furniture designing spaces designing You know tools that you use In a way that have a universal design that Is Aesthetically pleasing. I think because this was actually like professional designers. They did everything look really nice Like it's from IKEA But but the but the philosophy behind it I really liked because as you're describing best practices The the design of the classrooms the design of the bathrooms the design of the like the kitchen or counter spaces We're intentionally designed in a way that somebody Could have a spectrum of mobility a spectrum of of abilities Site anything else um height whatever it is and find the functionality Universal you know and in the reason I say that is because so often when we're doing designs and mitigations The in this thing they were talking about when I was meeting with Valerie Fletcher there that it would that What you do is you design something You know because you have somebody who has a particular Accessibility challenge you then sort of tear out the room and you put in things that You know mark out the fact that this is for somebody who has a mobility challenge, right? And if you start from the beginning with a new school or a new space It'd be interesting to me if there's if there are examples of schools that have designed from the beginning spaces that feel completely welcoming Completely functional because what really struck me and this is an awful thing to say But what struck me from reading through the report? Which really bothered me and it's why it'd be great to prioritize how to knock some of these things down was that in so many cases these buildings were designed with Those students and those staff members who might have mobility challenges or visual impairments Um as if they didn't even exist it wasn't even so much that they were jury rigged or Set to the side It's as if the schools were designed in such a way that the people who had come into them couldn't possibly have Those mobility challenges or whatever it is or circumstances and it it it strikes me that it would be desirable to think about facilities in which we could flip that model and say imagine facilities in which You know every everything you go into is accessible But I I mentioned that comment just because it was brought up and to me it's something that I think would be a great goal and just add one last comment because I'll finish my comments is I when prioritization what I would also love to see in the near term Is when we're doing Routine maintenance or furniture acquisition and things like that How can we take the existing budget? We already have where we're going to be spending money anyway and use it in a way In which we're just replacing it with desks or tables or chairs or other things that allow for Um starting to meet some of these these needs Yeah Thanks, mr. Demling them stop Um, so yeah, I'll echo very everybody's thanks for for your work in the report. Um So yeah, so my main question is it's probably for the superintendent so you can wait till the end and Address this but it's really about the the process that we take for prioritization In knowing that we don't have infinite money, right? And so how do we go about adding that prioritization column? And you know one piece, you know is getting the the knowledge and the background experience and the consultants another Piece though I think is is really trying to leverage as much as we can the the lived experience of our key stakeholders and When I think about the key stakeholders and in this situation, it's it's our students with disabilities It's their families their aides and Their teachers both current and past because these are the real people that have lived through this right and have the specific feedback For each of those buildings in terms of what what's going to benefit them the most because you know the thing that I was struck through as I was going through all the line items in the report is that was very objective and very you know to the letter of the Of the code, but I had a real hard time I being able to identify to any degree. Oh, this would have a huge return on investment This would have a real value add to someone's experience Because I think what we were probably in the situation of us We know we have a finite budget and so how can we you know in this year make the most? Progress on that and then and then going forward So I know that you know we talked about a general survey I'd be interested to hear how we focus in on those key stakeholders and that that lived experience Oh what he said No, literally Like nodding in in violent agreement because I literally was going to say almost exactly the same words about Um prioritizing based on lived experience and getting the most return particularly Given that hopefully our two of our many buildings will have a very short life. So Um And I'm curious. So it's actually also a question of clarification When you say that you're going to Integrate the public feedback that you've received Is that going to be informing the prioritization or is that is your prioritization more just your expert? Advice and then we separately would go through that process of Prioritizing based on our own communities lived experience and priorities Okay, so as I said earlier a lot of the things that I'm hearing or that I've seen in the survey Have already been flagged in our reports. So It would be just adding the column and Based on how many how how many times I've heard it how I understand it affecting the accessibility of the school That would affect the number that it gets but also if there's something that We missed or if there's something that from talking to you is new to us it would not only be Added to the The table but also