e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay everybody ready to all right you good evening uh welcome to the Thursday March uh 21st 2024 meeting of the school committee uh we have just come from executive session and I would ask for those who are here in the studio to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for yes all right so welcome we have lots of uh people here in the studio and just a reminder for those who are not aware we are being recorded by hcam for replay uh for those who are uh not able to view in in real time so the first item on our agenda here is public comment are there any people who are here to speak for public comment okay then that brings us into the the Hopkins project update sure um we have a presentation to share on screen to H arrange that we we go awesome welcome well thank you for having us uh really appreciate it I brought a bigger team today so you'll see some new faces in the room um so we're here to provide a status update on where we are on the Hopkins project itself um tonight we our agenda is that we're going to I'll first introduce our new partners which is common or Builders the construction managers you gr lost name in February that I attended uh tonight's agenda we're going to go over the schedule uh their first approach approach on construction management plan Logistics and phasing uh they've been very busy work over the last four weeks uh since getting on board in the project and Dan will present to you some exterior renderings uh talking about how the project fits in the co vocabulary of the existing building and then I'll pick it back up with Commodore we'll talk about the current status of where we are cost estimate with that um the team that you see is usually Dan and I so Dan being from Perkins Eastman as your uh Prime designer and myself being your OPM at vertex companies there's a whole host of uh Design Consultants That You Don't See which are on the the right side of the screen there um but the new members that I want introduce is the construction manager so they will be a partner that you will see throughout the length of the project now I'm going to turn over to Bob to introduce his to you uh good good evening uh I'm Rob lanard project executive with commo Builder and then tonight we have Ricky shagu he's going to be the project manager on the project uh in the audience we also have Jim deasio and Scott Garen Scott is the senior estimator and uh Jim is the uh vice president of the institutional group um public group in commo buildings Ricky and I and Scott will be working together at length during the budgeting process and the um drawing estimate process and then eventually we'll get into the construction process and a superintendent will join us after that so a lot of work for them to do once they got on board and we've uh We've certainly made use of their time uh putting them uh through the ringer to get up to speed on where we are in the overall project and so you know one of the things we want to bring up to the communities where we are in the overall cycle of the project um this project has made it through the design development stage and uh with the gold bar vertically uh shows kind of where we are now in in the beginning of quarter two uh just about and so permitting started back at the beginning of quarter 1 where we uh met with uh concom and got the extent of wetlands locked in uh we most recently this week submitted the actual plans for concom and planning board to start reviewing and permitting so we're excited to get back in front of the permitting boards uh starting next month and move the project along uh with the completion of the design development the the designer the construction management team has done an estimate and we'll talk about that uh later part of the presentation but the design team has kept moving um you know one of the nice things about the this project is that the addition itself is small and the renovations are more focused so the design team was able to work work swiftly through the overall design project you're not handcuffed like an msba job that has a very long protracted actual duration U this project is simple and straight forward and allows the design team to kind of move forward on a steady Pace with that phase we're also working into construction documents now the construction documents are really the details of the overall design and so we have a milestone coming up on April 2nd where we approach uh 60% of the design so the 60% construction documents the overall design of the project will be completed by the end of June of this year just to put that in perspective uh what we're looking to do is to bring a number to town meeting it's your annual town meeting in in the first week of May and we'll talk about the numbers and where they sit today and the work that we still have to do over the next month and a half uh to get ready for that duration uh I'm going to let Ricky talk about the overall construction because this is your first time to see the breakdown of that and then that'll feed into the logistics uh plan you'll see following um yeah so um this is just a kind of a rough breakdown of the construction phases um we'll run through the phases a little later and and what each one of those does look like um during construction on your site but um basically our goal is to kind of start out right around mid July to um kind of do some prep work and set up the site for the addition to start in um early fall and then that new addition will run all the way through to February um 2026 um at what at which point we will uh move into the renovation stage of of some of the heavier renovation in that kitchen area um and then um some of the heavy renovation in that second floor of the building um we do have the Summers mixed in there as well um during those summer months we are planning on doing the light Renovations throughout the school um in the classroom areas the areas where we're just replacing Ceiling Tiles and Floors and that kind of thing over um summer 2025 and 2026 all the while working through the site um the bulk of the site work will happen during that first addition phase um and then with some of the final tie-ins um happening in that summer 2026 you'll see what all that looks like when we run through the logistics so I fig once we go through the logistics probably makes more sense to open up to questions at that point because it will likely answer a lot of what's on your mind um so we we do have a full uh construction management plan that kind of breaks down our whole process for everything for the public safety of butter coordination U mitigation me methods measures and the construction Logistics um I don't think we need to get into a ton of detail here but we can provide that plan to anybody or if anybody has any questions it's not the most exciting topic to run through um just um starting with the access to the site um our plan is to um get off um 495 at Route 85 and access the site from that way to try to avoid any um any construction vehicles um through Main Street and clogging up that area just directing all the traffic kind of around that um and then when we do enter the site our plan is to end for all construction access to kind of take a left on that Loop Road and then we are planning to use that small one-way area for two-way access for construction vehicles um obviously avoiding any um pickup and drop off times for Access and deliveries um and then obviously um doing this safely if if we have to have flagging or directing traffic to do that but our main goal is just to stay away from the school and keep all the construction vehicles away from that school and that parking lot and that Loop Road around the building and we we've also set it up so that the deliveries are not happening during drop offs and Pickups so we strictly made the construction on the traffic management plan so that they contract the uh any of the subcontractors will not be delivering any materials and moving the vehicles during drop off and pick up all right so we're working with the school department to determine like how many spaces we can free up for the contractors AP Park in the lower lot here or the upper lot here uh and then accessing the site direct and so all the traffic would would not co-mingle with the school traffic um so going back to that first um enabling phase this is what's going to be happening in that this summer um to just kind of get the space ready for construction um and our goal here is to get this um north parking lot or page north parking lot ready um to um use as parking to use as parent drop off CU we are going to have have to take a small portion of the existing parking lot on the plan South um but our goal is to just at at a minimum maintain the existing parking and then also use a portion of that area for recess during the winter months or wet months as well as provide a green space towards the uh north um on the page in the Le hand side then you see the um the fence line is where we're going to be working on that new building addition as well as putting in those geothermal Wells and this is essentially what the um site is going to look like for that um that first phase of the project that does run from September until February 2026 when that new addition will open up so actually there is a small phase in between I yeah so there there's lots of little sub subphases and there's changes during the summer Slammer uh duration so the summer is when we take the most amount of effort right when the kids are off site to actually maximize that so what Commodore is proposing here and you know something that probably deviated from the first time we presented the phasing to you is that because we're taking the existing black top off I'm going to go back to the slide here this is where the existing black top is and that's important to the school to have an outdoor recess location in the winter months uh so what they're what they've proposed as part of their plan is that currently once we take away that access road here as you know the parking lot has an extra access the road there to do the permanent parking early on and actually add another Bay of parking here and then widen the loop to have more capacity for parents and then this Zone over here becomes the replacement black top area for students and then the resets line itself is the field we know it's tight but we will work with the school uh to release it and take it uh during various portions of the schedule to try and maximize the amount of space the kids have available at this early phase the staff has the parking uh down in this lower portion here I know bus traffic is very important and vital right you guys have a lot of buses that roll through and so making sure we have appropriate Q space here um so these are things that we're studying at the moment we certainly know we have the capacity here uh we're contemplating whether we can pave over the shoulder here to add a few more Q at the back of the line and certainly we're looking to extend the end of the line so the starting point would be brought down further so we have capacity so this is a work in progress It's the design team working with the construction team and the school department to understand all the the most critical aspects of keeping your facility running um so the so the next phase here is going to start um in that summer of 2025 um where we take that the um the bottom of the page there and and take over that existing teacher parking and develop the the parking that you will see in the permanent condition um again our goal here is to maintain as much of the um parking and at a minimum keep what you have now um and then um we are planning to open the um the play space in the permanent condition at this point so you will have access to that as the play Space so you will have access to that full parking lot in the in the top of the page there for the um the parent dve drop off as well as additional parking for that so we know these Graphics are confusing so we can always stop and explain it in Greater detail we only have one more to go but essentially the the the asphalt at the top would be turned over that would be the future parking lot with double stalls on either side um the playground area is this Zone over here if you can see the cursor off to the in the white zone here uh and then black top is down here so the students would have the whole use of that side of the site along the roadway itself the parking that is currently a double loaded uh drive a today U becomes head-end parking along the roadway so that's the portion here that's just beyond the dash line uh that Ricky referred to we turnover and so we kind of constrict you know back to this uh orange fenced area as well as the renovation portions that we would need to do in the building um and then here's a brief look at the Interiors um how we're going to be working through the building um mostly during the summer months um in that first summer of 2025 our plan is to really just tackle as much of the light constru ruction um as we can which is really the classroom work and then some of that above ceiling me work that we have to get done um and our our initial thought process is basically take half of the first floor and half of the second floor that first summer um so we have a little bit of areas for lay down spaces and to relocate Furniture if need be but really the goal here is to going to be to get as much of that done as possible in that first summer right and so the viewers at home too if it's hard to read the legend here the purple is the heavier renovation so that's that's where you're kind of marrying up the renovate the addition to the existing building and so you know changing wall layouts in order to connect to the addition is one of the heavier portions but many of the rest of the building is the yellow and green where the the ceiling tiles and some of that other light work and then there's the connection of utilities that is over off to the boiler room which is you know plan right here at one end connecting to the the addition on the other end there's one more phasing plan that first summer will be doing the elevator as well the plan is to get that done in that first 10 week period in the summertime because the second summer is going to be even shorter with inspection so we want to get the elevator done uh in that first summer Slammer and then lastly yeah and then um this is um the plan for the last summer it's it's really going to be tackling that kitchen area um where the auditorium is and that new janitors um the new loading dock that's going to be some of the more heavy construction we are actually going to start that um in February once we do turn over that addition and then um we're going to tackle the rest of the light constru ruction and then um probably the hallways and get that done in that last summer um just prior to turning the building over in its entirety in um uh fall of 2026 and the purple Zone here uh goes from the February break all the way through the summer so the other yellows and greens are the summer work of true summer of 2026 but the purple Zone where it's the heaviest renovation of the project occurs from February break uh to the start of school in the fall of 2026 so I know know that's a lot of different graphics and many different layers we can walk back through and take questions on that now uh if it makes sense or we can keep going with other portions of the presentation do people have questions you want to jump in with on this you want to hold till the end okay thank you okay uh so I'll let Dan talk about how beautiful it's gon to look oh yeah um so we uh we've spent a lot of time looking at this building and trying to figure out to knit the Unique Look of it to the addition but not have the addition kind of just mimic it because that's not really what we wanted it to do we wanted it to kind of you know pay homage to it but be its own thing and um what we've ended up with is um a little bit different than I think the last time you saw it I think last time you saw it it might have had Peach roots in the front a little less splashes of color and then a like a medallion on the top the windows and we kind of decided that since there's a lot of different patterning and a lot of different colors going on with the existing building and a lot of different patterns and a lot of different colors going on with the modellers that will eventually come over and be the bookends to the addition that it made a lot of sense to bring some of those more of that language into the elevation of the new like with the kind of matching the brick colors and the matching the patterning to try to make them look like they belong together and pitching that roof back instead of having it be a peak now it's a hip um more like what they have there now so we felt that the language of this version was a lot um more in a lot better as opposed to what we had shown before we think this is really an improvement um to I think it'll it'll harmonize a lot better with the existing building so we wanted you all to see where we're at with it and uh any feedback you may have about it um but we right now this is where we're landing on what we feel is the right kind of pallet and look so the image here on the left here is the existing building uh you can see some of the the material on the top is a different material but in the same color shade and then on the right side is how the Perkins team has responded