##VIDEO ID:DXzRSCNBemc## good evening the finance and law subcommittee shall come to order uh roll call Mrs shavs present uh chairman Dello present Mr Vier is absent first item on the agenda is the use of facility uh C attached memo assistant superintendent monan thank you Dr Dello attached you will see the memorandum for the use of facilities at various schools and then if there's been a charge again this is just something that we do um provide to the school committee as an update for the facility use uh second the motion all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the tot and high school softball field bid opening and Mrs Monahan thank you so um the bid closed today at 5:00 pm um we have four bids that have come through for the high school softball field renovation project we have heick Landscaping construction from wubber Mass nelm Corp from Rockland Mass Green Acres from Lakeville and Yard Works from Warick Rhode Island first one that we are going to open is by heick I use the old fashioned hands you so heick has submitted a bid in the amount of $2,745 th000 and based on my preliminary review uh it appears to be a good bid but I would uh and I would recommend that the committee make a motion to refer all the bids to the administration for the to perform their due diligence once we've opened all the bids but on appearance it appears to be a good bid thank you next one is nelm Corporation from Rockland Mass n l n m thank you MH fins they will provide their financials nelm has submitted a bid in total of $3,643 th000 and it appears that all the required backup has been submitted next bid is Green Acres landscape from Lakeville can can I just interrupt superintendent so on the letter that was opened uh with the not requirement of of providing the financials should we just disqualify that bid because it's not part of the bid requirement is it part of the bid requirement the financials uh it was it was something that we requested and I would wait until we come back after performing our due diligence and we can discuss that the bid was not uh entertained because it didn't meet their specs so I don't want to make I don't want to be Hasty without performing I do diligence okay I just want to make sure we're fair for all biders that we have the same information all biders thank you I believe this is Green Acres so Green Acres has submitted a bid in total of $2.9 million and it appears the appropriate backup has been submitted the last bid is by Yard Works from Warick Rhode Island [Applause] that works Yard Works has submitted a bid in total of $3,785 th000 3, 785,000 and it appears that all the backup is in order so I I would recommend that the committee make a motion to refer all bids to the administration to perform their due diligence I'll make a motion to refer all bids so we can do due diligence to Administration for the administration yes absolutely I'll second that motion all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the uh special education expense Services see attached memo back to you Mrs Monahan in the memo here it is for the the legal services for special education and student services for the fy2 we budgeted $50,000 for the Year this memo is showing that in July 2024 we had incurred $814 is and that is of course the first month of the fiscal year so that is what we have spent thus far and that leaves an FY total balance of $41,988 motion to accept and and place on file uh second on discussion so this is a scary number uh first month in uh is this a trend uh going to be a trend do we have any idea well you really can't say yes or no um we're comparing to what we have in the past and compared to last last year we did we were under last year so we do feel I mean some months will be higher than others okay so I seconded the motion all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have bills payable we'll start off uh fy2 and I'll open up to you Mrs shavs just a couple of questions um on page five $83,000 for instructional equipment this is for the health Lab at THS it's for the new yes it's for the new ambulatory okay that makes sense John sent us some pictures of that so okay this is this is part of our work to expand or add the medical pathway that's excellent yeah I he showed us some of the pictures it's outstanding and you'll also notice I think based on the tutorial you got the last meeting that if you look at the numbers it is hitting a grant yes okay yes um I think there was one more sorry there's a lot of pages here yes um you had Boston College doing PD on page 27 for 38,000 that's that's part of the work with bar I believe that's the Lynch group yes okay and that is being chared to the B Grant and that's part of a leadership uh development yeah it wasn't the number doesn't have it being charged to a grant so that's why I was questioning that I believe it's link leadership on what page was it again page 27 under Boston College wa is this the one that I have here I have mine is off right now that's lnch Le that is Lyn 828 considered to be yes that is Lynch leadership and it is charged to the bar Grant okay okay thank you that's all the questions I had thank you thank you Mr CH uh before I call for a vote uh on page number nine uh there's u a vendor 13,500 uh so my my question is uh since we're into the first academic month of the school year is that just for services in September or do they do anything over the summer we always do pay for um only services rendered so it is considered to be some um probably from the peer mentoring for fredman and Benet for the first few months and then again that's probably the planning piece so uh maybe I wasn't clear so is this just for the month of September this charge I would have to check to see exactly what month T charge it is because I don't have it listed here but I can get back to you because I know that we as a school committee budgeted about $125,000 I believe or no more than going to be L this year okay but based on the 135 for September if we have what nine months in the Academic Year I believe that also involves some of the professional development to train the staff and the mentors because I know working with Mrs Hoy I believe it's going to be greatly reduced based on the number of schools that coaching the change will be working in so it's the initial jump okay gotcha all right I guess that's it uh what are the wishes of the committee the Bill's this bill this bills payable for wait a minute $77,200 I'll second the motion all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have FY 24 uh bills payable in the amount of 576,000 187 you'll notice a large chunk of that was professional develop curriculum that we purchase the Marin learning yes there and so is that initial starting up the school year like it was okay that was my one question thank you thank you uh I just have a quick question on the first item for 23, 325 uh the same cont construction company keeps coming up um is there a breakdown of where these maintenance of buildings are occurring and what they are yes they are for um the Ty um tiger tots we had to um build some walls up at the tiger tot area two classrooms at Tiger tot we ended up opening um a a door in the library so uh the TV studio could go in right from the TV studio into their room and then the last one was uh Chamberlain room 155 that needed to have construction and they we do have an open contract with them to provide us with um any work that needs to be done that the building department cannot do okay great wish should the committee I make a motion to approve this for 5767 87 I'll second the motion all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you we uh motion to adjourn toj second all in favor I opposed eyes have it we are adjourned good evening everyone thank you for joining us if you could please join Us in the pledge Ali to the flag of the United States of America stand andice all oh say can you see by the dawn toly night what so proud they we held at the Twilight last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the per fight or the real parts we watch were so gently streaming and The Rock it's red glare the bombs bursting in gave prove through the night that our flag was still there oh say do that star spangled then I wave for the land of the free and the home of the brave Mrs Fagan the invocation yeah Lord as we begin this session let us acknowledge your goodness and mercy and ask your blessings on all our deliberations we thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our care and if it just remain standing um I'd like to let everybody know it is custodian appre appreciation week and how much all of us appreciate the hard work that our custodians do and I guess when we bump into some of them we ought to just say thank you because they work very hard it's also for our friends of the Jewish faith it's Rashia Shana which is Happy New Year to to all of our Jewish friends and I'd also Al like to um have a moment of silence for our countrymen that we lost in this recent hurricane Helen those people that were in um the mountains nobody expected this the mountains of Weston uh North Carolina and of Georgia where there was a lot of damage a lot of lives lost and uh a lot of disruption to the good people who lived down there so a moment of silence for them please thank you and roll call Mr Reus thank you present Mrs shavs present Mr palowski present Mrs Fagan is present Miss Santos present Steven beer is absent Mr uh Laura present and oh Dr Dello and mayor o Connell thank you president thank you Mrs Fagan uh next we have have approval of the minutes of September 18th 2024 move approval read by title on disc on discussion yeah I Mo second on discussion yes on on page six of the the minutes I had made a motion um about something and it wasn't marked down as it as a motion to just send some paperwork to um to somebody about the bank the the um sorry Girls Softball field that was a motion and it was a unanimous vote on that so I just like that to be corrected in the minutes it's page six of the minutes out of the motion I also have Al set anything else no that's just it but that was a motion and it was there's a motion in a second any further discussion so on discussion a motion I I got it on discussion but it was made I made it into a motion and it was unanimously voted on that's that's all thank you on my point on uh page one section A on the role uh we don't have Mr Laur mentioned whether he was present or absent uh I know I was absent and I think Mr lur was absent but he's not mentioned on the roll call okay if we could have that noted on the roll call in the minutes so would the maker of the motion restate the motion with the accepted changes so may motion to accept as presented and the the record uh with the amendments to the um changes and the second motion and second all those in favor I so there's a motion and a second all those in favor I I I I opposed the none none opposed no motion passes thank you next we have the student advisory committee Report with Isaiah Wendell thank you as me Connell said my name is Isaiah Wendell and I am