be taken into consideration based on how important is it not only to the school But does it meet the would it help the the school meet the the codes requirements? So it would be both And also I wanted to address your comment. Um It's funny when you think about well a lot of people when you think about accessibility. It's usually A last-minute Thing it's a ramp that's slapped to the facade of a building. It's a lift added to to the Backside of our school There's really no Smart answer to well, how do you do this? It's do you care enough to understand that this is not An add-on. This is integrated Design, this is universal design. It comes with the building. It comes with whoever's using the building not even People using a wheelchair a pregnant late anyone push pushing a troller somebody who's in a in Any student using maybe the gym and who's hurt themselves playing basketball. They're gonna be Disabled for a couple days. How do they access the building? It's thinking about that. It's not thinking well, we just need to meet the code Let's just put a first a ramp in the facade of their building. It's Let's make sure Every single detail the desks in the classrooms are accessible the height of the Chalkboard is accessible any every single detail in It's not something that you can open a book and read about it's Within whoever is designing the building And that's that's the best answer. I could come up with there's no smart wise decision that somebody could come up with it's just do you care enough to understand that You cannot draw or build a building and not think about every Anyone who would be using the building everyone What I want to make sure we do is make sure that if there are other members of any of the committees who Wanted to ask questions or make comments that they have an opportunity to do so Then I assume the superintendent had thoughts on next steps or other comments you wanted to make is there anything Then proceed so, um I think a couple things one is that I think we've enjoyed our relationship You know with the team that's worked with us and we would want to get to that prioritization places as people have spoken about I think on a larger scale. I think um I'd say this well So I'd want to integrate this topic within our capital discussions We have one tonight at the amp for the amherst school committee meeting and so The way I view it is that this shouldn't be Somehow separate from the capital discussions actually should be part and parcel of the capital discussions that I think the more we keep The information we receive from this audit to be its own topic The less likely it is it's going to be seen as in like the secondary capital discussion And I don't think that's actually consistent with the whole approach that we're trying to take Um, so that's the way I'd like to see those conversations go We'll have capital discussions in all three districts, you know, um in the near future some like an hour from now And another is a little later than that um I do think also that we have to the prioritization is important because we want to plan for the future So, you know at the amher school committee for instance We kind of proposed a five-year capital plan. We'll go over that with some some thoughts tonight And that we want to plan for what's the most, you know, someone used the phrase, you know What do you get the most return on investment for so that we want to think about that? I think the challenge with with that analogy or that phrase and this is that we don't know who our students and staff will be And so the students who and staff who we have are going to be different than the Their needs are going to be different than students that are coming So, um, I think the the community value It's not to say that the community feedback isn't valuable and it's incredibly valuable But when we think about our preschoolers and their needs, we want to be plan full in the same way that was described You know before they get here Not to be reactive and I think perhaps my final comment is Uh, it's painful to read these reports. So I think as much as, you know, everyone is rightfully acknowledging and thanking you for your work Um, no one should feel great leaving the meeting tonight about what we've read. It's it's quite humbling to realize Um, in a formal document, it's it's making formal what has been less formal Which is the lived experience of staff members and students for dozens of years in all of our buildings at every level And so that doesn't feel good. It shouldn't feel good. Um, so I think the the only It's also frustrating to be reactive instead of proactive Right, so, uh, I could list a couple things we've done over the last five years in the district to make our build That would have showed up on the list. Um, that the didn't which is good But uh, we haven't taken this step, uh, before so I think we need to take Forward moving steps now that we have this information to make, um These buildings which to mr. Naga dreamers point. I agree. They were not designed with everybody in mind They were designed with people who had a lot of characteristics Uh that are shared by Significant members of our population, but not everyone. Um, that wasn't how the builders designed So retrofitting is not as good as design and I appreciate miss spitzer's questioned around that But that's what we have so that's what we'll do So, you know, mr. Roy Clark's got challenges in front of him This being one of them, but I appreciate him being here tonight And I think the reason I encouraged him to come was that this is a high priority for the district is We've got multiple facilities issues. There could be a different consultant looking at Something else that would tell