to that with all the descriptions that Dan just provided and then this is kind of a stepping back zooming out so off to the left here is that existing building this is the entire of the addition uh on the parking lot side and this is that modul that mimics the modula that's out there today on the back side of the building um and how it kind of works in that book end that Dan noted U so really trying to work with the vocabulary of of both buildings can I ask about the roof line just um is there any impact on the efficiency of of any future solar based on how you pitch the roof or I'm not sure what direction this building faces or where we put that um the building the long elevations are north south okay so the short ones are the East West sides so right now there is solar on it it's on the south side and on the east on the West Side primarily um we would anticipate that you would probably flood the gym right that flat on the bigger higher roof here yeah and then there's also there's a well in here but that needs to be studied as to whether or not that makes sense to put any you do not have any panels in I don't think in the well now which is the the peach roofs and then there's panels on the peak roofs but there's actually a well inside there where the units are so those are false frame okay and I don't think there's any panels in there so the panels are really they're on the asphalt shingle roofs on that East Side so there's a our run of asphalt chingle roof is pretty small but it it again it's going to come down to the design like if the if Ender feels that yes they want to take advantage of that space then you'd probably see panels on that East hip or that yeast part of the roof and then the entirety of the gym any questions on the elevation I didn't have any questions specifically on the look and feel of it I mean I think it looks great but the question that comes to mind for me is with any outdoor roof structural issues that we may have had with Hopkins in the past are we fixing that as part of this or avoiding something similar uh so with Hopkins We have replaced the roof so we have solar panels on the new roofs okay so it was the middle school that really had the solar now the high school it was the gy yeah so not Hopkins so the Hopkins roofs have been replaced got it um so next we're going to get into cost so um over the Arc of the project um there's many Milestones as you saw in the opening schedule and so we we go through schematic design design development do an estimate in each Milestone um the estimate We Have Tonight Is the End of the design development we're going to be doing another one next month at the 60% construction document phase uh and each time you know the contractor or independent estimate are responding to what the designer puts on there it's a refinement it's always a work in progress I just want to set the table as to kind of where we are in the overall process this is also the construction manager's first look at the project uh they bring a lot of knowledge and insight to the project so um historically their estimates are always tick higher than ours anyway at this juncture because they're getting familiar with where the project is they're turning over and asking questions that we may not have asked and it's a collaborative process as we go through that and so there's been a lot of dialogue over the last couple weeks about you know what are the right numbers for things the complexity of them is it a simple thing or is it a complex thing and what's the right value value we should assign to that and so I just want to set the frame for that um as we go through this but we understand that a number needs to go to town meeting in May and we're really uh narrowing in on that number over this month and next month and we'll have more updates but tonight is a a real update on where we've been over the last couple of months and kind of where we are at the at this exact moment in the the life cycle of a project Scott want to come up I'm going to turn it over to Scott Garen the senior estimator on this project so just before I let Scott speak uh kind of to date we've appropriated the $3 million for the full design phase and that carries us through bidding um the goal is to bring a number to town meeting that is for the construction phase of the project and right now that's running at a current estimate of about 495 to 50.5 million for total project cost so that's the construction number you'll see from Scott as well as H soft cost which I'll get to after Scott speaks all right thank you everybody for having us um just to give you a brief description where priced the DD budget uh DD design drawings uh over the last couple weeks uh since we got brought on board um and we basically developed an estimate based on those documents of about 42,500 th000 as you see at the total uh at the bottom of the spreadsheet BR our estimate down into various uh estimates by doing the addition as one cost estimate at1 19,999 and then the renovation portion of the project at 14, 516 uh then we also break up our estimate based on the site work because that's an important component and so the site of the project is about 7, 66,000 uh for a total construction cost of 41 mil 582 um and then we have some design U construction contingency added to that for a total project uh budget of 42 milon 520 for construction so the um thanks Scott so um we know there's a lot of questions about the cost per square foot of the addition cost versus the renovation kind of how the site fits in there and the the site also has some of the geothermal numbers in it which is why that site number looks higher in relation to the size of the addition itself um and so you know we're going to talk a little more about that but um you I also want to remind the committee of where the project fits in terms of the overall projects in the State uh because I think that's a good Anchor Point for the public at home it was an important Point uh when we moved forward with the Elmwood project and it's always good to understand where we fit in the the Spectrum um and so what I did here is I pulled uh the data from the mba's website uh yesterday to kind of show where we're at and I know you can't read this at home and you probably can't read this in the room um but the point is that it shows the trend right and that over the past 15 years of data that the msba has collected this particular slide is new construction and I'll get into Renault in the slide after this um it shows that the cost is just creeping up and as we stood at Elwood getting more and more steep as it goes through and so over the last uh Year all the projects that have submitted for an msba project range from $700 to ,000 a square foot which is very expensive we understand that and that's a challenge to all the districts now the the beautiful thing about the town of hopkington is that the school building committee and Elwood project really understood that it wasn't just solving the Elwood project but that the Hopkins was coming after and there were many other challenges and needs on the taxpayers and so that they need to be on that project as uh as appropriate as possible in terms of the fit and finish of the building so the building committee took a lot of time to look at the finishes of the building to pick items that were cost efficient and to drive the overall cost of the Elmwood project down because they understood the broader picture that the Hoppington public schools are going under with Hopkins and other needs and so the Elmwood project is the one right at the bottom here so Elwood is 715 there's only one other project that's uh in the range of where we were and so that shows you that of all the projects that are out there in the msba pipeline hopkington understands the value of a dollar and you really took the time on that project to push the cost down and to have an economical appropriate design for the town now the beauty of the Hopkins project is you carried the same team over and so by having vertex as your OPM and Perkins as your designer in the school all that institutional knowledge transferred over so we're not in the the user group meetings for Hopkins throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks right we we're taking that same mindset That Money Matters and every dollar counts and really driving the overall cost of the building and so you see on the addition that that Scott presented that that our dollars per square foot of the addition are also at that low number right it's a small addition there's not a lot of square foot to spread that around but we're being very economical on the dollars per square foot for the addition itself because we understand the dollars matter and trying to be judicious with how we do it Dan also presented you of the exterior facade that is a complimentary to the existing building you know Hoppington has a history of finding durable cost-efficient products that's brick many of the schools you're seeing now are having metal metal phenolic panels and glass and glazing and giant curtain walls and real splashes that's not what this town does right we we find economical decisions and we follow through with them and so that same vocabulary was done on Elmwood and the marathon before that and has continued on to Hopkins so that's why you on both these projects are at that low end of the scale when compared to all the other new projects that are going on in the state right now now the database on ad Ranos is is a lot thinner uh with the msba pipeline many reasons because those projects that go there tend to be end of life and have uh a lot of phasing complications with it so many of those projects do end up being new construction but there are a lot of AD Renos that are in there I have asked the msba for a breakdown of this data because I do want to bring back to the committee what's the ratio is it a is it a 30% renovation and and 70% new or is it the inverse right because that draws a better understanding of how these numbers fit but the most recent three are 650 to 750 to 1,000 right and the couple before that were at the 700 uh but one was down low at at uh 500 right and so you're back again to yours you're at 400 right so I I want to drive home the point that although it feels high at $42 million you know the there's a lot of efficiencies in this design when it comes to the overall cost of it what does that mean to where we are today so when I last presented numbers to you uh in November um we were tracking at a total estimated uh project uh for $46 m74 3,000 which inclusive of the 3 million was just under $50 million uh previously approved 3 million where we are now is that uh that 3 million stayed the same and so the overall cost of the project at the current estimate is up over $3 million and we'll get into the why uh in just a moment it's uh mainly related to the construction dollars as the design team the construction team and US respond to the things that are going on around us and and continually refine the overall scope of the project and then as we know the module as we're always at a later date uh I did tick that number up ah hair to include some landscaping around it uh when we previously presented it was the cost to kind of move that over but we'd want to trim it out with some trees uh so there's just a plug number in there for that as well what's changed right that's always the question that you guys want to know and is the right question to ask so we've met with the permitting uh groups we had our initial meeting um back in January the design has revolved and refined uh we ended up with a larger storm water recharge system there's also been changes to the generator uh went for a larger generator uh at this point um currently we have an additional electrical service here um that we're going to talk about in a minute when we get to Value engineering um so it's a because of the size of the building and the demand of it there's a potential we might need an additional duck Bank uh and splitting off the Transformer that may go away which I'll talk about in a second we're also doing a full fire alarm upgrade uh some enabling cost as you saw in the logistics plan for summer 24 so a little starting a little bit earlier to try and get some of that Messier Paving work done before the teachers return back for school some floor p uh and other items associated with that site work and some ledge allowances uh some acoustical treatments and some additional winter conditions and other safety and temporary systems that the contractor revises as best practices which you know we tend to agree with as well some other upticks with overall soft cost uh the cost of the the town to ensure the building is going up uh that's a an outfall of covid in general they used to be able to get Builders risk policies very cheaply and that's not the case and uh because you have Maya uh as your insurer they don't carry the building itself when you're doing a project so this project also has to take on ensuring the the existing building not just what we're touching and so that's a reason for an uptick and then uh utility back charges for that service a little bit more for commissioning and a little bit for FFN and Technology uh for FFN I didn't include in your packet I will send you a supplemental we did three levels of furniture uh in terms of you know what's the minimum you need for the spaces that we're touching what's the nice to have that kind of fits out and then what would it look like if you replac the whole building we are carrying the minimal it's just the areas that we're touching the additional space we're adding and where we have to expand and so we are being economical with the FFN as well and then the construction uh is a is a factor of a percentage update so because the construction costs went up the contingency went up as well and that's an item that I will dial in before we get to the final number to go to town meeting but I allowed it as a calculation at this point so going up $3 million is never good news right we have work to do and we're committing to do that work and so I wanted to talk to you tonight about what we're doing to do that so next steps in the overall process are investigation when it comes to a renovation allows us to tighten up all the numbers uh so we can get the best estimate in front of you so if you'd been out there over a month ago we did a geothermal test well we actually Dr drilled the 500t well and tested the thermal conductivity that report came back um this week and we now know we can reduce by five Wells and still maintain uh the demand that we need so that's that's that's a six figureure number that we can save on the project those are real dollarss um we're looking to do test pits over April vacation to identify the limits of the ledge right now the ledge kind of creeps up to the building if we identify limits we can take out the allowances that we've added to the overall project um the CM has just been brought on board but they're not going to take a breath right they're really going to dig in and take a deeper dive on phasing Logistics to understand how they can tighten up their numbers to be the right number that we bring back to town meeting um there's other items that uh that are out there that um we could afford to not do which is a there's a shade structure that exists today on the sites so we had put that in there as a replacement structure um but that's something that could be a nice to have uh should money be available at the end of the project so we're going to look at opportunities for Value engineering for that uh we're going to take a harder look at the site work package uh the design team is already working with every source to see whether we can maintain and service the addition of the existing electrical feed and not provide that secondary duck bank and Transformer so there's a lot of dollars with excavation piping associated with that and then lastly we're looking to uh reuse the sprinklers uh themselves right now we're we're only replacing the main uh and uh we have an ability to kind of relook at that and and tighten the numbers up on the soft cost side uh we're actively getting quotes from the Builder's risk so I can bring a tight number to town meeting um like I said we're talking to osaurus and we're soliciting uh three quotes from commissioning agents and then I will reduce the overall contingency as we go through the next estimate cycle so um I wanted to explain to the committee where we are in the overall process and kind of what's next so just in some before I open up for questions um where we were where we are uh $3 million has been appropriated our current construction estimate is 42.5 million our total soft cost uh outside of that 3 million is just under $8 million for the FFN contingencies and OPM and designer fees for construction phase brings us to about 53.5 million already you've appropriated 3 million from the uh previous design phase and there's $850,000 appropriate last year for the mechanical equipment upgrades all that scope is being folded into this proc project it makes sense to do it now economically when you have a bigger better buy uh with the construction manager IRA and Mass Save uh is a big number but it comes after the fact and that's something we have to educate the public on just like you did with Elmwood um that you have to appropriate the bigger number at the bottom but you can get a substantial rebate back I put the footnote here that's a potential of