part of the T high school student advisory committee there's some things a lot of things going on at taon high right now now as we are in full swing of the 2024 2025 school year um starting tomorrow October 3rd and Friday October 4th school pictures will be taking place students will have their photos taken during their scheduled English classes Library update we are pleased to announce the school library has been fully renovated with new carpeting and Furniture the space is now open for student use and Furniture has been added to the main lobby as well providing additional areas for students to study progress reports term one progress reports are closing this Friday October 4th we are reminding students to submit all necessary assignments by this deadline to ensure their grades are current openhouse recap we had a very successful open house on Thursday September 26th with a strong turnout from students parents and Guardians it was a I've heard it was a great opportunity to connect with the community and share updates on school programs and initiatives college career center upcoming college visits we continue to support students in their post-secondary planning with several College visit visits scheduled suffix University will be visiting ton high on October 9th at 11:30 along with Boston University on October 11th at 8 Bryant College October 16th at 12:30 students are encouraged to meet with the ADM admissions representatives to explore future opportunities and gather valuable information registration is required navian PSATs the PSATs are scheduled for Friday October 26th students have been advised to prepare and register in advance we welcome our new de house associate principal Mrs twey we are excited to introduce her as our new associate principal for de house we are confident she will bring valuable leadership and support to our school Community 10th grade class officer nominations nominations for the 10th grade class officers are currently open this is an important process and we are encouraging broad student participation to Foster leadership and school spirit additionally since August 28th we've welcomed 199 new students to our school we've committed to ensuring that they have a smooth transition into our community through our Pals program which continues to be instrument instrumental in helping student new students adjust the program pairs new students with the current ones to provide them with guidance and a sense of belonging during their first few weeks of Taun in high school that concludes my report thank you motion to accept the report motion and second all those in favor I opposed none opposed so voted thank you is there any public input this evening yes mayor there's uh one person one citizen signed up for public input is that correct yes yes could the citizen please approach the you want me to this Podium yeah and if you could just Begin by stating your name and address please James strony 11 Holy Oak Street Taunton Mass I'm here representing the benevolent Mr stron I just have to read a public input thing in accordance with Massachusetts general laws chapter 39 section 23 C we kindly request that individuals wishing to provide public input sign up in advance a copy of the regulation and guidelines will be provided upon sign up and individuals be asked to State their name and address for the record the amount of time each registered individual will have to speak will be determined by the number of people who signed the register and will be announced prior to the start of the public input portion of the meeting thank you thank you sorry to interrupt you all set y okay first I'm here uh twofold to address the uh school committee and uh thank the superintendent's office and the guidance department at Taunton High for uh helping us with the Elks National foundation and mass Elks scholarship applications in recent years I've had some big shoes to fill uh being an elk member for over 40 years uh I this committee here was always well taken care of we had Donald Clary we had Bill Casey we had Lenny Walsh we had uh Joe Martin and we had Lincoln deor as uh chairmans of this committee so I really didn't have a lot to do and knew that this was going to be taken care of and also have a lot of visibility for the city and and for the school committee and and the school department but again uh with that being lost I thought it was time for us to meet and uh greet as I've been uh assigned as the new scholarship chairman in a long with uh my fellow o Greg Dello uh we've been able to bring this back up to visibility where it needs to be in the last few years I'm proud to say that last year was a banner year for the taunt and Elk sponsoring we did over $44,000 in scholarships and again that was all because of the help of the school department and also the renewal of some of the our our scholarships that were available I'd just like to give you a few uh pointers that are going on with the uh Elks as we go along we have two major programs one is the Elks National Foundation nationally we give over $3.4 million in what is called the most valuable student scholarship these awards are five fouryear scholar National scholarships ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 per year it's a very competitive uh application here in Massachusetts we get to award 18 most valuable at least uh $1,000 a year if not more obviously the levels go up as we go so the top prize for a student in the country is $60,000 for their scholarship and I'm proud to say that back way back in 1988 when I was Club President we had a national winner out of coil Cassidy at the time Michelle recenti she was the top female student in the country and I was fortunate enough at our national Convention to present her to give her a speech to the uh delegation that year so again it is possible to get a national winner of Taunton the challenges we faced obviously uh we tried to go just strictly internet with the applications after having paper forms for many years that kind of worked and didn't um so we have gone back to some paper product uh for the guidance counselors to hand out to the students but we do have uh others that are only available through the websites we have the one that's called the most valuable student which is only able to be applied through the uh Elks National Foundation or you can find it on the mass Elks web page and that one has to go directly to Chicago that it will then be resubmitted to us here in Massachusetts any students that are from Massachusetts and obviously any of that come from the tarton jurisdiction would come back to us and again that would be through them on the most valuable student the key on this one is the closing date is November 12th 2024 for the most valuable student and this is based on three things it's based on financial need leadership and scholarship so again this is a very competitive one we did have and we also have at least 72 most valuable student State allocated scholarships of $800 and I can say last year we had two students that received $1,000 for four years and one student got an $800 so that's $8,800 out of that program uh those applications opened August 1st we also o have another uh program that's involved which is called I'm trying to get it here it's uh renewable uh if you have it and it's called it used to be called a vocational scholarship this one here is now called Career Technical education award it's changed a little bit this has no age limits this can be anyone and I will read it so that it will be clear to everyone the V is intended for full-time students enrolled in one one or twoe Vocational School Community or Junior College leading to a terminal associate degree certificate or diploma in a non- bachelor's degree program this award is not for part-time or night students this is $1,000 a year it can be renewed for a second year so again this is one no age requirements on it the applicant needs to be graduated to be at least a graduating high school senior or older students who are attending a vocational school junior college or Community College a high school diploma or GED certificate is not required the applicant must be an American citizen that just happens to be what the Els um we promote a lot of americanism and we want to give it to the students of that are American citizens this application can be found at either the mass Elks web page or the national that particular one the Career Technical education award has to come back to me if it's a taunting student or going in because again I have to process that legitimizing their their uh residents and again the requirements for that but the uh Elks most valuable student goes through the national office and that application is found either on the mass Elks website or the Elks you can go under Elks National Foundation last but not least is what is our major project here in Massachusetts which is the mass Elks scholarship Incorporated we have again this is a program that was highly successful um Statewide we gave over half a million dollars in scholarships throughout our lodges here in Massachusetts again this is one though that has to come back to the local Lodge for verification and it goes to our offices here in Massachusetts these scholarships can vary from $1,000 to $1,500 a year and they are renewable the only catch is there has to be a four-year school it's that's why we have the career one and we have this one here and again we had 27 students that were were either new uh seniors or renewals last year so that made up the other amount of money which was well over $36,000 that we gave last year in scholarships it was a ban of year by far and I know that all my predecessors are looking down upon me and want me to push to see if we can get to that 50,000 Market here in taon and again it gets a little more challenging since we did lose coil and Cassidy which was another area that I could offer scholarships to um but again I'm trying to get some of the Bristol Plymouth students involved in this also so again I thank you I do have these for the school department to give to the guidance this is the mass El scholarship but I do want to remind you that it is part uh website but I have to get the mass El scholarships back to the Taunton Lodge our address is 775 Miles Standish Miles Standish I'm doing well uh John quinsey Adams Road at Taunton so again uh I thank you and I look forward to working working with the Department again this year and I know that the guidance counselors are already working with me but I just wanted to thank and publicly give uh acknowledgement to all that have helped us because all we want to do is give away as much money as we can thank you thank you thank you J thank you for providing all of that information and we are certainly very uh grateful for and proud of all of the work the Els do in our community you thank you sir if there's nothing further then we will move on mayor just uh mayor there are three other individuals on the public input but they're part of the agenda so no need to have them at the podium they're part of the agenda so there's three more people