us something about our facilities, but we prioritize this one to bring tonight And what we would do is come back to you with some prioritization working with with our team And then figuring out how that fits within a capital capital budget not just for next year, but for multiple years moving forward Thank you superintendent and thanks to kma There's very much for your report. Um, the great thing about it is is that uh, thanks to the advocacy in the community There's a cpac and the committees themselves We have taken the first step and so People should keep us honest and where we are on this, but um, I don't have any question if this is going to be an active topic in everything we're doing Thank you very much for thank you And we're unbelievably running a half a minute ahead Uh, which I think has never it must be the harmonic convergence of having the three committees together So with that, um, thank you very much. Thank you and we'll move to the um item three on our agenda Which is a German of Pelham and Amherst And on the Amherst side, I'll take a motion. Thank you On the Amherst side, I'll take a motion Move to adjourn Thank you. Do we have a second Second All those in favor Thank you. We are adjourned Mr. Dunlop and seeing the presence of a quorum I will call this meeting of union 26 to order and I will just briefly mention for the those of you following along That union 26, uh, that does not meet frequently is the superintendency union Uh, shared between the Amherst district, uh, elementary district and the pelham elementary district That's the organizational structure that allows us to share Central office personnel and services such as the superintendent finance director Um, and so it's called to order when we discuss matters involving those Personnel and services such as tonight and that and so so the sixth person committee three from Amherst three from Pelham, uh, so it's myself sardonyas miss mcdonald and from pelham the members are Miss castinson mr. I'm sorry If raise your hand if you are from pelham and a member of union 26 Okay, so mr. Manino and then could you introduce yourself? Jessica Jean-Louis Sarah hall Rob Manino Great, uh, do you your next order of business? Uh, and okay, and so, uh, the next order of business is to discuss the potential shift in the role of the finance director Which is a shared item between the region union 26. That's why I was referring to you, mr. Chair Dude, that is so you know, it's funny. This is such a formal setting Normally, there are lots of like dudes in yeah, man in our regular setting. So I'm like feel a little uptight tonight I got to chill out That's wonderful. So what we're buttoned up. Yeah, but not don't show up too much, right? Just find that happy medium terrific, uh, so Superintendent, would you like to so hopefully everyone's had a chance to review a memorandum On this subject or on the finance director and a potential additional role for him at the town of Amherst And I hope you do willing to introduce the topic Sure, so um, and I want to thank town manager for being here tonight So he's here if there's questions that are relevant, uh, he's here to answer them. So thank you for being here About two months ago, um, mr. Bachman and I he engaged me in a conversation knowing that um There's some significant capital projects being thought about and potentially planned for the town of Amherst And that our finance director shaman gano has a particularly has many strengths But one of them is ability to take complex sets of information share them, you know in a very accessible manner with large diverse groups of stakeholders And also has a strength of understanding complex interrelationships between projects. Uh, and I think of those of you And all three committees or in this case two committees Have seen mr. Mangano's work on that way and that it might fill a need For the town of Amherst to have Sean spending some time. So he's been mr. Mangano spending some time Working for the town, which you think you uh, my predict you could have easily predict my reaction is like, yeah, right No way, you know i'm keeping him busy enough And um, so we then engaged in in more conversation about how that could fork How could how could mr. Mangano spend some time working for the town of Amherst? What would that look like? And how could the district be compensated in in response and to be very frank There's a financial element to it, but that wasn't my main primary concern. My primary concern was about the work and um knowing that Many of our committees are looking at some procurements that are Significant starting in the summer all three of capital projects Procurement, I would think it's fair to say for mr. Mangano. It's not his favorite part of his job It's incredibly time consuming and mr. Delaney when works in the town might disagree but not not necessarily what Mr. Mangano would enjoy in terms of being intellectual stimulation in the role so We talked about that and we talked about how it could perhaps work to take some work off mr. Mangano's plate because we knew this was coming if this was approved They were to come a significant amount would come um I think it's also worth noting that mr. Bakum and I had Pretty extensive conversations about making sure that conflict of interest between multiple employers was dealt with and that Um if mr. Mangano for this role would be working for the town of Amherst Well, there's there's more than one town represented around this table and in these bodies And one could imagine conflict and I think the thing that made me feel comfortable is really mr. Mangano's work would be On the communication and technical side not in terms of advancing a project or making recommendations