a million3 to potentially $2 million back in Mass Save in the ira Mass Save is a more tried andrue process as we've talked about on Elmwood uh the Ira is a program that's out there that everybody's going after but uh the state uh sorry the feds have committed to these metrics and so that may change two years from now but that's why we put the range but with everything we know now we think this is a safe range to put out there for those rebates that are that are coming back uh so if you took away the existing funding today ignored those rebates the potential town meeting request uh is 49.63 million before the ve items that we just discussed with the committee so that concludes uh our presentation and I'm happy to take any questions and talk thank you questions um with the generator changes you were talking about is that an additional generator to accommodate the addition or is it replacing the generator that's there so that it's big enough for the whole building you want take that one it was both we we've examined both yeah we've done both uh it was a new generator to service the addition only and through conversations and looking at the how the building functions right now the generator is the existing generator is set up and basically it Powers the entire building so when power goes down it just the whole building just lights back up um and that is not that's inadequate when we're because it was designed for that building and since it's designed at that maximum load with everything on it that is not enough when we add the new building to it or the new addition but through looking at how this is all going to go work it turns out that adding a 400 into a bigger generator which is I think the one there is a 325 kilowatt and this one's be 450 it you can power both things including the new kitchen which is all electric and the all the equipment so the other problem with the generator there is once we make the kitchen all electric and we add the all electric HVAC things if you're at Max in the existing building now you got a different problem because the unit that's there W even power everything that's connected to it so from a design perspective it made much more sense to upscale the generator that is there and take the a generator that is there now which I think is about will be about 15 years old when this is done and that can go elsewhere so that could go to another place oh within the school system yeah okay thank you question about the logistics the the front piece with um The Loop Road and all the traffic the go in Loop Ro I guess um I this is going to be a challenge I think managing and one thing that comes to mind is when we have I know you're avoiding dismissal and arrival times um but when we have athletic events the parking is typically all along that L it cinches in the width of the Loop Road significantly because there's no in a park we have a great turf field um so I'm definitely concerned about this particular top path um and making sure that that's pass for for uh parents and students who are driving as well as the trucks that need to get in and out there just aren't a lot of access points there's only one way in one way out so um I'm hoping that you factor that in uh I definitely appreciate the phasing and accommodating recess and parking it's it's a whole lot so I don't know when when you look at the soft cost and you talk about things that we or the cost you can maybe reduce I doubt you're going to find a lot of one of ways to cut the logistical management of this space I to me that's a huge challenge but um you I don't know if you have you factored in the even the condition of the loop road to to accommodate the trucks I mean it's I know we've put off P Paving for a bit but um this I'm a little nervous about the logistics yeah mean the the red arrow here is the two-way portion of it so it has that overswing for the trucks that are getting in uh and the deliveries um would happen at blackout time so not when pick up a drop off is happening so the construction managers are responsible for making sure that they get the message to all the delivery drivers and you know and deal with the repercussions if they're not following through on that um the goal is to have it on the two-way Road where it's least impactful to the Hopkins project itself where you have the parents kind of picking up and backing up uh pick up and drop off there and that non-colored Zone here um the the workday you they're done by 3:30 so you know chances are that all the after school activities are are not an issue um and they wouldn't be leaving with the big trucks at that point it's the personal vehicles that You' be seeing uh leaving the site at that particular uh juncture of the project and then if they are delivering like heavy equipment like a crane delivery or big excavators those are done in off hours times like a lot of times they get dropped off on a Saturday um and you know that could be scheduled as those few infrequent things happen when you were saying just to about um pick up and drop off I think there isn't really pick up and drop off at the high school but there is busing going in and out and all the students going in and out of the lube Road from the students are parking all the way down into that corner um so you're your dismissal times are going to be to full because it's going to be the high school and it's going to be Hopkins um which you may have already accounted for but the other question that you brought that you made me think about was um we have close Neighbors in sanctuary Lane um and so thinking about how early in the morning you're starting with big trucks back there maybe another thing that we have to think about so cuz Sanctuary Lane is like right right there right there yeah we we have our start time at 7 a.m. okay and and we've talked we've already discussed the the noise um and then and the neighbors so that's been a discussion yeah the contractors will be have to abide by whatever's in the planning board of submissions and and that follows the town guidelines which was work no earlier than seven uh during the week and so that's where they'll have to follow Jack I'm curious from a student driver perspective you know um do you have any comments on timing of you know when things took pick up for students on the Loop Road um I mean like throughout the day you're not going to see a lot of traffic like if they avoid the pickup and drop off times of the of the high school that's like mainly when you're going to see it but you might have problems with like students will be walking down there um especially like to H and J J lot and K lot all the way down there so you might experience some just like um students on the sidewalk but other than that I would say like the B times are normally um pick and drop off times as well I don't think many people make the walk down to J and K just to leave for like a study or something so and for for practices or things that happen right at dismissal MH when kids drive down to the to the fields there's usually parking enough for students yeah on a noname day mhm on a noname day it would usually be like one or two teams will have practice there and so that'll involve only the seniors will have to drive down so that's like a select group of kids I'd say it would be about like 20 kids maybe if there's two teams parking there but generally if there's just one it's just going to be like a group less than 10 kids so and you don't always drive down so they make the younger class and go down to the swamp area so I had a couple couple of things uh and I would re be remiss if I didn't say my kind of my overarching concerns are at this point really about the the overall cost so and I know there's lots of movements still that we're hoping to see between now and town meeting but after we had our little uh working session was that last week it was like longer ago uh you know we talked about some of the potential uh Alternatives if this does not pass town meeting and the Alternatives did not seem good for the district um good for our students so I want to make sure that what we come forward with at town meeting we're able to bring through to something the voters can support So in that vein like my questions are mostly around that if I'm understanding the cost of the insurance is shifted to then this budget for during the construction and may is not going to ensure the building correct that's correct so does the town then appreciate any significant savings on that I don't know what the cost the town is paying on insuring our Bing okay I've asked that in other towns and I've never got real good answer on it but I've never seen the money come back okay so that and then the the in terms of the generators are and this is maybe a Susan question first are how many of our buildings have generators that can power basically the all the functions I know there there are buildings that do not because we've had to close schools Hopkins is actually the only building that powers the or that the generator Powers the whole building but that is a function of how the generator is hooked into the electrical room and the experts can speak to it better but the electrical panels if you will are not sectioned off that the generator can only Power this piece because that's not how the electrical room was designed so we don't have the opportunity to say okay well let's only do this because that would be a significant change in electrical rewiring and Dan could speak to it okay better that's that's about right on yeah that's so but Hopkins is the only building that is designed that way it's the only building that fully lights up is it is it possible and not saying that this is desirable but is it possible to keep the generator doing what it does since you can't separ it out in the old portion of the building and not have generator power in the new section the well there's two issues one being that if you leave it at the old building it's going to tax it when the switch over to the new mechanical equipment That's The Greener equipment that's more all electric based and the new kitchen which is more all electric based so as you shed gas load you increase electrical load and the way the building is set up as Susan just said is basically like there's a plug into the building and that the reason why is it was less expensive to cordon off all those different electrical loads to create like you just would Light emergency lighting only and the things you need which is more common but this building you just go like goes right into the switch gear and Powers the whole building straight up and if we so will exceed more than likely that load okay and that creates this this issue okay that helps me a lot cuz I I was thinking in the scheme scheme of the world having generator power may not be the number one thing but I see why we we can't this is one there was a lot of a lot of thought here because we were thinking the same we were like well could we just save the existing generator and just leave that and the original design had a second generator over by the addition if you don't have a support for the addition then you have other issues you have batteries and other things to try to create the emergency lighting situation is not great so you really do want a generator as the backup but there was a lot of that ultimately The Tipping Point was the new equipment pushes the old Generator passed its or the existing generator P its ability and what is the order of magnitude of cost that we're talking about in this generator um line item well that's still kind of an open question because the order of magnitude and cost I think was is it a half a million dollar about 550 so but that doesn't right now include the idea that it seems that if we do do this we then may be able to get rid of the second power run so one of the issues that was driving us to creating a second power run or having two Services was because of this generator issue and once we solved the generator issue this way the engineer would said well I think I can solve the power issue now so there'll be a deduct for the duct bank and the second Transformer Pad Ballard all the things that support a Transformer and the costs from ever Source because they don't have to come and do a second service okay so maximum of a half million so yeah at the end of the day the I think that savings on the other side is a six figure number two okay thank you a lot of six fig numbers together though make some really good B something y that's correct okay all right so that I think is is I can hold with that because I know there's more to come on all of this anybody else have do other question I had I notice the fire alarm replacement for something like that is there ever grant money available for to maintain that type of Safety and Security equipment I haven't seen anybody get a grant code of that okay the fire alarm was another one that was studied at length to see if there was a way to but as we kept trying to figure out how to keep it yeah it kept telling us it was saying I can't stay here and we kept trying to say can you stay because we need you to we don't want to replace all the firearm but it the end of the day from a code perspective and the way it's geared up it's it's just not it's not a fire alarm of 2024 it's a fire alarm of 1998 so I have um some information that will also be helpful to the committee um and this is information that I was throwing um to the town a couple of months ago so they've heard this we have some projects that have um didn't go full um all the way through their full close out but came in under budget so similar to the building of marathon that came in under budget that debt was reauthorized in a different way so you have the high school addition that came in under budget 465,000 the roof replacement at 45,000 Elmwood feasibility which was funded by the school Reserve we received msba reimbursement for that so the msba reimbursement of that um feasibility study came in at 300 53,000 and the marathon addition again not full um through full close out is 434,000 so you have the potential of 1.6 million of debt that could be reauthorized towards this project so just something else to keep in mind as we're looking at the at the number what is the rate authorization process right so town meeting has already um authorize this debt uh for these projects you can't take debt that's already been borrowed or or you know designated for one project and just move it over but that's already been something that the taxpayers have voted on so rather than just give the debt back um it could be reauthorized towards this project so it lessens the tax impact for the community but who's the authorizing book body is it town meeting does it have town meeting it would go to town meeting so I believe this would be part of the motion document okay as to how this would be funded so for we have that sort of being sketched out for this year's town meeting well I've kind of pushed some information forward but I will continue to push that but that's just something for you to have also um for information and I will bring this up U Monday also for Appropriations how long do you have to reappropriate I mean there's got to be like an expiration date on some of those projects right like where like if you haven't used the funds or reappropriated that they expire um I believe at town meeting they do um reauthorize debt somewhat regularly for projects that have been closed out okay yep so it this is not an unusual process us we're just asking for our project's debt to be reauthorized toward another school project but let's say like we didn't have this project going on with that debt that hasn't been used if we didn't make a motion to reauthorize it what happens with it um the town would either reappropriate it to somewhere else lessen their debt borrowing on something else okay so potentially the town has other money to move around to other projects for I know this is outside of your scope because it's thinking of some of the recent the DPW building the um the library might also have money that they could reappropriate to other things as well yeah I don't I don't know um where they are yeah just curious about yeah it is comforting that we have a good track record of of coming in generally you know under budget with a lot of these projects I think that is comforting when we see the numbers we can have some confidence uh that will hit that you know even if we don't love them we're fairly confident except for the little anomaly we had with um Co in the marathon Edition I think that was a oneoff but generally speaking we do very well so well and it does speak to the caution around um contingencies you know you have contingencies for um and this allows you to take what would have been contingencies within projects and you know save that money yeah so all right thank you great to meet the larger team so uh last thing I want to note is we do have a couple of community forums coming up because it's I know there's many viewers watching us live right now but we do want to get beyond that so we're putting uh we're we're putting a flyer out serve of the school for uh April 3rd and uh April 30th uh so those are the dates that we're looking to have a hybrid um type of uh presentation so people can come in person uh I think the April 3rd is here I think believe and then uh and uh to get both people in the audience and we'll have a zoom so people can ask questions uh you know we had great participation