for public input well yeah uh Mr deluso Mr T carmichel Mr preventure but they're all part of the agenda well they're actually going to do the presentation so right we can just I'm not sure why they signed up for public input maybe they were a little confused but um Mr Uso and Mr carmichel all three of them are part of the presentation so if if we go to e to Hamilton assessment update I would uh actually invite our guests to the podium to begin their presentation Madame mayor U Mr chairman D members of the uh school committee superintendent cabal uh we appreciate uh your invitation um for us to come in to provide an update on the assessments occurring at two Hamilton Street very exciting news to share with everybody tonight you um we have made a lot of progress on the facility and tonight you will hear about what has been done what is ongoing and what could be coming next over the past year since we acquired the property the city has kept its commitment to upgrade the facility the roof is completed the boilers have been replaced and the HVAC work continues to date 1.5 million has been spent with the remaining balance of $1.8 million from the original appropriation the city is committed to improving the coil building as previously discussed but before I turn the presentation over to Mr kichel Mr proventure uh to provide you with the input that you need uh there are a few things that keep in mind um where during the presentation we're at a point in the project where decisions on spending must be made in order for us to ensure taxpayer dollars are being utilized responsibly some of the assessments that could be carried out must be backed by the desire of the school committee to request the facility from the municipal Council that that ha that must occur in order for us to take our next steps and with that M um Madame mayor Mr chairman we'd like to turn the microphone over to Mr Venture and Mr kichel thank you thank you Mr [Music] deluso uh thank you uh good evening to the mayor uh to the chair members of the committee and hear me okay yes okay um my name is Kevin preventure I'm an architect and a senior project manager with habiban Associates architects uh I've been doing this for almost 30 years now and uh khabib and Associates has been in business for uh 20 26 years and we've been working for uh Public Schools across the common wealth uh for that entire period um to date we've completed 57 facilities condition assessments and I've been involved uh with several of those uh we've been um uh preparing this assessment now for uh for several weeks uh working with Chris uh and I'm hoping that within uh two weeks we'll have a draft report uh that will be available uh for review which will include some uh preliminary cost estimates as well so um there's more detail to follow but I think uh I'll let Chris uh introduce himself Madam chairman members of the committee thank you for having me tonight I'm Chris kichel I'm superintendent of buildings happy to be here um I'm a certified building official I have 40 years in construction um I'm also a captain on the lake for fire department retired so um I've seen a lot um have a lot to offer and I'm happy to be here uh representing the city of tunon um Kevin you want to speak on the building yep happy to happy to get right into it okay so uh we'll just review a little bit of the building data here for for two Hamilton Street which uh of course is formerly known as the coil and Cassidy School uh owned by uh the dasis of Fall River the original building was constructed in 19 uh 62 and there were additions uh put on in 1983 uh in the uh Locker area and then uh more recently 1996 another Edition uh was put on which includes the the schools Auditorium uh in addition to some additional classroom space uh and a library uh the total gross square footage that's available uh is 105,000 uh and that is over four levels there is a partial basement a ground floor second floor and third floor uh most of the core functions are located on the ground uh and the second floor the third floor is largely uh uh offices uh faculty offices and and the building is currently occupied by a Bristol Community College as you know um the uh it's of non-c combust able construction concrete and steel with the brick masonry exterior uh does have public uh utilities for uh water and sewer uh also has gas um it does include uh one passenger elevator which uh stops at all four levels of the building um and we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that elevator uh in a bit and what uh upgrades we might expect to do there um so some of the major assembly spaces it does include a cafeteria uh at the basement level uh and directly above that is the gymnasium uh it also has a uh an auditorium uh with the with the stage and the uh the roof roof structure it's a flat roof structure the uh membrane Roofing was very recently uh replaced with a TPO membrane um uh we uh mentioned that the the boiler plant was uh also very recently replaced and the outside of the building uh there are paved areas for uh parking uh handicapped accessible parking uh sidewalks and and so forth so uh I'm going to turn it back over to Chris who's going to tell us a little bit more about some of the recently completed building uh upgrades and and uh other work that is planned in the very near future thank you Kevin members of the committee so as we've discussed the uh roof placement was just done that inove um involved removing the old uh putting new insulation down and then adding a new TPO membrane which is white which was uh what the superintendent wanted when now he VI the school several months ago so we uh we also through the department we um installed six rooftop units replacing the auditorium and then third floor level uh AC and heating systems um and also as previously mentioned the old boilers and uh the hot water heaters were recently upgraded we went with a similar system that we just put in uh gallagan school so uh the visman boilers everybody's very happy with those so um we also had our uh own Department go through the fire alarms there was two systems in there one was Antiquated so we removed that and then we brought the current system up to 100% uh compliant with the codes um we have the um door hardware company that does all the schools is uh is going through the building and replacing all the hardware bringing it up to uh City standards we do have a Mason out there now just mostly doing repointing he is um replacing a couple areas of bricks that um did move around a little bit uh that weren't tied correctly to the veneer um veneer back to the base building so that's a couple small sections up above the U the lobby entrance area um that's ongoing they should wrap up within a couple weeks um and as discussed we uh we have we are under um contract with Associated elevator to replace the car the hydraulic lift uh and the passenger lifts have been sized and engineered and are currently underpricing so we look to replace those as well um what we've done within the building department is we uh we went right into the classrooms that were sprinkled and we're ready for use and we went right through them replacing ceiling tiles um sprucing it up just doing a vanilla box um new lighting um New Again sailing tiles um and we're um going through the basement rooms now so uh pretty soon you'll have a dozen classrooms that are ready to go within weeks uh parks and wrecks are taking care of the grounds uh We've we've touched the whole area front and back cleaned it up um DCR is in there also planting trees uh they're going to be planting some out back along the side replacing some out front that that were too old uh we have some new dump to screening and fences being repaired parks and Rex also just um livened up the sprinkler system that's been doring for um several years so they've got that up and running as well so we're happy to see that going we have asked Le lero Hill who ran the gallagan window project to come in and provide cost estimates for the some of the the fenestration upgrades which is the door and windows the 1960 building the first and second floor have single pan windows and we're looking to um see what it would take to to do those on a capital project in the near future and as previously discussed on several occasions um we are anticipating the installation of the uh NFP a13 system um throughout the original 1961 building um so if we go back to an educational use we will need to put those in so thank you I'm going to turn back over to Kevin so as as part of our facilities condition assessment we're also performing a uh building code review uh Chris had mentioned that the uh building will require a a change in use and a new certificate of occupancy the current use is a group b business use and that's because uh of the Community College uh education above the 12th grade is considered a business use so for uh use for Education up to the 12th grade uh we will have to change the use group classification back to education and that triggers a whole number of uh code uh requirements that will need to be uh addressed uh and so there are several components to that uh review uh but the first one we'll look at is the structural assessment so we performed a visual uh inspection uh with Chris and with our team as well we have a team of Architects and Engineers that we take through the building uh we make our observations and we note any uh uh indications or clues that there might be something wrong with the structure we haven't found any the building appears to be uh in in excellent uh condition uh and I would not anticipate any structural modifications that would be required uh to reoccupy the building under the educational use uh and in addition the building codes would not require us to uh look at any increases in any of the loads that are prescribed by the building code so that would include the live loads the snow the wind uh earthquake loads uh Etc so that's all very very good news um there are no major structural modifications that are required so some of the uh ongoing and up uh upcoming improvements some of these uh Chris touched upon uh and then there's some additional observations that we've we've noted here uh the the concrete stairs uh down at the uh 1996 Edition uh do have some spalling and and will need to be uh re repaired we would highly recommend that that that be done for safety uh there are some uh simple cosmetic issues on the interior uh that could be addressed very easily uh such as the ceiling tiles that have previously been stained by old roof leaks the roof won't be leaking anymore because it's brand new and I we can go ahead and uh get all of that replaced um Chris and his team are working on the exterior repointing the brick and uh repairing any of the damaged brick uh Roofing we've talked about uh and then the egress stairs uh there are uh two two of the stairs that uh connect all four levels of the building have some minor uh deficiencies that will'll need to uh uh correct in order to complete the fire resistance rating um change the doors uh change out the hardware which