That would be the town manager's role for the town of Amherst Not mr. Mangano's role his role would be to to run numbers and create visuals to support Whatever it is the town manager is proposing So we then engaged mr. Mangano in The planning so that his opinion and his thoughts were taken into account Uh, we talked about Seeing how this goes so you could notice in the memorandum that it's uh to be evaluated by september 1st of this current calendar year Because we work where we don't know exactly how how this will go it might work swimmingly where it's a relationship that we want to extend Uh, it might not work as smoothly and we might say it was worth a try and you know now after six seven months We're realizing that the workload's not 10 or 15 percent of mr. Mangano's I'm significantly more or on the town side they may say no We have new staff coming in that we think can manage this is a whole number of variables that we don't know but um I Came to the conclusion after talking to mr. Mangano and mr. Backelman That this in my opinion would be worth recommending to have about an eight month trial period See how this goes uh come back in the summer to give a report to the committees so that You can then evaluate Based on my recommendation But you know you can evaluate based on a whole number of things whether this is relationship that we want to extend more temporarily Or even beyond and the town would likely want to do the same thing on their side as well so we want to just uh at least bring this up for discussion and Certainly mr. Mangano came as well in case there's questions that you have for him that he'd like to you'd like to hear him answer as well All right. Thank you very much. Are there questions from the committees mr. Dulling I had a couple from mr. Mangano if he's available So so shan, you are tremendously valuable resource to our districts I think anybody who's served on any of these committees for any length of time notices that and So the first my first reaction when I read this was well is shan happy with it? So one I just want to know if you hear from you personally How you feel about it in terms of your your personal career development and just your job satisfaction And then too just professionally when you look at the details of the time sharing and how it's worked out Do you feel like In your role as finance director you would still be able to adequately service all the districts that you're required to So i'm very satisfied with the job to date. So It is a new challenge, but You know, I viewed it as a need of the town and I like to fill needs or help So that's sort of how I approached it In terms of workload, I think it's sort of unknown. That's why I'll be very You know open with mike about dr. Morris About you know, how it's going You know, I have two young kids a lot of stuff going on the district and that's going to be sort of the first priority So that's why I think it's good that we're doing as a trial period to see how it goes But again, I think it's a need I'll try you know, I'm gonna do my best To provide the data that can help facilitate a process that can move the town forward As mike mentioned, it's not going to be making recommendations. It's going to be providing information the way, you know, I do Hopefully all the time And yeah, I'm happy to give it a try so I will say that I was I think I had sort of the same reaction that mr. Dumling had just wondering how you felt about It's you know reassuring. I think to hear that you've thought about this, of course In your sort of signature style I've seen and worked with you, you know, quite a bit both in union negotiations and other Aspects of the work for the district and school committee And definitely appreciate how much of a commitment that is in time and energy I also recognize that, you know, the District office the central office is short in staff And that it that's also impacted the business office Over which you preside and so I have to say that I am kind of concerned about this not kind of I'm very concerned actually And I am also worried about You know conflict of interest. I appreciate dr. Morris's Review of some of the steps that would be taken But I want to acknowledge publicly that I think There's a lot of information that our finance director Is privy to You know with bids and things like that that could potentially cause some real You know conflict of interest In in respect to one one of those towns getting more information than others and you know So I I don't want to raise alarms where there shouldn't be alarms But it there's something really not sitting very well with me with this, you know, this idea and this proposal I'm open, you know to changing my mind and thinking about it more and I appreciate again your honesty and you know I'm thinking about all this But I am I am very much concerned about that and I also think You know having a procurement officer Or someone in charge of procurement only in my mind ameliorates a little bit of the workload Again seeing all the different things that you're involved with I think it's probably fine, you know in the short term when we don't have things like union negotiations But as soon as that something comes up that sends That workload or tips it over the balance Um, I think very quickly this becomes a bad idea. So, um, you know in my interest is in maintaining keeping you around for as long as we can Mr. Mungano, uh, but also maintaining the stability of the of the district and making sure that you know the really good staff are Well taken care of and have as long, you know careers. They possibly can there. So Anyway, that's just I just wanted to share my thinking right now um, I just want to be sure I understand