at the first one via the multiple Avenues and we wanted to repeat that as well great so uh tune in for people at home April 3rd thank you thank you do we ever make our own posters for the T courts on those things like a banner yeah I mean I honestly see that more than I see anything else is like when you're driving by cuz you know how many trips for driving our kids back and forth and you read those things not bad idea all right so that brings us into Item B which is the Hopkins education [Music] okay um all right so in your packet tonight you have the Hopkins education plan I believe we saw it for the first time back in January but the committee has not formally voted on it um if you just take a quick look at the table of contents you can sort of see um everything that is outlined in there uh we talk about our vision and Mission statement in the hopkington public schools uh we take a look at um the Hopkins school as as currently built um the appropriate number of students in the way the school is currently constructed is about 628 students uh we are looking at class-size policies how we would be scheduling grades five and six um should the sixth grade move into Hopkins we talk a lot about our our methodologies um in terms of delivering curriculum in our schools we talk about the administrative and academic organization and then there's a a lot that you will see in there about the related arts and that happens because currently grade six has more related art opportunities than grade five and so we're thinking about what that would look like if we brought those related arts opportunities down to grade five uh we do look at special education programming um Food Service delivery as we know the uh cafet in the servery in the current Hopkins is is very small um the health office will be moving we we opened the building we had one nurse and about 426 students and today we have 689 students and we have one full-time nurse and a floater nurse who's there quite frequently um so uh in terms of grade level configurations we also think about extracurriculars and um that is really the content of that document I don't think a lot has changed since we took a look at it in January but I'm happy to entertain any questions that the committee might have thank you questions I think it's well done I think my only question was what has changed if anything CU I couldn't tell but if there really hasn't been changes but I don't have any question you mean from the first time we saw it yeah hasn't changed has it no not much as I don't think anything has changed we may have gone through and just updated numbers and those kinds of things because maybe in January we well definitely in January we're not at 689 students but we did go back through and and give it a careful read and make sure that you know all of the scheduling pieces U Were accurate I think the two things we talked about last time or the first time we saw it were the ways in which this education plan drives the space and drives the headcount cost and I think um did the great opportunity last week to walk through Hopkins and really get into the project and and get a feel for the space of the new music space the um the physical education space and see sort of feel the space and also see the the need for it um and then we also talked about the head count being a sort of a net like 1.5 I think it was FTE roughly to cover the related arts um strictly to bring sort of the more students into some of the related arts uh and you know I think those are the two things that we were kind of we had discussed last time so I I think me personally I think plan looks great I'm very comfortable with the spaces that we've designed I don't think we've gone overboard but I think we've accommodated the new um science technology engineering and math um right together right stem right uh the new stem um desie curriculum more Hands-On exper exper experential sort of labs and things that we want our students to do um I think our classrooms as we've designed them support this plan and the plan is driven by modern learning standards and desie so I think that makes sense for me personally um I think it looks good thank you yeah one of the things we always say about the related arts is you know they feel like they I I wonder if some people perceive them as nice to have but when we think about things like engineering that is part of the core master ched science technology engineering Frameworks and so um those those are the kinds of things that realistically our kids are mcast tested on and so when you build spaces like that um you're building them because um we have to have them um and when you look at the design of the building which I'll show you some some pictures later um this evening you'll see that the the band and the chorus and Orchestra spaces had to be enlarged and I think hopkington is a community that has prided itself on on those kinds on our on our arts and on our music programs so I think that we're we're delivering on that you'll also see that 30 is a little bit of a magic number so currently we have 16 fifth grade classes and 14 fourth grade classes and if you're a related arts teacher so you teach PE or art or music uh you can only teach 30 sections in a week you teach six periods a day 5 days a week so if you get to that 31st section you have to hire another person and so I think people are wondering are you bringing on additional FTE because you're offering things or are you bringing on additional FTE because your student enrollment is growing um and it's really about 1.5 FTE for the additional offerings but all of the rest of it is really just student enrollment grow but even if you hire that extra person you don't have the space for them yes at this point in time we don't have space for them which is why you'll see two art classrooms there are two art classrooms because once you get past that magical number of 30 you need another space to put the teacher in in the 1.5 is the total correct yes not 1.5 per discipline but 1.5 I just I I wanted to clarify I think that more for the viewers at home so y okay anybody else have comments or questions or anybody feel uh like they would like to make a motion with regard to the education plan I'd like to move to approve the Hopkins education plan okay motion by Susan is there a second second second by Lori all those in favor I I it sounds unanimous so that passes um thank you for all the work that went into that uh that brings us then into the accept collaborative agreement okay thank you um so as you know we are one member district in the accept education collaborative and so the board began reviewing this document in December um it has been vetted through desie so we send it off to the Department of Elementary and secondary education to make sure that it fits all of the roles rules and responsibilities of a collaborative um I think the big piece that is a change in this particular agreement is that uh the except collaborative has now taken westbo as a school district into the collaborative and so really when um when we all sign this document that will be the major change to it is that westbo is now a community who's also part of except and that's not an easy application process they you know have to apply probably a year in advance and then it will take uh more than a year before they actually become voting members they can come and attend the meetings but it takes a little bit for them to get there okay any questions on that is there somebody who would like to make a motion uh relative to the accept collaborative agreement I move to approve the updated accept collaborative agreement motion by Susan is there a second on that second second by Lori those in favor I I and that is unanimous and so passes thank you for bringing that back and that brings us into policy khcb which is dissemination of literature Dr Kavanaugh all right thank you uh so you can see that this is under new business so this is a policy that the policy working group has just taken up it was last revised in March of 2016 and really this is a housekeeping issue uh most of what the schools put out now in terms of dissemination of literature or information is really digital so we wanted to underscore that we're really not doing paper anymore and that what we put out there is digital in the third paragraph We also made a correction because it says Flyers may be posted on the district website with the approval of the superintendent uh we really don't put any Flyers now on the district website um certainly our building principles will post Flyers that go out in their newsletters and so that's an easy way for the community to access that information but it doesn't go on to the district website and we also eliminated the sentence that said on rare occasions the superintendent or his his her their design uh may allow for a school support organization to distribute paper flyers for grades prek to 5 and so we have eliminated all of those paper Flyers as well but other than that no big changes okay like we put in place a green policy and literature very read yes any from the policy working group that you guys want to add to the conversation on that no I think so uh because it's a first policy I I know it seems like there's really nothing uh in this particular change that would be controversial typically we don't approve after first reading uh I'm comfortable bringing it back to another meeting if you guys are comfortable with that I also could be persuaded to move it along since it's not got this is the practice that we have going on already I think I would I don't think it's controversial either but I think I would still follow our practice toow the time so at least two readings yep that's good and it's not holding anything up so no this is certainly not on fire so it is not all right the next item on our agenda is the new school project name selection if it's okay with I'd like to hold that to see if Adam is able to make it here this evening uh so that he can be part of that discussion as well do maybe want to take policy jici out of order yeah why don't we take that out of order that' be very really really good idea I think so right so policy jici is item a under old business is the weapons and school policy this is the second uh second reading of this okay so the last time we looked at this we had had I think a a very sound conversation about uh being able to bring any kind of a knife into our schools um the old policy did read that you could bring in a knife or a pocket knife that had a blade that was 2.5 in or less and I think when we started to talk about it we thought why would anyone need to do that and so when we came back together as a policy working group we eliminated the having a blade grade than 2 and2 in and so now um any dangerous weapon ammunition explosives um including but not limited to a gun such as a pistol revolver rifle shotgun air gun or spring gun slingshot bludgeon brass knuckles or artificial Knuckles of any kind or a knife or pocket knife all of those things are now um prohibited from being on school grounds so any knife of any kind um and then we looked at the religious artifacts resembling weapons and we talked about uh mostly the kpon and what we had in the policy before said that it must comply with the metrics above but since we had removed the metrics above that left us without metrics and so we wanted to make sure that we had some kind of metrics and so this is the policy and it would be very rare for us to take a look at the procedure but we have included the procedure in the packet tonight because we wanted to make sure that people uh could see the procedure and so um the procedure is part of your packet and this is an agreement that would be made between the hopkington public schools and the families of children who are carrying a kpon um and again I want to underscore for the community that it is a student's religious right to carry a kpon to school uh we have to remember that education in Massachusetts is compulsory and so if one of the ways a student practices his her their religion is to carry a kerpal they have the right to do that in our Public Schools um so we wanted to make sure that as we are making agreements with families we had um a list of criteria that we are comfortable with as a school committee and school district and also things that we believe would be um helpful really to to families and so I think um you know people at home who would like to visit the um policy can the one thing that we have said about the kpon is that it should be no longer than 3 in in length it should have a a curved and dull blade and of course it would always be um sheathed while um in the public schools and it would be worn under the clothing so and Dr Kevin I think number eight in the packet that went out says still says 2 and a half in yes and so that really has already been edited but didn't make it in the packet correct that's correct yes so the top does say three and number eight says 2.5 but consistently it should all say 3.0 correct yeah thank you okay did the district receive any feedback uh regarding the policy and any um only from the sick Community themselves yes we want to ask if anyone want to make any anybody would would anybody like to share anything um regarding the policy regarding it the way it read uh it certainly seems to protect the religious rights of the children which is the important concern of the sik community so we are very appreciative of the stance that the school board is taking uh I'll just say this from a personal point of view um so wearing a Kon is fundamental to sick practice uh once a sick goes through uh what probably would be best described as a right of initiation there are articles of faith that they are required to carry on their person at all times and the kban is one of them uh the Kuran is particularly important emotional because it really represents some of the fundamental beliefs of the sik faith which is a very egalitarian religion started about 500 years ago mostly as a revolution against inequality so the kpan is embodiment of um a commitment to social justice and an unequivocal commitment to fighting tyranny so it's very much the part of the psyche of a practicing sick and uh you know as somebody who was initiated rather late in life and had a few interesting experiences uh you know carrying his own Kon uh you know I I'll share one anecdote with you I was earlier talking to some of you my daughter uh graduated from Hop inton High School several years ago she's uh she's done with grad school now so she had created a play a year after she U left hton High School uh which you know again had to do with themes of social justice and I remember I visited uh British Parliament to present the play and I remember going through security wearing my 9 in Kon in full view with nobody in security batting an eyelid so the point that I'm trying to make here is that there are many parts of the world where siik identity is very well understood and the importance of the Kiran is understood I think uh steps like this one that the school board is taking which you know we certainly appreciate tremendously go a long way in extending that understanding of the community elsewhere as well so I can only express my appreciation thank you thank you for sharing that appreciate that okay anybody have questions I guess no I'm just very appreciative of the changes and I think a lot of thought went into it and the fact that we've received no additional feedback I think is indicative that we mov in the right direction and so that is true the school committee did not receive a single email rep voting the policy and I think just you know a note of thanks from the policy working group Dr Cav on myself and U I know Susan didn't meet with you uh with us that day but very very thankful for the education that you've given us um on this topic and your community and um very very thankful that we can U bring this forward and we couldn't have done it without the support and education that we got from you so thank you for that yes appreciate that and the pleasure is all ours um and we very much look forward to hosting you in our local gurara yes in Vestor incoming days yes and I will also say thank you to Dr Haring who came and um did some instruction for our 28 member administrative team um we learned a lot about um the sick religion and the history of sicism so thank you for that wonderful thank him for that okay so this is a second reading we typically do more than two um but I'm there's nothing in the policy that I am uncomfortable with we typically do more than do we we most policy we don't sort of have to do many two but most policies you look at we do three sometimes four there's at least one we did five of I don't think we need to carry it out if there are no I can't see us doing any yeah any more Chang changes to it yeah I mean I think we pretty much cleaned it up we could let it sit for another reading um just to be consistent I'm I feel very good about where it it's gotten to so I I think it would be appropriate if we could as pass it since these gentlemen are here and have sat and waited and for them to see it be passed I would feel strongly about having a third reading if we had received any feedback or we were making any additional changes but we've had this in the packet it's been out for the Community I don't have any concerns with voting tonight okay is there somebody who would like to make a motion with regard to the policy there's