is which is already being done um minor Renovations required there and then finally uh the handrails and guard rails uh throughout the building uh lack the uh horizontal extensions at the top and at the bottom of the stair run uh which is very common for a building of of this age um they were not required under previous codes they are required now so they'll require a little bit of uh modification uh to bring those up to code can I interrupt for one second please uh what page is on the screen eight eight we don't have the same presentation I think U what happened was some of the work that was listed on the medium long-term Capital Improvements were actually ongoing upcoming Improvement so there was a last minute modification so which one is the correct presentation there so some uh longer term considerations to think about uh Chris had mentioned this as well the the windows and the original part of the building that date to 1962 um are are single glazed um and would not meet any of our current standards for uh air and water infiltration or uh energy conservation and uh that's something I think we would want to take a heart look at um replacing in the future so our review of uh the Americans with Disability Act uh and uh 521 CMR which is the Massachusetts architectural uh access board regulations uh and our conclusion is that the uh the amount of work that we're anticipating um performing on this building uh will trigger a full uh upgrade uh for accessibility that shouldn't come as any surprise uh at all um it's very easy to reach that threshold which is based on the dollar value of the work that's being performed uh and if that exceeds 30% of the uh assessed value of the the property that triggers uh upgrades for full compliance um and we're not surprised at all that that um that's what needs to to happen here but um what that means is is that we'll need to upgrade the handrails as I've previously mentioned uh we're going to need to make some adjustments around the uh doors to the classrooms for um the wheelchair uh approaches um the passenger lifts uh which are uh chair lifts their existing lifts that are in the process of being uh replaced and and those are lifts that take us between the cafeteria level and the lobby level and the gymnasium level that's all that's a one full story that those areas are not served by that elevator and so we need some additional lifts uh in that area in order to maintain an accessible route uh between uh those places um we uh do expect to apply for a variance very soon from on the architectural access board uh for the elevator cab uh there uh the elevator has been looked at by an elevator company uh the cab is slightly uh small by the current regulations half inch to an inch uh we think that that that's a very reasonable U reason to apply for a variance so that we can work within the existing uh hoist way that we have uh without having to reconstruct construct the entire uh elevator um so that application is something that is being uh worked on right now uh the toilet rooms for the students and the staff throughout the facility will require some uh renovation for accessibility in addition of the locker rooms uh the kitchen Nets and um uh staff uh work areas and then finally outside of the building uh we'll need to update the uh striping for the accessible part spaces in the signage associated with those spaces uh we have a team of Engineers that join us when we perform the uh assessment and our uh mechanical engineers have given us some good feedback of of uh some work that we should be thinking about that extends uh beyond the recent boiler plant uh replacement uh that that has been completed so we wanted take a look at The Building Systems outside of the Boiler Room uh where the the the heat is distributed um so some of that equipment uh is original to the building uh others have been replaced and others date to uh those two additions that I I mentioned earlier uh all of that really needs to uh have a close look to see if that's something that we're going to want to upgrade or or modernize uh and then in the the kitchen uh you know the exhaust Hood uh has really reached the end of its life expectancy which again is not surprising and uh I think um in consultation with you know Food Services uh but that's something that we would want to consider to be replaced as well uh Plumbing Systems uh we we mentioned the requirement to extend sprinkler coverage to all areas of the building uh this is something that is required uh by MH General law uh and again we've crossed one of those thresholds that triggers this requirement they really uh you know there's no way around this one um we're going to have to fully sprinkler the building and we should be sprinkling the building uh you know to to make it as safe as as we possibly can uh beyond that um we're going to want to do some upgrades to the plumbing in the uh science classrooms that uh would be used for uh laboratory Laboratories have some special requirements uh for the nonpotable water uh and acid NE neutralization that's the waste that we do not want to put into the sewer um because it's damaging and uh we want our uh laboratory spaces to be safe and so um you we would we would require some additional safety stations which consists of of the eyewashes and the showers which I'm sure that you're uh familiar with uh the plumbing fixtures I think we've uh gone through that all of the plumbing fixtures will need to be uh updated to comply with the uh accessibility requirements and then returning to the kitchen in addition to the hood uh the grease Interceptor has also been uh recommended uh for replacement so we're not discharging the uh the cooking oils and the fats uh into the into the sewer system and and that's a plumbing code requirement uh beyond that uh the piping that extends throughout the building for the roof drains uh the sanitary drains uh which are are toilets and sinks and our domestic water piping which uh delivers our hot and cold water throughout the building uh this this piping especially in the original parts of the building uh has reached the end of its useful life expectancy and uh it's something that we I think we want to take a hard look at uh potentially replacing in the future electrical systems uh we mentioned that the fire alarm system was uh recently upgraded and is 100% functional throughout the building uh replacement of the light fixtures is ongoing the current fluorescent lighting is being replaced with high efficiency uh LED fixtures in all spaces uh there there is some additional wiring uh that would be required under the current electric code uh for the life safety system so this uh includes includes the fire alarm system it includes our our exit signs our egress lighting uh and so forth all the systems that we want to stay on uh in the event of a power failure the the building is equipped with a standby generator by the way I had not uh mention that uh and then finally uh to you know uh bring our school up to the level that it should be uh for um Information Technology uh you know new data data wiring and the infrastructure that supports that um you know should be extended you know throughout the building so that we can you know maintain our 21st century uh learning practices and and that would include uh uh wireless access points throughout the building and then finally the main electric service to the building is uh part of the original 1962 construction again uh no immediate concerns there the power's on we don't expect any uh imminent failures there but uh because of the age of the equipment that's something that should also be on the list uh for things to consider replacing in the future so that that's the end of the building assessment and uh who's going to pick up take that okay is that for Chris I'll turn it over so you asked for a hazardous waste assessment um so we checked the EP files and there is no uh reports of any uh nothing reportable on site uh theher reports which are required every 3 years um we do have copies of those and we are reviewing them um there are some 9in tiles that we anticipate covering over um we we've known about since day one thank you and finally we go back to uh to the money right uh the property appraisal obviously came in uh the I'm sorry the property uh value came in at 12.7 million inclusive of the improvements and the land at the um at the complex and here's some information for everyone's edification of the lease lease agreement uh with Bristol Community College as everyone knows they're a great partner and this the uh lease payments coming in now the city has established uh a revolving fund four uh which is currently covering the cost of um an employee to maintain the uh maintain the fields as well as um during any winter snow plowing and and all the um the in all that that comes along with winter and um with that we'll turn it over Madame mayor uh Mr chairman to um any questions that we that the committee May has okay thank you for the presentation so I will open it up to the committee for any comments uh questions and if anybody could if you could all just raise your hand uh when you want to speak or take the floor that would be helpful mam mayor uh I great thank you for the presentation um I think as you can see the the building has come a long way in a very short time um being a graduate Co Cassidy I know the building itself is always been well maintained the structure looks really good um as we continue to go down this this road I think it's just a great opportunity for the tart school department to acquire a um aund million uh building if we were to go build it today so um I would make a motion that we request the city council that we would light the building second on discussion please there's a motion and a second um on discussion I cannot okay on discussion is there any discussion yes Madam mayor that's me uh Gregory Dello uh thank you so much for that motion uh I'm a little concerned first and foremost um I took some time to dig deep into this presentation and I'm uh disappointed that one of the pages that were provided tonight were not in our presentation so to actually formulate an educated guess uh at what was missing I could never figure that out until tonight's presentation and how I could could compute maybe some rough numbers of what it would be costing for those uh those those items that were not included in the presentation I'm a little little bit disappointed uh secondly uh there are a lot of comments that refer to these are quotes hard to look at to replace in the future bring it to the level it should be and other comments uh that were made that really are telling me that these items that are listed okay that are listed as I'm sorry I'm flipping through pages here but that's the only way to do it to medium and long-term Capital Improvements are all listed but they're not part of the uh the projection so my question is if all these items that are listed here okay the ones that are medium to long range the the ones are in process the ones that are under consideration that should be done this way should