with um regard to the sharing of the town of amherst procurement officer with the district Because in terms of palom we're Using the services of the finance director not as part of the amherst palom regional school district But because of we you know, share the superintendent So would that person then be offering those services to palom to sort of in Lou of sean basically is that mr. Mungano? Is that how that works technically? I would still do the palom elementary portion The regional portion which also benefits palom would be the procurement official So I just have two quick questions. Um One is I noticed like tonight is the finance committee meeting of the town council and we're also having our Meeting and you often I assume would attend the town council finance meeting. So, um one thing is just Some concern over scheduling of these types of meetings. It's a lot As somebody who attends a lot of these evening meetings We have a limited number of evenings and I'm sure your services will be needed at more than The number right now and then My other question was just whether or not the town of amherst is going to continue to look for a full-time finance director Because it seems like 10 or 15 percent of one person Wouldn't be enough to do all of the work that's needed for the town and If that's true that they're continuing to work Would this be something that might phase out if they find somebody who has the skill set that they're looking for and that may Be a question more for the town manager. So Thank you So we are continuing to look for a finance director for the town and looking at various configurations as you can imagine Oh first off, thank you for even considering this to the to the committee the regional committee in the union So as you can imagine replacing someone of the caliber of sandy pooler and Is really hard and I think we have to be adjusting our sights in some ways but In fact, I interviewed someone today for that role the I think that mr. Mangano brings a Unique set of skills as the superintendent identified He's already ramped up on all the major capital projects Half of the projects that we're talking about already are in the school district He has familiarity with all the players And I think there's no startup time and he has incredible credibility as you all recognize I think Mr. Morris, dr. Morris, and I neither of us know exactly how this is going to play out That's why we want to try it as a pilot and see how it works And if we get someone with a different skill set, um, then we will look at this again in the future But the sort of criticality of the time is is what's what's important right now Because there are going to be decisions being made in the relatively near future You mentioned going to finance committee means I think most of the Concentration of effort is going to be for the joint capital planning committee Which meets typically during the daytime or it has in the past and I assume it will continue to be that way Thank you very much, and I appreciate you're bringing it to the committee And actually it's funny when I first read this My reaction was was I had some similar thoughts to my colleagues But my first thought was I wasn't remotely surprised that the town Given my experience with you, mr. Magano said what a spectacular talent We'd love to have access to it to try to work through some of our challenges on doing capital planning So I compliment you on thank you. I think it's a represents An acknowledgement of your skills and accomplishments Within the district I think what I would love to see if we end up doing this is Well before September I'd love to see At least a meeting with the the chairs of union 26 on the in the region to get an update on how it's going So that we have some sort of intermediate review on what issues are coming up. What adjustments? I could be more people than that. I'm just saying at a minimum. I'd want some sort of Interim view on the part of the committees to update us on how things are proceeding well in advance of September 1st One of the things that It may sound funny because it probably sounds overly abstract apart from some of the issues of I think a literal conflict of interest it's part of the thing for me is that With a new town council and some changes in the structure in hammers One of the challenges we have are trying to sort of articulate and understand The legal lines of accountability and authority That we have in the different functions we have in our region And so one of the challenges I think we have is that the At the elementary level in hammers On one level the schools are a department of the town and are fully integrated within the town on another level There are higher. There are some key actors are hired and answerable to a committee that's independently elected and has um by stature other other lines of of responsibility and accountability for the committee and At the regional level obviously it gets even more complicated than that because you have more more than one town That's involved in terms of the funding decisions in terms of the electoral accountability in terms of the decision making and so when Even though it on some many respects makes perfect sense to try to do this I'm just flagging the fact that even as a long-term relationship The the more you one sorts of inadvertently Blurs the the lines of Reporting the the more potential You have for misunderstanding and I think that's particularly true if you have one set of committees or Administrative officers and leaders who understand what we're doing now If it were a different set in five or ten years Then you could you could run into other challenges from it and and and so to me In addition to sort