no motion written I can't find it on would somebody like a motion to make a motion to approve newly labeled policy J icii um as amended in the PCT as it's so much motion by Lori is there a second second by Susan all those in favor I and it is unanimously approved um thank you very much for coming um for being here and attendance with us so and for your thoughtful uh willingness to share with us um the meaning behind all I appreciate that thank you all right now I'm going to go back a couple of PID this thank you everyone have a good night good night good night okay so so let's move into item F which is the um FSD Staffing increase request um I'll take that so as uh we've talked about several times um during the school year is the um uh the food service and the lunch uh demand continues to increase back in the fall um we came forward looking for an additional general worker at each of the buildings at Hopkins we have not been able to fill that general worker position however the demand for meals continue um so what we'd like to do is convert that um that position into a um goodness six and a half hour day yes assistant cook Baker I Apologize um so that's for the Hopkins and again we've been rolling out the breakfast program for the elementary schools marathon is next um so in order to um roll out their program they are in need of an additional 6 and a half assistant cook Baker for that um and the thought with marathon is they're actually going to create kind of a satellite so outside of the cafeteria so that the kids can come in grab their breakfast and go to straight to class so you're basically serving in two different areas which is one why you need to um both prepare it and have another body okay that makes sense are there any questions on that no I will say though the Hopkins breakfast roll out was a huge hit in my house and it also then required parents to get them there earlier to school than the bus was getting them there so we had to have some discussions about that but it's very successful program is that good huh I I don't know maybe I just have food motivated children but this is a self-funding position it is self funded through the cafeteria and it's important to know that it's not part of the budget that is correct right and then we're not adding positions that are adding to our existing budget it is not adding to the operating budget that's correct and the demand you know the kids really are enjoying the breakfast so I will move to approve an additional 6 and 1/2 hour per day assistant cook Baker position of marathon there's a motion by Amanda is there a second second second by Lori all those in favor I and it is unanimously approved thank you very much for all that you're doing to make things more efficient and and better across the board with the Food Services thank you okay that brings us then into the Hopkinton bullying prevention and intervention plan and that is you Dr all right thank you uh so in accordance with um Mass general La we were tasked with um our U biannual revision of the bullying prevention and intervention plan so every two years what we do is we put together subcommittee of this committee and uh we meet several times and we review the document really from page one to to its close and we look through what all of that language says and and we think really hard about whether or not it meets um the needs of our students so in your packet tonight you have a redlined version that shows you all of the changes that have been made and then you have a nice clean copy um so a couple of the the highlights and then if you have questions I'm happy to answer them uh one of the things that has come up for us with the Department of Elementary and secondary education is that our document was very heavy before on using the bullying prevention and intervention reporting form and so we would continue to uh ask people to fill out a form uh desie has told us that you you cannot do that and so if somebody wants to pick up the phone and call a building principal or send an email um or have an in-person meeting any of those like mediums for communication uh we have to open that up and so we've made those changes I think throughout the document to reflect that not everyone will have access to the form and so we have to be um wonderfully accommodating when a a parent would like to have some other way to convey information to us um a second thing that has happened is we are making it very clear that we are now recording this data in power school so even if you are a person who has been accused of bullying and there is not a finding of bullying so uh that that information still goes into power school and stays there um it is obviously know not held against a student but we do keep that information because um if in first grade they was an accusation and then in third grade there was an accusation and then in fifth grade over time what you start to realize is that there have been little things that in isolation may not have been bullying but over a series of years could then become bullying so we do leave that in power school now um I think we have sort of um bolstered a little bit the section on what bullying is not because we want to make sure that people understand that sometimes Under the Umbrella of bullying we can be talking about discrimination or harassment or civil rights violations and so all of that appears in there I think more clear clearly than it used to uh we have added in training for our Athletics coaches that's brand new to this document uh so anyone who is going to coach in the hopkington public schools has to go through the The Bullying prevention and intervention uh training um just on a very quick side note the Mia has been doing training for superintendent building high school building principles and athletic directors and so Mr Bishop and Mr Andrade and I did attend that training on a Friday and Saturday a few weeks ago and I will say that the training on Saturday was pretty excellent because it really honed into Athletics exclusively so I appreciated that um and then I think the other final U thing in this document worth talking about is curriculum revision and so Deb Gorman who is our subject matter leader for uh PE Wellness has been working with the teachers to ensure that what's happening uh K to 12 in terms of bullying education is U vertically aligned and um and that it's you know developmentally appropriate and that you know those topics continue to evolve and uh come into play when when kids are ready to have you know particular aspects of bullying discussed so those are the big pieces sus were you on this committee yeah yes and Susan was our school committee rep on the bullying subcommittee anything you wanted to add to the process it it I know I haven't done it for a few years but I know that it is a pretty thorough uh process and lots of meetings that happen as a whole group typically and as the the smaller groups tackling each yeah piece can I just ask about the power school piece that's new right retaining the history who who can see that so typically only administrators can see that obviously the student information person can um it would it obviously parents because it's part of a student record if a parent wanted to know if that was in power school I mean and which is really why we're being very honest and open about it that it exists there um but if you're a classroom teacher you won't be able to go in and see that in second grade for example you know someone had been you know accused of bullying or you know in fourth grade that someone had been found um that they were finding so bullying so it's not visible to classroom teachers that was my concern so teachers have a different access level okay I think the only time a teacher might have any um awareness of a finding of bullying is if say for example a student was applying for National Honor Society you know some of those time some of times we are clear with infractions with that group exclusively interesting and does a student have to authorize access to that at that point or no like when you're trying to get into National Honor Society is the student aware that that history when a student applies yes um that student would know that you know all of the criteria for things like leadership and service and all of the National Honor Society um that's made clear and just weighing I think I understand the rationale and weighing it against our sort of restored Justice right philosophies and you know someone who was in a pattern of a difficulty who has learned and grown and changed their ways and has that still as in power school makes me a little uneasy so I should double check that for you because I am not sure that it goes back as far as say for example fourth grade yeah I would have to and if you want to not vote on this tonight and go back for this but I I can ask Mr Bishop the grade level at which we start checking recording that power school that somebody would have access to okay you know I know that you know something like plagiarism is is a thing that that committee would be able to have access to um and I don't know if it begins in grade eight do you remember the answer to that we did mean to talk about it but now I can't remember the grade level but now that you're saying that I'm pretty sure it doesn't go back as far as something like fourth grade okay but you have language in here not related to that you have language in there about how long the information's retained just generally speaking um like it says seven years under yeah 20 Page 21 the data storage and record retention discipline of students for infraction so that would be the discipline record that might not cover though allegations that have been made that were not founded right yes and allegations that you know were not founded obviously don't stay um can you tell me what p on 21 is that retention for after I think that that's after graduation after the student transfers graduates or withdraws it's a set your attention but the look back it's we're not sure what the look back is the only thing that we ever keep after that that seven years is obviously a transcript which by a lot we keep for 60 yeah so no transcripts when I'm 80 at 78 you're all through I really appreciate all the work on this I'm I just I would like a little more information about the power school if I don't know how other people feel I mean you can take a vote if you want I can just part of the reason it's Captain power school is because it gets uploaded to Desi yeah and so the state actually is you know a heavy hand in making that decision for us yeah we we did talk about this for a very very long time and I know that um the administrative team really struggles with it because if you're putting in there that someone in third grade was you know accused of bullying it It's Tricky but at the same time the state wants to know how many you know allegations there were and how many findings there were and because that's our student information system when we press that magical button all that information goes to Desi yeah I suppose if is very locked down as you say to just administrate to certain individuals who are named I guess I'd want to understand and maybe it says it in here I didn't see the section who can access that data it would be nice to have that in here okay um because I definitely would not want you know a teacher or someone who just to have a preconceived notion of a kid sure you know based on something that's in power school from a few years ago I Don't Know Jack if you have any thoughts on I was just wondering if like you'll the student will know even if it's even if they're not there's no there's no findings on them like in if they're accused of bullying in like third grade they'll they'll have that information because like I I would just be like worried if someone like was going to apply for NHS or something then suddenly that comes up and they have to like sort of combat it when they're applying instead of like knowing about it before yes allegations without findings wouldn't be considered but allegations with findings would but I I'm very sure now that we're talking about this that it wouldn't go back as far as third grade but the day of when we do start looking back at a discipline record I would have to ask Mr Bishop that question but a student could see his or her or their own record like if you go to Paris school to do whatever you do in par school check your grades you could I don't think you can see your own I don't think you see okay because that that too could leave an interesting impression on on yourself if you look back and think oh my gosh how was it was it like that in third grade I was in third grade you know and it but I guess like I'm also looking at it from the opposite point of view which is we traditionally have not had history that follows and so when you are lacking in that information and you're not you're not able to see the history and you may take a future infraction as being a first time when it really wasn't right and I think when I look at it from des's point of view they're also trying to eval which districts are having repeat offenders and why are they addressing it and what what are they doing about that and so I think you know I I get the reason why they're wanting to put it in there I guess the other piece of it is for me is you know it's really well written how how to define bullying versus not and so I think how well a school does asn't interpreting the allegations I it's it's very hard for me because I also look at it it's like a whistleblower claim in a company you know and like if you're not tracking then how are you actually like training and trying to you know protect people from it and so I understand what you're saying I wouldn't want it to hold people back um cuz I actually wrote a paper about juvenile record exension when I was in law school so I have strong pap um but at the same time I do feel like if you're not tracking it then you're also not responsible for ensuring that you don't that that you have a that you're taking care of any patterns yes no I I agree with you maybe it feel better if we just document specifically who can access that information because I I definitely see your point it it makes sense and I know it's come up before the patterns and even things that were not founded as bullying but there's a a pattern of aggressive behavior yes aggressive behavior um so yeah just maybe a little more info are we a sorry I just want to clarify so on the National Honor Society piece or well is it documented in here it's a lengthy document I don't remember who can see the power school who has 100% sure teachers cannot see just a kid's regular old discipline record that is true and where where it talks about Power School in here does it talk about access to that no but we could put that in there like who has access that would make me feel better I think sure I think and because then you're also giving everybody notice get I think that's great the the other question that kind of that brings up for me is what we're what if anything we're doing to track who has been the victim of bullying and are there to be able to track are there kids that are not being adequately protected for whatever the reason is that you know say Lori um has been fuled in second grade with a found or unfound and then it comes up again in third grade or the same groups of kids making you know having bullying reports filed against them for doing something to a particular person are we tracking that in some way so that we know that kids that have had repeated episodes that we're doing what is necessary to make sure that they are receiving support and protection as appropriate and safety plans went needed yeah and I think that's why like the electronic student information system is probably better than well it's definitely better than sort of those older methods where you had a paper folder you know yep yeah it's a good point it just it it based on what you were saying I started to think of kind of the other side of and we were in the final stage of this um we did have someone ask the question should we say that the the records that we keep now are entirely electronic to sort of indicate that paper isn't there anymore and we decided that that was almost self-explanatory so we didn't yeah we took the stance that you know in 2024 it it's assumed and public records law has and student record law has all evolved so we're going to ride the that so students won't be receiving those folders at the end of uh their senior year it's tradition we actually still maintain there's still there's still documentation lives on on parchment we have like your kindergarten screening in them it's kind of no I eventually you'll get thumb drives well there you go there you go all right so I am in favor of bringing that back for another yeah clarification on something that would be great and then when we do that if the committee is comfortable both vo on this we also need to disband that sub committee yes okay so that brings us into item H which is naming of facilities not of not the elementary school um but naming of facilities related to the um the state the theater Auditorium stage at the high school okay the right page for that um all right so thank you for this uh Mr Bishop and some students at the high school felt uh very strongly uh that upon the retirement of our theater director who's been with us for 22 years Valerie Von Rosen MinGa um that they would like