be done that way okay what is that dollar amount do we have a dollar amount to bring this building up to the to the code it needs to be now for the gentleman that's at the podium I forget your name I'm sorry Kevin PR so so Mr preventure the school committee voted that the use of the building was for a 5 through eight educational setting grade 5 through eight so there was concern that we didn't identify the need the the use of that building so we as a school committee made that validation and voted on that so you understand that right the use of the facilities for a five through eight setting for school use yes I do okay so what is a educated guest or a professional estimate of the total dollar amount that needs to be spent on that building with everything that's contained this presentation and the one on the screen so there's two presentations that is something that we are working on okay uh we are working with a professional cost estimator we're beginning to get some preliminary data uh it needs to be validated and incorporated into our report and I expect within two weeks uh we should have our draft uh available so I don't have an answer uh for you uh tonight but uh I can assure you that uh that's information that will become available shortly okay if I May on page number six uh we're talking about the um uh the sprinkler system okay we are anticipating the installation of an NFPA 13 sprinkler system in the original portion calculating per square foot what is the per square foot cost of that sprinkler system to be installed or upgraded that'll also be included in our report uh it might be uh and don't don't quote me on this because it will be included it might be $15 $15 yeah the reason I bring it up is because I have the report from bristell Community College that hired uh RW Sullivan engineering when they were thinking about purchasing the building and that report was issued September 15th of 2021 and at the time the prayer square foot was in the range of six to S so being $15 I I can understand that what that brings me to is that the elevator that was being mentioned what do you think the anticipated cost is for that new elevator any idea well let me share with you in 2021 the elevator was estimated between $450 and $500,000 So based on your assumption for the six to S per square foot for the sprinkler in 21 now being 15 do you think that elevator would now cost above a million dollars based on that assumption or uh just to be clear I think we're considering only replacing the uh the cab of that elevator not is that the one that's just within the the 6 in or the three in or whatever assuming that uh that we need a variance for yeah the the if the access board grants us the various the variants will be able to replace yeah I I I I I I apologize I I don't know how we can possibly how we can possibly even consider this to be moving forward to the school department side when we don't have the answers to the numbers of what we need uh this is a process been going on since January uh we have never said as a school department as a school committee I should say that we don't want that building we've identified the use of that building and I cannot cannot go to sleep tonight knowing that we are going into a real estate transaction because we were elected to be school committee people to represent the students to be going into a transaction as a real estate agent or an agent of a transaction of real estate without knowing what we're buying or purchasing so you know I'm perplexed at you know why we're here tonight I was assuming that tonight we were going to come to a um an opportunity to say uh you know you guys can move in in September of 25 I guess that's a projected date that we're thinking uh I believe and that uh it will be all said and done and all the eyes will be Dot and all the te's will be crossed but I did not hear that tonight so I will not be supporting that motion motion thank you Madame mayor may I um reply yes please thank you um so I appreciate the remarks from chairman Dello of course um however the city's responsibility is to take care of the city's buildings um we've proven that we are doing that with the initial outlay we have additional funds earmarked and we'll continue as the city always has done to ensure that the public facilities operated by the schools are ring good standing um I think what's being um what may have been over looked and um Mr D's remarks is the fact that in order for us to do all those things in this assessment that we're going to do and we're going to be required to do we need to know that the school committee is going to take is going to vote for that we're not going to just we're not going to do an assessment that's going to cost millions of dollars and and to Mr en's point it's a $100 million building a100 million building and we are going to make sure I know the mayor's committed to putting additional funds for this for our next capital outlay u we worked with Mr kichel uh we need to know that this is the direct the school wants the school committee is going to want this building and in in order for us to spend another dollar in this in in this building to bring it up to the Cod to go to fund the assessments that are going to be brought forward we need a vote if I may Madame mayor uh well just a minute I think did M Miss sh did you just he referred to me Madame mayor to to my comment so I I think I need to reply well you've already spoken but he specifically mentioned me in his coms and then you can also speak again afterwards okay whatever your wishes no problem thank you thank you madam mayor so my question is you've spent 1.3 million so you got about 1.8 left correct we spent 1.5 we have 1.8 remaining approxim so then um so the things that are saying that they're anticipating they're going to be done they're going to be coming out of that funding but you're not going to do it until you're certain it's going to become a school for us that's correct so I mean you're not going to keep putting money into this until you know for certain that we want this to be a school but the things that you're telling us that are going to be done obviously are going to be done they must be done yeah they will be done and I've asked if in the past the just the the city hasn't been good on its word so I haven't heard anything that says that they haven't been good on the word if you're telling us it's going to get done they're going to get done we're going to be that funding is available uh should the committee vote to um request the facility as well as additional funding um that may be required it's a city it's a the city's responsible for the buildings uh for all public buildings and the um the items that you're listing that are are possible Capital Improvements those would be things that be coming up in the future that hopefully with the city would be helping us out as to replacing some of these as they be as they as they come to be a situation that has to be replaced at that time that that's 100% correct for instance the windows are a perfect example so you the windows don't have to replaced on on day one that something that we sit down and say okay this is we're going to tackle this in FY 2026 we're going to tackle this in FY 2027 uh but it's that wouldn't be prohibitive and Mr kichel Mr preventure will tell you of Code Compliance to have students um in a in a classroom and when we look at it there's not a lot of Capital Improvements that you're listing that you're not covering right now so you're covering a lot of them so and I would think at at a at a certain point we would look at all of them and prioritize them absolutely that would be the decision that you know would be made by you know the superintendent would be Mr kichel and Mr fedus okay as as to what what goes first second and third um after we get the assessment okay thank you yes thank you m Mr Laura on this question for longterm of Capital Improvements so let's say the electrical system now that's there part of it is upgraded most of it is not with that building that say I can speak on that so um thank you for the question uh the electrical system is completely compliant right now and it's fully adequate for um the building and its use right now um even educational if you go in there what we're referring to is 21st century needs and all the it um it's an Antiquated system Square D I can't get parts for it anymore um so the main panel and then the 14 sub panels are adequate but when we start doing work we'll probably need to upgrade those as we go well that's my question is let's say a new school goes in new computer new technology more than that uh you know the screens the whatever else is requireed if that electrical system is not up to date and not not um comp with the existing systems then what we going to do so again um the once the code review is done we'll have the needs that are going to be required to turn this building back to educational and then we're going to have to sit down with this committee and get wants what upgrades are you going to want kitchen bathrooms um so on and so forth teach you know um offices and then we'll we'll sit down and we'll go through the whole list and then we'll compile uh what what what what is required to move forward and then the other question I had was and again I have every full intent of going along with this Pro with this plan as it's as institutional uh purpose as stated in the beginning of this negotiation but the other thing too that I'm asking is uh in this ventilation system for heating and ventilation uh what kind of upgrades would we need in the future if you're if you have a classroom of say of 500 600 students what kind of system you going to be need so right now you have a fully functional heating system and you have half the building that's an AC most of the as as we know a lot of the school teachers want the AC for June and September um so that's that's what the future upgrades would require so the the the unit ventilators within the room the ptech unit um those are Antiquated um in the 60 section so those would be incorporated to include the AC uh that's that's what we're talking about future upgrade sir but but the monies that we're going to be needing are not appropriated at the the money that we have left in the funds are for the sprinkler system in the elevator upgrades that's already am mared and been priced I'm already getting prices of $9 to $10 a square foot and I have the money and the funds for that right now so is it your proposal that you would come before this committee again in a couple of weeks or a month and give us an additional cost to what it would take to upgrade so sure so um the committee would the committee will be um kept in the in the loop obviously and Mr prometer you know will be back with all that information um however we need the information um prior to our Capital outlay as if you're going to want the want the building or not that's that sort of a a time constraint which the city has and the city capital planning ends um in a short period of time the funds that would be allocated U to the coil