of literally the functional areas of trying to work through how does this work? And a practical matter it was information and decision making part of me also just thinks about Trying to have as much elegance and transparency around what are we doing? Who's doing what and who are they responsible to? And and the less blurring of that I think the better off For everyone and particularly in a startup mode where I think and I don't mean this at all Sitting where I'm sitting right now particularly in this lovely August room I don't mean this in any way as a disrespect to the current town council But I think when you had a select board for example that have been functioning Multiple years with the same folks and a lot of the same core practices I might have more easily said for eight months Let's go with it because you kind of knew all the stakeholders in the joint capital planning committee and worked on a regular basis You know it's almost as a machine of itself trying to go through a lot of these decisions so the other thing too, I guess this has already been said but This is where I'm sensitive to your workload. Mr. Magana. I'd also say on some level if you're volunteering for it It's your funeral. Sure. Um at least for eight months I don't mean that in a negative way. I'm not sure to be flippant. I'm just saying is that is that the interesting question is how much does Mr. Delaney's Work which I'm sure would be substantial Functionally offset and I don't I don't not say you can answer me now any better I think it was something we're going to do. We're just going to have to find out And hopefully it'll it'll be helpful. I'm sure it'll be helpful in many ways anyway but It's just it's more food for thought in terms of anything but You know Nothing ventured Nothing gained Mr. Delaney Yeah, so I would echo mr. Nakajima's comments that you know well before september if this would were to go ahead we would want to Get together to to assess how it's going You know and I guess to address because because like mr. Nakajima points out there are structural unknowns We've never dealt with the town council and other other avenues and and To echo some of mr. Joni's comments that you know there are other unknowns, you know the essential Problem here to see if we can overcome is You know we don't know how it's going to go We don't and the committees don't want to put our districts in a position where all of a sudden we have major financial director Resource need that is not available right and so um So, you know, so two thoughts one is I think it would be kind of incumbent upon mr. Mengano to that if he's agreeing, you know to a specific number of hours that that's a hard cap You know, there's um, it's not you're not an exempt employee Where you just work through the weekends and every hour and you're missing your kids birthdays, you know, it's it's a hard cap number of hours um That's one and two is i'm wondering if if there may be some adjustment to this Terminate the agreement a 90 days notice that seems like a bit of a long time with this kind of a change so um Maybe the town manager could comment on if if he would be comfortable with with a significantly lower number than that And that would maybe make the committee feel more comfortable, but if it became unwieldy For the districts that might be, you know, a quicker out clause Yeah, I think the idea on that was that The committee or the superintendent or I or mr. Mengano could all have a rip port We could pull at any point to say this is really just going south on us pretty quickly 90 days if that's not the right number happy to talk about a different time frame for that That's not a big deal Great. So, um, I have a funny I got a funny question Were you looking for some sort of Vote or some sort of action Immediately right now. I know there's also another discussion to occur an executive session So we're done No, so I was trying to follow the typical initiative Prefaces at the beginning this typical school committee protocol that for anything, you know any change or a vote That would be the significant that would be discussed as That's just been or may continue Deliberated on and then come back to a future meeting for a vote I think the there's some timeliness from the town end. I think I understand from mr. Backelman Just given the number of capital projects and we're getting into jcpc season as it is But I didn't think it'd be fair to ask the committee for a vote tonight I understand the reason I was asking apart from the fact that we hadn't talked about Which is a really good reason is Because of the timeliness, I mean, I think I remember correctly we were already in the jcpc this time last year like well into Okay, so if that Is it for this discussion? We'll move forward on the agenda. We appreciate your time and Now I will look to mr. Demlin Okay, as union 26 chair I will move that we enter executive session in accordance with mass general law chapter 30 a Purpose two to conduct negotiations with non-union personnel with no plan to return to open session Thank you, and uh As we are entering executive session if I understand correctly, it's a roll call vote and so uh demling I McDonald I or don't as Or don't as I Many no I all I John Louis I Thank you. We are adjourned Okay, and for the regional committee Uh, I move that we enter executive session in accordance with mass general law chapter 30 a purpose two to conduct negotiations with non-union personnel In particular, mr. Mangana with no plan to return to open session. Is there a second? A second Thanks been moved and seconded. So I'll start at that end of the committee and please vote demling I Spits are I mcdonald I or don't as I knock a jima I manina why You