to dedicate the space in the High School uh Auditorium the stage to her so essentially there would sort of be a plaque there and we would rename that the Valerie Von Rosen Binga stage uh what you see in your packet says that you been with us for 17 years but we had a last minute correction this morning that it's really 22 years um and in addition to all of the musicals and plays that you see um listed uh and we'll get you an updated list of this because I think it would be nice just for a public record to have it um it accurate uh there are additional musicals they are Music Man Beauty and the Beast Foot Loose pajama game smile My Fair Lady and gods spell and then for non-musicals the additional ones not in your packet are antigon all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten The Importance of Being Earnest Spoon River Anthology Inherit the Wind A Midsummer Night stream and views from the hill uh so what will happen next is tomorrow uh we will put out the public announcement that we were thinking about uh naming the stage at Hopkinson high school we obviously have to let the Community know we have uh one very strong recommendation here and so uh we will let the town weigh in this is a 60-day process um in the same way that it has been for the renaming of the Elmwood School and so the the loveliness I think of this is that it will happen before the end of the school year and in keeping with Valerie's retirement so um we would like for you to uh approve the sort of launch ing of this this naming so that we can send out an announcement in the morning there question or comments I went to game of tiaras I'll say that I went to K of TS and what I didn't know there was a discussion um with Valerie V because she's retiring and she had her charm necklace on and at the end of each musical the cast gives her a different charm so of course she got a Chiara this time but U it was very touching to see just it was just Laden with charms there were so many charms on that necklace I couldn't believe it but um she certainly has left you know whether this is something we do or not she has left an indelible mark on so many students and the school the district um has been a a home in the school for her her classroom her programs for a lot of students who um needed help home so she's done wonderful work on on this particular topic I am curious is do we have any precedent for doing this for doing for naming part of the school for someone who's retired I don't know the answer to that I mean I can't think of you know I do know that there are a lot of districts that will say this is you know a particular field or you know a particular court like those kinds of things but I can't think of anything can you in the high school that is named for a particular person yeah the gymnasium was name oh a do at the middle school y That's right in the brown J the market yeah yeah well I would move to start the process of renaming the um opan High School auditorium stage in accordance with policy kof okay motion by Susan is there a second second second by L I think that's a really lovely things all those in favor I I uh and is unanimous uh I I agree is also I think a very lovely thing I have been impressed with her work not just and to have the students and the staff feel so strongly about you I know that she has impacted the trajectory of many kids that come through her classroom and her stage so all right so the next item on our agenda is the school physician contract we are going to pass over that for tonight because there was uh something that was not printed correctly in the the packet um so we'll bring that back to discuss uh at our next meeting the item after that is item J which is the Middle School outdoor track and field dipen okay got to get to the right page here got so things this pack it's a big packet this week 128 Pages pages okay so here we go um this memo to you comes from Ricky andr the athletic director um this year in Middle School outdoor track and field we have 154 students and last year we had 113 students and so one of of the worries is that um the ratio for from coach to student isn't that right and then that gets us to the issue of are we making sure that we're keeping Kids Safe um so what what Mr Andrade is asking for is that we can just hire an additional Middle School um track and field coach um and it would be certainly funded right through the athletic program because the kids are paying user fees and so the user fee would you know just cover the stipend to pay for that additional coach um the other thing that he is asking is that we keep this in place for next year if the numbers remain the same and if they do not we would be happy to uh reduce and go back to the number of U coaches that we typically have other questions on this that's a quite an increase you said 113 to 154 yes yeah wow yeah so our athletic programs don't break even with user fees I mean we have cost right I mean true I think to say that the user fees offset I mean sure but it they go to a lot that those user fees are stretched they sure are very so you know I'm I'm always in favor of Athletics as you probably know I do Wonder at what point we have to put a cap on some of our you know you hate to have every sport be a quotequote cut sport but um there's a logistical limit at some point for a district and I don't know you know if this is if we're here but I think it's a conversation that we have to start thinking about because it just it's just difficult and whether it's facilities or headcount or it gets to a point where it's a little tough I think for safety reasons um we need to have coverage uh I think you talked about the anti-bullying training which I'm really grateful for going into the Athletics when you just get spread the coaches spread too thinly it's hard to keep our values and our you know what we're asking of Athletics to be consistent so I think this makes sense I just I'm starting to have alarms in my head about the size of the athletic program um and just making sure that we're thoughtful about how we expand so I I actually disagree with that from the middle middle school perspective there's very limited opportunities in Middle School sports and for the kids that don't make the teams that have limits on the number of kids that they take for baseball softball soccer volleyball those all have limits sometimes track and field is the only option a child has to actually take part in a middle school Sport and track and field is not something you have an opportunity to try at any of the younger grades so I feel like limiting it at that age group would be really detrimental to the program I think that's actually the time where kids start to Branch out and try new things I think it makes actually more sense at the high school to think about limiting because they have many other opportunities and things to do but the middle school just has limited things and you know even even some of the clubs that were offered last year for Middle School weren't offered this year here so I I just think about it from the perspective of how many opportunities there actually are in middle school and whether or not that would be where I would think about drawing those lines it's a really good point I think that when I think about some of the gaps in the middle school I wonder does everything have to be an inter Scholastic sport many many many middle schools don't have anywhere near the number of teams that we have there's it's often hard in Middle School to find uh competition so I always wonder should we be having like a kickball club or you know there other like inter mural or um sort of Club Athletics that wouldn't be at the same price point of um maybe some of our coaching staff that's for just Scholastic sports but but regardless we've accepted the registration we didn't have a limit this year it's no cut I mean we are where we are for this year I guess I'm just bringing out for food for future thought just out of curiosity a student who participates in sports do they pay a flat fee mhm yes yes so each of these extra Whatever It Is 40 40 kids each have paid potentially there's a cap for families that's right and that the cap my recollection goes all the way through the high school and middle school combined if you have three athletes realistically though there are very few sports that take seventh graders yeah just this right is there anything else we do wrestling wrestling I was wrestling um so you wouldn't have a lot of seventh graders but if e through 12 if you had three athletes in that age group you would only be paying the two athletic fees and we do have waivers um that we grant for fees for people who are um you know not able to financially under Financial agree with Lor that Middle School the time for for kids to find their not to be fny but to find their legs I just think maybe that's a topic we put on a future meeting I think Amanda brings up a really good point and like looking at that I think you know it's a little outside of this particular item um but it does bring up the issue and and I'm not disputing what she's saying from like a fisal responsibility perspective um but I think that's like a different topic that we probably should bring to another meeting I agree to see what how the amounts generated as opposed to the what classes are run that support etc etc I think it's a good conversation for a few months down the road uh in terms of whether we decide at that time we will do anything um and if we do want to do something what the criteria would be for that is there somebody who would like to make a motion uh relative to uh the fy2 sement I move to approve the additional Sten and for Middle School track coach the opportunity to maintain the stien for school year 25 if the student athlete numbers are comparable next year it's a motion by Susan and I just want to highlight that the it's the opportunity doesn't commit us to doing it for next year is there a second on that I'll second second I Amanda all those in favor so that is unanimous with many thanks to our athletic department so that brings us into the VEX IQ worlds um HMS team W and Team 2 Dr kav all right so we have two middle school teams team W and team two um and they are looking for your approval to travel to the VEX IQ World competition that will be in Dallas Texas they will be leaving on April 31st and returning on May 3rd April 31st April 3 you're right oh it does actually on the application say April 31st yeah so it must be April 30th sorry about for someone that's born in early May that really makes a difference yes all right any questions or comments on this I think it's fabulous anybody who would like to make a motion well I'd move to approve final travel for team W and Team 2 robotics to Dallas Texas April 30th to May 3rd 2024 motion by Susan is there a second second second by Lori all those in favor I I and it is unanimous and congratulations to our our robotics teams okay so that um moves us down we already covered old business item a which is the policy jici I'm going to recommend that we pass over uh policy bdfb for tonight uh and bring that back in our next meeting and then allow us to then go into reps are you do the nameing I I wouldn't want to wait too much are you going to put it off till next meeting unless Adam shows up okay it is it does feel like it's late to be taking on um yeah just I I feel like it deserves a lot of um don't we have a timing issue the timing is on it couldn't be earlier than it doesn't prevent us from going but I felt like it had a timing issue with what the school building committee needed for signage and so it was not the signage was it was the interior themes and correct me if I'm wrong discussion was that if we we do have a little bit of leeway so yes the the designers are now really determining what the interior of that school is going to be and maybe as a good point of reference for the community if you go into Marathon Elementary School and the name of it is Marathon Elementary School there's you know it all starts here and then you start to see like Cru shells that are you know designed into the flooring and so you really get the the sense that the the interior of the school is designed around the name of that school uh when we were visiting schools so way back when before we even had you know real Notions of what our Elmwood replacement school would look like we had gone places where if they were naming the school after a particular person there'd be kind of a silhouette of that person and talk about and all of the things that person had done so if there were Garden if you know the person had done some kind of thing with gardening or politics or held office in town or was a particular kind of educator there would be educational pieces like as part of the mural in that building and so what Perkins Eastman wanted to do was to start to get together with teachers to think about what the interior colors and themes would look like um right now the work that they're doing really focuses on the sort of natural landscape here in Hopkinton on things like you know Meadows and forests and and rivers and that kind of thing so they they would like some guidance in terms of the name but I don't think that it's something that if it didn't happen tonight it would sort of upset the designer apple cart so to speak you know I think that it would be all right if it if it lasted if it went out two weeks and they have to think about it then so I just want to just for a point of clarification yes so we're passing on policy bdfb at the request of CPAC organization so that they could all be present that was the old business that we just passed on doing tonight so that was not it not for CPAC to be present in its fullness that was it the um recommendation of our CPAC liaison okay so I guess I'm missing like are what are we talking about passing right now so so in terms so coming back to the CPAC policy which is not the procedure it's the the document that we did the policy is not a super long piece it's separate from the procedure as well as the school physician contract and then the naming of the facilities I'm happy to do the to have that conversation if people want to do that my concern with that is just that it's now almost 9:30 and I don't know how much um mental acuity people feel that they have to do a lengthy discussion on that we could start the discussion and not make a decision as the other way so based on how we structured the agenda and the timing that we had on the agenda we had planned to be here until 10:00 and we still have 40 minutes and so my opinion is that we should at least start the discussion because we very well could get ourselves to a place where we've narrowed it down to make for a final decision easy here I also feel like there likely is quite a few people who are watching for that discussion and then we'd be passing it over I don't disagree with you in terms of the long days everybody's had but I do feel like we should try I guess I'm happy to have the conversation and to express preferences I do feel like it's a better vote if we have five school committee members here would be the and that was why that was coming so he what he had said to me was that he was waiting for a replacement at work uh and that he wouldn't be able to be at the beginning of the meeting for the executive session uh but that he was hoping to make it to his replacement right his replacement to show up it work and so that's why I had initially moved it from the beginning hoping that he would be here in there other thoughts do you want to go ahead and I'm just I I'm just kind of wondering where how this is all going to given the number of names and the you know that there are four of us and what our preferences may be on that yeah yeah I mean it's going to be a lengthy discussion but it probably wouldn't hurt to begin and and see if we kind of come circle around a couple of potentials all right so let's go in do we have a link to the full do you have that on a the full list I know we have sent it out by email right yes I also think what was really helpful was Dr kavanagh's breakdown of where the numbers fell for the different types yes I had made you all collaborators on that survey so that if you click on the responses button you can actually go in and take a look all right there's not a link it's in the agenda itself do you want me to yeah would you put it I can put it on the screen I just have to I just was looking at your report from last week where you had like put the top few for each section we certainly got more comments on this than any other problems we did um the comments that they just to summarize like the ones that came to all of us really I think we all centered around not wanting to rename the districtwide to make the um have the Early Learning the elementary the ETC how do you want to go about this do you want to take it a a group at a time and talk about yes so I'm having a little trouble pulling this up so the like Geographic Marathon related just people and big Concepts is that right there four you want s Rea this yeah do you mind that no I almost wish we had a whiteboard totals and scratch off okay so now you all have that in your in your inbox and you know that it it doesn't start till you get to about slide nine but that is the complete collection of suggested names okay all right so I think what would be helpful here would be to go through through I don't think we need the whole thing on that but to to talk about