building would be inclusive uh inside of that Capital planning and I can assure you that the that we could um commit to funding the if should the committee vote to request the building from the city council the city would put forward the necessary fundings to make it code compliant yes so let's say come back in a a month or two and there's an additional $2 million to upgrade all of the requirements that's where's that money coming from that that was already that was anticipated should should the school committee want that another an additional 2 million of funding would would um be put forward at during the capital the capital program closes in November um so we would need to get a commitment from the school committee prior to that that's why we're requesting that this evening thank you thank you Mr Laura uh Mrs Fagan and then M Santos when do you PL when did you want to get into that school by next September um we have as I've shared with some members we have a very small administrative team and we already have a lot of work that we are taking on this year and we are anticipating negotiations to begin in January so I'm not prepared to uh have my team uh begin any for launch any forums engage the community meet with the staff in our community until I have a clear direction from the committee that there is a desire to acquire this facility so once we have um once we know what direction we're going to be moving in with the committee then I will begin uh SK put together a very thoughtful plan uh to engage our educational stakeholders to engage students and to engage uh staff members to identify that what we're thinking about using using the space for is the most appropriate use of that space so for the F what what I feel is impacting me and my team is not knowing if there is a strong desire to move on with this building should the committee decide not to move on with this building or delay I worry that the city may go in a different direction uh with a facility that's unoccupied and then we're left with nothing so that's how my mind is thinking about this I would like some strong clear direction from this committee so that we can begin doing the work that's going to take time and I want to be thoughtful and I want to be transparent with the with the stakeholders that we need to engage to best maximize this space should the committee want to move forward okay here's my concern okay um you you're talking about the uh storm drain sanitary waste and domestic water piping my understanding is that some of that water piping you can't even use those water fountains because it's either lead or it's it's cast iring is that true so the plumbing system is fully adequate right now and it and it's compliant with the code but as we do upgrades we will want to look at that that's what the point the architect was making are pipes that go to the water fountains I'm sorry are they cast iron pipes that go to the water there would be a copper pipe that goes to the water Fone are you sure yes I am because I heard there was a problem with that the other thing you were talking about was having the doors you had to widen the doors for wheelchairs we have kids in wheelchairs all the time time how fast would you have to do that I I don't want to send a kid into a building that that doesn't have the things that they need in there because they don't you can't get a wheel chair through or there's 9x9 tiles that have asbestos in them or the or the piping is something's wrong with the water I had a person that worked there told me that there was something wrong with the water going to the Fountain the bubblers so I I don't want to send kids into a place like that that's why I'm concerned about this but I don't I don't like being pressured like this there were specific questions that we had answered we have to make sure that building is going to be okay for the kids to go into it and I don't want to have anything dangerous in there for them including the asbestos you said well we have to cover that should you cover that before they get in there I that's the question I have what what this there's got to be an order of operations where on the as on the asbestos tiles um it's ACM it's it's suspected it's not Frable it is not fracking it's not um uh it's not a one so it's fully PL as it stands and it's in good shape um but as we go through and we do the ceiling systems and we do the the sprinklers we'll probably want to cover it so yes we're aware of it we have it in several buildings we're very familiar with it we work around it all the time we're in full compliance with de laws and the other thing that's bothering me about this is we had a beautiful School Hopewell School that's been left to go to you know where in a hand basket because everything's leaking in that building and it was like that when there were students there cuz I had friends there that worked there and they said they were dealing with water then and I went in last year with Steve Vieira and it's like we're letting buildings go to go just fall apart like we don't even care about them and I worry about increasing numbers of kids all the building in this city and we're going to need space but I'm worried about that that building over there because I want to make sure it's right I don't want to be putting kids in a place that's unsafe and those are those are Middle School we're talking about we're going we're going to fully fund uh the repairs um to make sure the going to go dry how much money do you think we can keep spending before everything just falls apart we have we have a a fully funded Capital Improvement program um we have had one now going into our CIP you find stop finding stuff that the capital Improvement program is a 5-year plan that we initiated in um three years ago under May o Connell it was the first in City's history the school department has been a benefactor of that plan and have been a partner with us through throughout that plan and it will continue to do that thank you Mrs Fagan y Mr pelowski did I see your hand up oh I'm sorry Miss Santos you were next that's okay thank you um so it's a lot to process um and I I guess I didn't know that we'd have this presentation and then we would have to immediately make this decision um so for me it feels a little rushed as far as that goes um and I'm just wondering what that Rush is I know on your part obviously it's because the money that you have to spend right so if you spend 1.48 million you said you're prepared to do two what if it becomes more than that kind of going off of what Mrs Fagan is saying right um and some of these things seems like they're going to cost a lot of money like Plumbing electrical like again with the variance for the elevator we don't even know if you might have to change the whole elevator we don't know that yet so I I I I am not saying that I don't want the building cuz I think we're obviously going to need that you know so I'm not saying that but I think like Dr deela said I'm a little concerned that we don't have those projections as far as what that cost is going to be at this point to make that decision I think knowing those numbers would give us a better idea of like all right are you definitely going to cover it or is this going to impact taxpayers is it going to you know the families things like that if there's not nothing set in stone I have a hard time going on just word I guess for my that's on my part right and I I agree with the whole PL like that is something that should have been fixed and it hasn't been fixed right so we don't want to fall back into a similar situation um and the other concern I have is that I thought it was 5 through 12 I might be confused did we do 5 through 12 5 not 5 through eight I apologize 5 through 12 no that's fine but then it seems that where we haven't decided what we want to do with that yet as a school committee either right like I know it's for educational purpose but I don't think that as a group we've come together to say this is what we want to do for it you know so I guess that's my concern as well too um and we're you know we have this thing in the agenda as far as the projection of all the new buildings that are coming up in da right we're building everywhere and obviously kids are going to come along with that right so we have something from the planning board right um asking about you know what needs are there but we don't know that yet so do we definitely need that building in 2025 like is that an an incessant like need that we need it in 2025 that's I guess my question as far as again feeling that it's a little rushed to make a decision without having everything that we need in front of us again for taxpayer purposes for family purposes for all of those other things so I just I I want to air on the side of caution I guess a little bit more so so that's just my two seconds resp thank you Miss Santos did you want me to respond to Mrs Santos's questions sure if there's a response from the presenters feel free no just um we we're going to need space I think as I shared in the communication I'm sorry I didn't realize that was your superintendent it's okay we're going to we're going to need space as I shared shared into communication with every board member here the high school is approaching 2900 students and as Isaiah did a much better job than I did he identified 200 new students at T High School you're going to hear an amazing presentation from the chapter 74 director and we're doing some outstanding work but we're doing it with space limitations and in our chapter 74 program is so robust but we're limited by space so the more space that we can acquire the more ability we'll have to have robust program programs that keep kids in school and keep kids engaged and uh I I understand I don't appreciate or don't take someone's word at Value but when someone States it in a public meeting and it becomes part of the public record uh that gives us a little more teeth to go after that individual or individuals to make sure that what they promised in a public meeting gets accomplished down the road because this board whatever we've stated in public whatever motions we've made we've always adhered to and that would be my expectation if I'm hearing from the CFO tonight that they are going to fund the repairs in these buildings and and I just want to say that I'm not again we need the space I'm not saying that so I don't want it to seem like oh well we you know we're not going to go forward with that I'm just saying again I think having more concrete numbers having more of a plan and you know we might disagree as far as having on public record if that's enough too but um thank you so so Madam mayor may I make a reply I'm sorry Madame mayor it's it's it's uh CFO Del Russo may I make a reply yes please so so again to you point the taxpayer dollars so um again responsible spending is what it comes down to um for us to spend $1.8 million on a sprinkler system that may not be Cod compliant would be irresponsible do you understand what I'm saying so we need got we need the school committee to make a decision as to say okay we