specific categories so page 64 starts with the geographic 65 has Marathon related 66 just talked about what you use for people and then the names the people are after 68 was big Concepts I think that was the highlight one I mean I could throw out a thought just just a thought just first one person on the committee of five but um I think we had for me I was definitely looking for things that are connected to Hoppington so sometimes like some of the learning Concepts were okay they didn't feel Hoppington specific so in in those cases I you know I wouldn't it wasn't as drawn to a generic learning concept versus something that really spoke to our town so um I wasn't I'm personally more in favor of not an individual's name so for me that category was not appealing I'd rather go with something that's more um related to the the geography of the natural environment for me personally um and Marathon I do love that we're the start of the marathon but I also feel like hoofington is so much more more than that and we already have the marathon school so if if anyone else was feeling the same way I'll just throw that out there if you weren't that's fine but for me personally I was focused on really the geographic and natural environment type names more than the others for those reasons that helps or hurts that was just where I was yep that's I kind of was drawn to the geographic ones too um partially I think naming for a person can kind of begin to create some well why not this person or that person or or whereas if you know you're going to name it Charles River or you're going to name it whiteall or those are all things that are ecologically sound places here in the community um I have a similar feeling on it I mean I this is my second School naming activity and I felt you experienced I know show us it doesn't make it any easier um I I don't feel drawn to choosing one person because I do feel like every single person that was listed had fantastic reasons they should be named after school so I don't feel qualified to dissect between one person versus another the um similar to what you said Amanda I feel like we already have a school named marathon and it has its own uniqueness and so what what other things are important to the town I also was thinking about somebody had said to me what's wrong with keeping Elmwood because it was a great name and I'm but when I think about why elmood was named is cu I was in the corner of Elm and wood right so when I have thought about this school I thought about where it's located and what it's near and so the G the geographic names um have more of an appeal for me although there are some of them that I feel like are less relevant to where the school situated so I could narrow it down easier but my draw history of geography as well so in terms of I I actually agree with what's been said I the names there were some really excellent names submitted um but I know that that's a tough choice um looking at at kind of evaluating one over another why why is one person better than the other right in the contributions that have been made to in hopkington to the communities to the schools Etc um are valid in uh for many different reasons and it would be hard to choose um some between some really excellent candidates uh the I was also drawn to the geographic because the marathon I similarly felt that um that's something that has been done I also my concerned a start line I was concerned about um the brewery although I did I actually like that name if there was not a brewery by the same name on the same road um I might have been drawn to that um the learning and Concepts um ones some really good recommendations that had been made for that um but at the end I you know I was drawn more towards the geographic names that's that actually consensus that actually is way easier than what I had um projected out so in terms of looking at oh you've already pulled that up thank you um what was done in the survey you can see obviously the survey results here um the head of the Charles the Charles River Charles view Headwaters and um White Hall and Hayden row is not a bad name but I do agree that the schools all being technically on Hayden row um could potentially cause some confusion it's also not as um I guess specific in some ways that it I really kind of thought I thought head of the Charles was a little cumbersome but I thought Charles River was a really good one yeah so it's funny for me because Charles River there is a school named Charles River and so that not in town so that was my concern with that one even though it was voted as high and then whiteall is even higher whiteall to me is in the other side of town so if we had built a school in Fr I would would have been great name yes my um my lean was toward Charles view because I thought it was easier to say in that neighborhood is right there um so that was where my lean was when we were going through this whole process um I I don't know what Headwaters means and it's the start of it is it it is I thought it was like Rapids headers yeah where the headers is but that's just my um lack of education on I was 100% wor you you know what you both have already said like I think I like the idea that we are at the start of the Charles River I think that is notable it's distinct for hopkington I was trying to build um the concept of Headwaters or Charles could be like Charles Meadow or Charles spring or is there something that we could Charles Glenn is there something that we could do I was thinking from here to camridge and Boston perhaps there are other Char rer schools I didn't know there was one but it it doesn't necessarily matter no I it's just a point I bring up I don't say that it has to be like indicative of yes or no on it no but but I just think about when you're Googling something yeah like Google hopping to public schools and you get New Hampshire right right and rhod Island head of the Charles is definitely so synonymous with the rata that it would be it's kind of tough for me it just I just yeah and it's in Boston yeah in Cambridge so I think um but I'm curious about exploring the Charles River Dimension that was something that I I was curious about for the same reasons I love whiteall but for the same reason as you said it's on the other it's not here um so I think I think we're on to something with the Charles River I'm not quite sure we've got it unless we maybe Charles River I like Charles view but it's also the neighborhood I didn't know if yeah we want it to be distinct from the neighborhood just to make sure it's inclusive I also wondered to myself why not Elmwood for me I think we are starting something new it's a three-grade school and even though I like the name and we could carry it for historical reasons I feel like we're building together a new community of three grades and it seemed kind of fun and and important to start that with a new identity so although I like Elmwood I landed with the Charles River set so I'm I I would say between the Charles River and the Charles view um and for I think the split for me is kind of between the fact that I also am aware of the Charles River School um and the the Charles Charles view neighborhood um being close by I I like whiteall but for the same reason it is on the other side Town um do we maybe our Charter is to go away and think about the Charles River type names a little bit more yeah and that could yep allow for Adam to um allow his input yeah have some input and think think around that too and and maybe one of us will wake up in the middle of the night with a sticky note and have some Grand idea um but but to have if narrowed it down that that's the direction that we're going is in the geographic recommendations related to the Charles River yeah that Nancy 12 minutes we still have reports no no I mean it's 12 minutes to get down there that's a that's a accomplishment getting that that is an accomplishment given how many names uh we have and I do like being able to percolate ideas in our heads and bring it back so that Adam can also uh participate in the process it would be nice if there was a way to say instead of saying head of the Charles but there was a word that other than you know root wouldn't be the appropriate spring I did this train today I was Googling synonyms for for wat and you came up with try it more fall spring there different yeah there aren't a lot of great ones no no and Headwaters is just far too cumbersome and I don't know we could maybe like Charles wood or something I don't know if we want to you know if we just want to be clear and see Charles I don't think about it Charles Rose school did she say Charles Grove char Charles Grove I like I liked I've always liked the Charles V one just cuz I feel like it's like I could see that being as a name like from the beginning because it's just easier to pronounce I feel like it's like less of a mouthful than like head of the Charles saying nothing so that's what I agree with but I also think too is like if you can see the Charles from the school that also works yeah and what is the other Charles view it's a neighborhood it's right across the street yep the opening well they could they have any large signs that say that Paul Charles view it's not large it's there is a it is there is a sign it is that that's a neighborhood uh I but that would actually indicate where he is right is true um but I think this is good a good narrowing down yeah it is you know and I part of my process in in my own quirky little way was you know kind of in my head walking around trying to imagine okay I'm headed over to and try out different names that way so when I thought of the head of the Charles what I thought people were going to do with that was make it Hawk HC because no one's going to say head of the Charles Elementary all the time element HW Elementary no I don't necessarily advocate for that that's what I thought would happen so I always thought about this when I was naming my kids like what nicknames come out of the you check their initials yeah some people end up with really horrible inies but so I think this is good okay and thanks to everybody for the amazing um suggestions I and I I also was part of the marathon naming process I don't remember there being as many like categories C was very much between I think the marathon theme was big um because of Center School being at the start the marathon and then names again were a big theme and I think we all kind of felt you know it's funny I don't remember Hoy being a name but but he hadn't passed so I don't know if that was but um but we had the same issue about whether or not we want to pick one person over other it's a hard and you know I so appreciate the thought that went into the names that were submitted but that actually makes it harder because there were so many thoughtful thoughts I know but you learned a lot about great people in I know I know okay including some that are still active in the community so all right so we we have a charge to come back with that uh and I imagine having narrowed it down some we may receive some additional feedback from the community which is always uh welcome and helpful so maybe somebody will come up with that synonym for Charles maybe could be could be all right so that then will bring us into reports Jack hello everyone uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to report tonight um I'd like to begin with some important new announcements from the high school School uh for seniors and their parents the much anticipated senior parent celebration has been scheduled on May 21st at 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Gillette Stadium tickets are $55 a person and go on sale Monday March 11th on top of this the class of 2024 Car Parade has also been decided it will take place on Saturday June 1st at 11:00 a.m. the senior Capstone projects are off to a great start students submitted their proposals earlier this week and the first first round of revisions is just now beginning students will either be asked to revise their project if it does not meet the requirements or their project is accepted meaning they can go forward with their proposed plan the One requirement is that students are passing all classes as of April 12th and the projects will commence just after break on April 22nd for the junior class prom is just around the corner the date has been decided as May 10th 2024 from 6:00 to 10: p.m. at Lake View Pavilion 45 Lake View Road Fox bro ticket price is $65 and tickets are available via my school books starting on March 18th this past weekend the hopkington Jazz Ensemble performed at the MJ state finals after receiving a gold medal at their last competition they wound up falling short by just one point as they finished second place in their first year participating in division one also congratulations to the future health professional students who participated in the HOSA State leadership conference on on March 2nd students competed in healthcare events attended workshops met medical professionals and tried Hands-On Healthcare experiences of the 73 HHS students who competed at the event 33 qualified for the International Leadership Conference to be held in Houston in June Hiller Athletics are also transitioning into the spring season this includes Sports of baseball softball boys and girls lacrosse track and field as well as the new addition of boys volleyball the teams are concluding their trials this week and teams will be decided with that that thank you I can just say I got to go to the state the Mage State finals Saturday the jazz band was great um I didn't realize they were this is the first time in division one yeah I believe so there's some steep competition um but they sounded fabulous they always do us proud so it's great Lots going on yeah great that uh is got to feel a little surreal getting into all the senior weeks yeah I know I've always I've always seen doing all of it but now it's now it's me so it's have the prom posals started yet I haven't seen any yet I'm sure they're going on behind the scenes though I I bet they're started months ago yeah I I know that in years past there have been documents uh that had been shared with one senior seniors about what outfits they're wearing so that there's not a lot of repeats oh yeah there's like Instagram Pages for that oh my God all right thank you I'd like to know the history of that term proposal it's not my generation not mine either some of them are creative my problem we sat on the floor and listened to music so you know that was the 60s kind of 70s Vibe that's the post prom party at the at the school are they doing it at the school this year um I don't I don't know where the post prom we had it at Apex right yeah it was a place like I don't know if it was Apex it was yeah Urban Aire in Bellingham I believe last year yeah it was at Apex I think the year before and that was those were the first two I think that were not at the high school the way it used to be where parents would work really hard while the seniors were off at or Juniors were off at prom to transform the high school into a a big theme a lot of work all right so superintendent report sure thank you um so this is a superintendent report for March 21st 2024 and the goal of this report is to just maybe answer important questions about the Hopkins school edition project uh some of the answers in here come from our workshop last week and so uh it's really just an opportunity to reiterate them uh one thing that we want to point out is the first districtwide study was actually conducted in 2019 I think people sort of forget the history of that um and that was done by drummy rosain and Anderson and I think it's important because you know people are asking well where do all of these numbers come from and you know different Architects can be off like you know just by a few numbers here and there uh but we've known that we have needed to find space in our buildings for at least 5 years um so this has been a long time in the making um this diagram was actually originally put together by Dr and now you can see that it's been sort of upgraded by our friends at Perkins Eastman uh when we looked at this last uh in in 2023 really you can see where these numbers were so 640 students in grades four and five you know that today we're at 689 and I do remember people saying do you really think you're going to get to those targeted marks before the end of the school year and I always say I don't know that I'll get there but we're going to get close and I I think you'll see that we did so when we take a look at Elwood's potential configuration 774 was the number if we built a 23 school and 1176 was if we built the 234 school which is what we have done um and I think important number comes over here where if we take a look at the 4,173 students the prediction was that we would increase by about 20% 22.2% or 9116 students by the year 2030 too so this diagram was an interesting one to me as well and this again is a Dr diagram but upgraded or updated by the Perkins Eastman folks and if you went back to 2019 you would see that the gymnasium was Green at that time because it was a enormous space in terms of square footage so why did it go to Red and I think that this is what we were talking about earlier tonight so what we do with the gym know is we divide it into two sections so essentially it's two classrooms because kids get physical education twice a week they only get art once they get music once they get Library once