want the building and then that will give us the acknowledgement that we need to do and the confidence we have that this is what we're going to do in direction right um to say that uh I think everybody can um everybody that's worked with me over the last three years if he's worked with mayor Connell when we say we're going to do something we do we have substantial reserves um dedicated for Capital improvement improvement so say for instance we go through a CIP process and $3 million was appropriate based upon the decision of the school committee um we have a we have $40 million in reserves that would be a oh it's going to be 4.5 million okay so we're going to have we're going to have to be responsible and move that money to to cover that cost to bring the building up to the necessary codes required to have grades 5 through 12 in here so uh to say something's like something's rushed I certainly can appreciate the comment um we need the direction to allocate the funds that's what we need and that's what we're asking for the vote for tonight thank you madam mayor mayor F May uh we asked the professional Mr preventure I asked the professional Mr preventure what is an anticipated cost for all the to-dos and he couldn't answer that tonight so you me to tell me Mr larusa you're going to go to the city council and tell them that they're going to commit an unknown number to the school if we voted tonight to take the school in on possession and they're going to say yes to the unknown number so so that the because all I'm hearing tonight is Mrs sha said you've spent 1.3 you have another 1.8 million to go and and the $1.8 million is going to carry us through to to do all the these these to-dos it's impossible it's impossible so so again without without the this vote here to go to the city council the city council would have to um vote to give the school uh to this the school committee that would that's the procedure so that's that's step one step two is once that's done the the city council chooses to um give this back to the give this to the school the city council is acknowledging at that point that it's responsible for the building clothing improvements and they know that that's in that's in our net School spending agreements that's been the way taunton's traditionally done things for years very successfully I might add and to that end we would we would know what what the numbers are to bring the building into C- compliance no one made any representation whatsoever that all these items would be done at the drop of the dime or in one or in one week however please let him finish however we did make a statement that we would we would put the resources required to bring this up to bring that school in in compliance with any codes required to get K to get I'm sorry 5 through 5 through 12 inside the building Mr Dell that's something that the that is something that the city council by transferring this to you acknowledges so you could have the number for the city council but you can't have that number for us well it's not costing the school anything it it's costing the taxpayers I'm a taxpayer okay I do live in the city I don't know if you live in the city I live in the city I'm a taxpayer okay I want to make sure that our students and our faculty are going to a safe place to work and to study I'm not going to put anybody In Harm's Way read pick up the front page of a newspaper City in Fall River okay city of Brockton it just goes on and on and on I have been here for almost eight years every decision I make is for the best interest of the students student right here Isaiah Wendell one he's one of those students okay so I I can't understand what the rush is okay we have made an informed decision we went before the city council on January 30th of 2024 all of us all eight school committee members all nine City Council Members we gave them the intent of the building we gave them a checklist of what needed to be done and we're now nine months later almost 10 months later and still we don't know anything more than what we knew on January 30th uh Mr delar ruso would you respond to that uh comment that we don't know anything more than we did in January yeah I mean that's that's a misrepresentation entirely I mean you see the assessments um that are ongoing the improvements that have been done the money that has gone into into the facility already I have to just respectfully disagree with chairman Dello um on that statement entirely that's okay to disagree we just don't you just don't have a number to provide us that's all and I asked the professional Mr uh preventure and he can't produce that number either just to clarify let I'll let mrow he has not spoken yet oh sorry uh thank you madam mayor so i' I'd like to start with I uh respect and agree with the concerns of of all my colleagues here um but our superintendent said that in order for him to put forth the resources of his team many of which are here in the audience to actually put forth the ton tons of work required to come up with the actual proper usage of that facility should we have it because as Mrs Santos stated we we don't know what it would be yet but we know we need it it's 30 classrooms and 15 office spaces we we need it Parker's overcrowded ton high is overcrowded m is overcrowded we just had a high school school Improvement meeting on Martin today Martin is at capacity so we definitely need the I guess maybe 600 seats for kids um but Mr deluso is telling us he needs a commitment from the school committee before he can go forward uh with the actual changes that we need to make uh Mr cabal says he needs the commitment from the school committee before he can commit his people I take them at face value on that um so I believe that we need the facility in one way shape or form I don't think there's any chance it would be ready for September 25 anyway because we haven't done the work yet also if we were talking about voting to build a new school right we'd have to vote before we start building it we're not putting the kids in the school until it's built until it's safe so either way we're not putting anybody into this school until it's safe under any circumstances so I don't see any logic why we wouldn't vote for it right now because we have to vote for it at some point so we got to get this ball rolling at some point um I would like to start the ball rolling today so I will be voting for it I will be supporting it I think we need the space thank you thank you Mr palowski M Miss oh I'm sorry Mr Laura had his hand up first so then I'll call on Mrs shabs thank you Madame mayor um what as you indicated in your presentation of some of my questions that you would have another estimate say within the next month 30 days or so to be brought forth to us with new amounts to costs that that's being developed excuse me that is being developed as as we speak and that those estimates will be part of our report which will be available within that time frame so with the maker of the motion entertain hold for a month to get all this updated information there there's a motion currently on the floor Mr Laura no that's I'm asking to make with a motion if that would be a consideration I will not and again Madam mayor if I if I if I may um again um you know we need to understand well to stop planning for our Capital outlay what the school committee wants to do and to Mr uh Mr palowski Point you're not going to we won't be putting students into a wouldn't be suggesting putting students into a building that was not ready um erupt the code yet you just wouldn't it's just not logical um and it's also you know based upon the expression of need it sounds like the the school needs a space we have a facility that we that was purchased for uh educational purposes you know the logic is there to take a vote that you guys wanted um in my opinion and we're prepared to um we're prepared to make the necessary upgrades um the mayor's gone on record I've gone on record um to stay to say as much and and we need we need to some direction from the school committee at this point to move forward to make the necessary changes that's what we need to do U Committee Member thank you thank you Mrs sh so bottom line regardless of what this costs the city has promised that they will turn over a building to us that we will be able to put students in provided the school the city council has to V vote to do that problem the bottom line is that you will turn over a building to us that it will be at a point that we will be able to put students in we we once the city council votes to turn it over to you the city council at that time acknowledges that it has to it's going to have to repair the building it's the city the city of city owns all the buildings it has to fix it bring up the that's that's that's a discussion that has to happen and all these things take time do we come out of here tonight again it's going to be another two three weeks before we go in front the city council right who and that that that's that's a process in itself then at that point in time now you passed the capital Improvement plan now you missed another another whole year right so now that's gone and that $1.8 million we still don't have any idea what we're going to do with it right so it puts us it puts us in a very compromised position in order to help you um get to that building to where you want to be that's you know this isn't this this isn't politics this isn't smoking mirors this is this is the city trying to attempting to work the city's Administration trying to work with the school committee to inform them of timelines inform them of processes to identify the our commitment to provide you with all the information you need the assessment's gonna gon to come up we know it's going to cost money I mean when we purchase coil in in in in those meets in those discussions we knew that there were going to be improvements and those are all stated in public public sessions and now if you think of it like this city the city purchased that knowing full well it would cost $100 million to build a new building and we were able to buy it for six so to us if I have to put we have to put 15 to20 million over time into a facility we still save the taxpayers which everyone's everyone's concerned about $80 million that's without interest cost thank you madam mayor thank you you're welcome Dr Dello thank you mayor I agree with Mr Laura's U intent uh if we are going to have a true number in approximately 30 days and you can't give the city council a true number until you have the entire list compiled and and uh in this case every cent accounted for I I have no reason why we couldn't delay this for another 30 days till we get that same report I that's that's my opinion I mean I I I want to go on record once again I've never been opposed to the school department Taun Public Schools having the coil Cassidy building also known as to Hamilton Street for educational use never once did I say that publicly on record or off record but I am concerned with a lot of the unknowns and once again we're here tonight you mentioned about your integrity