um but PE they go to twice a week so if 30 classrooms are meeting here and 30 classrooms are meeting here all of a sudden we talked about this if you get to the 31st you need another gym station um and so um that's one of the things that you're going to see in in some of the drawings that I will show you tonight uh the cafeteria was red in 2019 and it is red today so redder it's today yes uh I think another interesting thing about the Hopkins school is these classrooms are right sized within 10% and so if you look at our classrooms if you were doing an msba project um the msba would not want to fund classrooms at that size because what technically they're a little bit small the msba if they were asking us to build this building and they were partnering with us um they would require that the classrooms be larger that was that was really interesting from the workshop I didn't know that before the workshop um which was another good reason that we're doing this the way we're doing it yes yeah uh so back to our one of our favorite questions enrollment projections I show this slide all the time so I won't spend a lot of time time here um the prediction was that in 23 24 we'd have 670 students today we actually have 689 um if we look at what Dr Wagman predicted for 3031 uh he was at 780 and so you can see that we are less than 100 students away from that Target in the year 203 24 um so that's something to think about and then the msba prediction was 803 um we're about 114 kids away from that in the 88003 was you know again we're in the 2030s uh we love this particular slide because what this is showing us is that because we have a 234 school and it was being built for about 1,00 kids it keeps those grades in the green um interestingly if you pull grade six out of the Middle School you also keep the Middle School in the green and when we get to the year 2029 you can see that the high school falls into the red so why is that important if you look at this slide I think it helps us to understand how that flexible space that we want to use in the middle school why that's so important when we built the Hopkins school in 1999 there were 24 original classrooms we've added four modulars and then we have taken over two interior those the windowless classrooms that we you know really have used over time at small group or Labs or even home economics at one point in time so so we now have 30 classrooms and if our sort of target class size is about 22 and A2 students uh we would then say say at Max we should probably have 675 kids based on the 30 classrooms even though we believe that those interior classrooms aren't ideal um so we're at 689 we are out of space now at Hopkins if we look at the middle school now this is interesting we have 39 regular classrooms and nine science classrooms which give us 48 classrooms times the 22.5 students uh theoretically we could accommodate up to about 1,084 this is kind of neat if we take a look back at this and we go to the year I think 2026 and we add up 67 and eight the amazing thing is that you're going to get 1,84 students I mean it's just uncanny how those numbers worked out there's no rhy there no mathematical sense to it but that's how it happened so if we put addition on the Hopkins school and we add 28,000 Square ft to that building when you pull out the sixth grade you're really freeing up 23,000 ft and I don't know that we've looked at it in that sense before so when we go back to thinking about the year 2029 when the high school goes to red I mean clearly we're going to have more middle school students but it's really nice to be able to say that while the middle school is staying green there is space to be pulling in you know some department or at least a portion of a department so say say for example everyone who teaches freshman and sophomore math May moving in may move into um that Wing that is closest over to the high school none no decisions have been made about who would inhabit it but the space would exist so we talk about the Upstream gains this is a really nice illustration I think of those Upstream gains uh what will happen to class sizes this was one of the really nice slides I think that uh Perkins Eastman had put together for us uh if we currently what we have in our classrooms really it's about 24 25 students um in a classroom uh at least at grade four and if we don't put on an addition and we had two grade levels in that building you'd have 29 students in a classroom and I know Hopkinson is not a community that would hope for 29 students no Community would um but if you have the addition and you have the 803 proposed students um that classroom goes down to 22 students and I think it's really nice just to look at this visual as compared to that Visual and think about you know the ability a teacher has to interact with this many kids to be able to set up small uh small group kinds of instructional models for that that many kids you can just visually see how doable it is I think the other piece too that was brought up last week that was interesting about was that our classroom sizes in that building are actually small what to date so even if you're talking about moving to a model of 29 students in a classroom in a classroom that's already small for benchmarking across other schools like that space constraint is huge so I just I I just remember that being an interesting point they brought up that our classroom size physically is just not big either and that building was built for 45 and when they opened 5 six moved in it was really an effort to pull kids out of the middle school high school complex at the time we just have to remember that sixth grader bodies are bigger than fourth grader bodies the thing strick me about this slide at the workshop which I thought also was a good slide that they put together was I feel like when the school was when Hopkins was built and the capacity for the classrooms was higher than 22.5 I forget what it actually 25 25 in my mind I'm thinking in the '90s we were probably sitting in rad was facing forward and it's a very different capacity game when you've got kids in an older model sitting in rows facing forward you can fit a whole bunch more people than when you do this but today's learning standard is group work it's this kind of you get up you walk around you have different so just the you know the the standard of instructional delivery and the way students learn is not what it was and that's why these smaller classrooms probably could accommodate 25 in rows but we don't do that that would be not doing the right kind of education so um yeah I think it's important that we can educate in the way that we need to educate kids in small groups with the ability to move around yeah yeah there's a lot of research that's been done and started sort of endemic to the math classroom but now I think that it's you know kind of seeping into other disciplines of sort of defron the room yeah you know and using what they would called vertical public surfaces which is really just a fancy name for whiteboards all around the room so we can watch kids thinking in real time uh why are we not partnering with partnering with the msba and I think we've talked about this before but I think the workshop really opened our eyes to some other kinds of thinking about this um so one of the reasons is that msba funding is really highly unlikely and I think Dan colie from Perkin Ean did a very nice job of showing that and I have it on the next slide um but the msba also controls the timeline so people who will remember we submitted an SOI for the Elwood School in the spring of 21 about a week before the onset of the pandemic and in the best case scenario will be opening the doors to the new elmood school in September of 2027 best case scenario it's a seven-year process to to finish so if we're looking at when things turn red on that stoplight um data enrollment chart chart you can see that we don't really have that kind of time um the msba does control the size of your building so when you're partnering with them they can tell you how big they want particular spaces to be and then they also do things like put funding caps on things so you have to pay for an owner's project manager and you have to pay the going rate for that but they might say you know we're sorry we're only going to give you $2 million for that except for the cost is $3 million for that so while it seems very attractive you know and sometimes you'll go on the msba website and we'll say the reimbursement rate is 4 2 2% and then people will wonder why it's really only 25% it's for reasons such as that well and I thought the other interesting piece about that too was that your cost could be higher going to the msba because they could force you to make a bigger building than you had originally planned absolutely yes um so and as we take a look at this he's done a nice job of kind of showing us uh what that would look like if you started this process proc and you know maybe and submitted your SOI in 2025 here you are in 2031 before the close of 2031 before you're opening your doors um and as you just said Lori the larger size and more extensive Renault that the msba would require plus escalation on the project it's typically about 4% a year at least that's what they said happens in their experience you really might be paying more for a building if you partnered with the msba than if you did not sorry stole your thunder nope that's okay and you know just a single slide on that according to perk been construction cost have escalated about 4% a year um so what might some other options be so I wanted to talk about choices because the community will be deciding what happens with the H Hopkins project so we could say that grade five would remain at Hopkins alone but that's going to leave a lot of unused space and when you are a school district that is sort of desperate for physical SP plant space it doesn't make a lot of sense to leave grade five in isolation there so one of the outcomes obviously is that this would result in wasted space and it would cost the district money Upstream because we just saw how um if you add 28,000 Square ft you free up 23,000 Square ft um we could put grade five leave grade five in Hopkins school and then put some of grade six in there kind of on a rotating basis so because grade six offers uh our students particular related arts um and you need the physical spaces that are appropriate to teach those those related arts those spaces exist now in hopkington middle school they don't exist in Hopkins school and so if you put kids into Hopkins maybe a third at a time you could rotate them through but again that means kids would be switching teachers and you know our teachers rely on knowing the kids so they know how to differentiate know what an individual kid needs we do a lot of you know sort of small group remedial things inside general education classrooms so that you know sort of sort of upsets that teaching model um and again this is one of those things that kind of neglects the Upstream freeing of space and so the third option is to have both grades five and six at Hopkins and that would mean the community completes the addition project and grades five and six occupy that um the outcome of that we have to be very careful um to call out the price tag and so the closest thing that we have right now maybe to a price tag is that when we um H our time manager speak on January 28th when he did his comprehensive budget report he indicated that if we took all of the FY 25 Capital budgets and obviously the Hopkins school is the the biggest driver of all of those FY 25 Capital but items um the tax impact would be $55 on a single family home at the median uh price of $852,000 and that would happen um in 2028 uh what will the new school offer and I know that we saw these but from Perkins he's been tonight so and from vertex so I won't take a lot of time with that uh but you can see that there's increased parking spaces from 87 spaces to 134 it's not wasted on anyone I don't think that we are desperate for parking around our Public Schools I do love The Walking path uh one of the things that we've learned about kids at that age is that when they go outside they love to do a lot of chitty chat but they also like the physical exercise of of just doing some walking um and then there's play fields and there's courts but uh this is appropriate really for grade five six students and you can see that we've got good service parking receiving the Bus drop and it takes you right through to the Loop Road um here you can see our enlarged cafeteria and this here might be the most amazing part of this and I know that the rest of the world won't think it is but if you've ever been in the kitchen at the Hopkins school it is literally as big as a postage stamp and how our workers put up that many lunches every day in such a small space um so it's beautiful that there'll be a couple of lines and the servery will be very long and so our kids should be able to get through those lines much more quickly than than they do today uh and over here you can see the Bandon chorus spaces this will take up a lot of the old cafeteria stage we will be replacing the cafeteria stage so that will still exist here you the current survey just comment from the tour it was one of the most eye opening things in the tour just the size to serve like 700 students was UN oh my gosh yes yeah yeah I don't know that we can think there probably some kitchens in hopkington in in homes that are prepared yeah as large as that yeah I mean you really could try and like compare it to like poio know something that here people are in and like it's just not not space yeah uh here you can see the enlarged band chorus in Orchestra spaces and this is really much needed right now our kids are using the cafeteria they're using the gymnasium because there just isn't a large enough space to accommodate our ensembles uh here you get a little feel I think for what the classrooms are going to look like this is the end of the building where you would have the modular classrooms eventually attached there's special education intensive classroom here and special education intensive classroom here we need both of those spaces based on numbers of special education intensive students um it's really nice that those spaces are across from you know these sensory areas here so if our kids need otpt or sensory space those things are built right next to the Intensive special education spaces uh here you have the gymnasium um and uh the multi-purpose space and so you'll see that on the next slide as well one thing we should point out about this Cora space here as you can see these flexible learning spaces Hopkins makes beautiful use of that now and so those things will still be intact which we like very very much um and a science classroom fits in here with these two classrooms and eventually when these are added you'll have a whole team that can exist in this area with five classrooms so all of this planning even though we're making an addition has been very very deliberate um and then finally you get to see the gymnasium with these two um teaching spaces and then this is the multi-purpose room over here what's nice about these sort of public restrooms is if people want to be able to use this gymnasium and it is a fullsize gymnasium uh the public can come in we can coordin this off for safety reasons from the rest of the building and um there are our rest facilities so it's sort of One-Stop shopping and that's all I have for you but I thought there were so many things that b you know like sort of be repeating that it was really nice to bring them back up tonight thank you any questions for Dr C okay all right then that uh brings us into the school committee uh chair report payroll warrant s2418 has been approved warrant 24- 051 s 24-5 2s 24-5 3s 24- 54s and 24-55 S have been approved all included in your folder uh and that's um I it did already report out that we did receive some email regarding the naming of the school facility people have liaison reports right then that moves us uh into any future agenda items that people would like to throw on um our list of things I just what we were talking about earlier with um track and field just like the sizing of sports in general I think is what we were getting at and where what that expense may bring and whether or not we want to think about no comprehensive look at I wasn't just thinking about for middle school though I think no but more comprehensive looking at right districtwide well middle and high school yeah thank you uh anybody uh else on that right that moves us into items by consensus okay superintendent direct and the school committe approve the items by consensus is outlined in your agenda so moved motion by Amanda is there a second on that second second by Lori all those in favor I I and uh that is unanimous and so moved uh that moves us then into adjournment somebody like to make a motion to adjourn I move to adour motion by Lori is there a second on that second second by Amanda all those in favor I hi I any opposed I didn't hear Susan you want to adjourn absolutely okay so we are adjourned at 10:07 our next meeting uh is at the um Popkins public project public forum uh which will be on April 3rd uh here at Hamp and then our regular meeting on April 4th and then another regular meeting on the 25th thank you all for hanging in with us and have a good night there did you break downs on the number of people for