I have no doubt in your integrity I have no doubt in the mayor's Integrity you're here for the best interest of the city but but what I am concerned is is voting on something that I have no idea what it's going to cost me as a taxpayer or the other folks that are out there as taxpayers and delivering a product that is habitable for consumption not consumption but for use of our students and our staff that's my concern thank you mayor thank you Dr Dello uh Mr delar Russo does anyone on your team presenting tonight have an idea of what the cost may be to do all the work we have to do I mean I don't think anyone's going to have an exact number um in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or whatever it is um because as everyone knows when you start working on things um schedules change things change you find other things so it's very difficult to have a specific exact number for the kind of work we're doing we're going to have to do especially when you know we don't have the vote of the school committee to actually take the building um so that we can make a plan work with superintendent team uh to really identify every single thing that needs to be done so it's kind of a fluid process and we have to get to a point where we can really make more concrete plans because right now we can't we know some things that need to be fixed um but I think it's a challenge to give anyone an exact number uh at this point Mr deluso could you please even as you know as you know even during our our Capital programs I mean perfect example is the you know Water Treatment Plant upgrades initially we thought it was 500,000 we got the architect in there and then you know boom 1.5 right after you stop peeling back so you know even even after you know uh professional estimators go in there I mean cost estimators are cost estimators and they they do their job but that doesn't still give you an exact science and how our Capital programs worked so fluidly and so well is that you know we allocate blocks of money and we also allocate to the building department um several dollars for discretionary spending through that program which you know could could really offset and help any any additional uh spaces I just want to go on record Madam may as well um so everyone's aware the capital program is going to end in November and so um I I we've gone on record to to know to inform the school committee of that so any any decisions made um that could you know potentially miss that deadline would um would certainly not be um on the city's Administration for failing to inform the school committee uh Mr enus as a taxpayer and a resident of the city almost 61 years I pressed the motion uh if you press the motion there has to be um a majority vote to go forward with that so uh just so everyone's familiar a motion to press the motion we have to take a vote that everybody wants to press the motion and um that would be a roll call vote at this point if you don't mind Mr rea yes Mrs shops yes Mr palowski yes Mr Laura no Miss Miss Santos this is just to push the motion that to press the motion not voting on The not voting on oh yes Mrs Fagan votes no uh no I vote Yes so the motion passes roll call on the vote please could the maker of the motion repeat the initial the original motion um the motion I made was to request the city council for the transfer of the property to the school department so it's for the school department to request from the city council transfer of the property correct thank you and that was also seconded on a roll call please Mrs Fagan Mr Reus yes Mr shabs yes Mr palowski yes Mr delura yes Miss Santos no M Fagan votes no no I vote Yes the motion passes I'd like to move a motion to um uh have the superintendent immediately start a planning process for the use of the uh two Hamilton Street also known as the coil Cassidy and report back to the school committee within 30 days second motion and second Dr Deo could you please repeat the motion again I'm I'm sorry I Char would like to move a motion to charge the superintendent to start the planning process for the use of the two Hamilton Street also known as coil Cassidy and report back for the usage within 30 days to the school committee thank you motion and second uh all those in favor I I opposed none opposed motion passes unanimously all right thank you everyone uh could I please request about a two or three minute recess so moved second Motion in second all those in favor I opposed none opposed so voted uh thank you up on the agenda we have a presentation by what happened to my list thank you we have a career Vocational Technical education program update with us tonight we have Mrs dala Hartong and Mr Michael raposo the podium is yours welcome thank you so I'm really excited as this is one of my favorite presentations of the year and Mrs hotong has put put together a robust comprehensive presentation along with her co-director Michael Raposa that will really give you a great I snapshot what's going on to the high school and I was very pleased to learn uh thanks to assistant Prin principal carollyn BAU that the high school is really a 50-50 school where we have over 1,600 chapter 74 slots that are accredited by Desi and those that are not accredited by Desi so of the 2900 students attending tant high school over 1,600 students are coded in some way shape or form participating in the chapter 74 program dollar I think about in Mike I think about where the program has come in such a short period of time you're doing some outstanding work and I'd love I cannot wait to to see your presentation thank you well good evening and thank you for having us here tonight um we appreciate the opportunity and I also want to acknowledge Dr Harrison and Carol bleno and suppor of us here tonight um so we're going to make this quick I have a lot of slides we have a lot of slides and I'm going to go as fast as I can but I just want you to know like it's it's extremely meaningful and refreshing to come to present um to to you all because it it's not only an opportunity to uh showcase what we've been doing but it also gives us all of us the opportunity to reflect appreciate all of our hard work that we've accomplished together collectively so without further Ado I I'll start the presentation the last time I came before um the school committee I think it was to request or we were doing a reading of the construction craft labor instructor position um and happily we did get that program approved as you know and last year was our first year of the construction craft labor program we're entering our second year and we're doing some amazing things and this is just a slide to Showcase uh some of the work that the students have been doing and our logo um over there um showing that we have our Union Local 876 six in partnership with us um and this is our eighth program so we're very proud that as John cabal just mentioned we we've come a long way and we've done a lot of hard work and we're really proud of it but we have to also compliment all of you because we wouldn't be where we are without the support of the superintendent school committee so this second slide just shows some more pictures of the students working and within the first year of construction craft labor students learn about scaffolding and that's in the exploratory and how to mix and level concrete and you can see the students working there um um they built the forms and they're actually uh leveling the concrete some more pictures of them working and proudly we have a lot of females in the program um because that is super important to me as a female and being in a non-traditional program such as this to feel the support of your teachers and and male students is really um important to us so I'm going to show you a quick little video of them outside leveling the concrete so you can see their work take this a take this push the corners so one of the reasons that we were approved for this chapter 74 program is because we were Forward Thinking and we were able to make sure that we had everything in place for that approval and we know we know the fight that we fought those that were on the committee know how hard it was for us to move from one chapter 744 program to8 and we had a lot of challenges and barriers and we were here because we fought fight and one of the reasons I believe that in addition to you know the high school need um to move from woodworking to construction craft labor was we were awarded $500,000 Capital skills Grant where we were able to purchase simulators um in zspace so students can practice and you'll see some videos on that welding and how to use a heavy um piece of equipment for and the this type of equipment is used in industry they use this to train um workers that have in the construction field and the reason you know people will argue that Hands-On versus simulation you don't get the full effect and I argue that you're able to afford more students the opportunity to practice safely um prior to going out and using equipment right and then so this is another one so um the zspace are laptops and uh students are able to practice welding um prior to actually welding in the field so that was a quick little snippet and um so the news some of the great news is the patio is here as you all know and uh it's beautiful and it does look a lot like the rendering that I presented two years ago was it two years ago I yeah so um the only thing that we're waiting for now um um is the awning in the furniture the awning will be delivered hopefully installed the end of October and the furniture has yet to be picked out by me but we're working on that so the food truck it really is coming and we will have roaring good food I promise so as you can see on the right that's the template that we use to actually start to V visualize what we want it to look like and I think Greg you have a little card Board model of that so I always want to see like what does it really look like in 3D but um it came out pretty close to what we imagined it to be and I believe that's coming on Friday f is crossed f is crossed so the commercial kitchen renovation the projected completion date is October 30th and by looking at this picture you're saying oh there's no way um but I really the reason that I included these pitches is because I wanted you to see the magnitude of work that went into this project um and that's why the cost was as high as it was there was Major work to be done as you can see next slide um and I don't have an updated pcture because I want it to be a surprise so when it's all said and done we'll have a ribbon cutting so you can actually come in and see it but you'll notice that on the the picture to the left that is the opening to the restaurant so that was really important that we have that because students were passing through a closet to get to um the the restaurant area robotics last year we competed for the very first time in the first competition and Mr LEL did an amazing job he worked countless hours with the students he had to learn a new software learn how to program learn how to build a robot and and figure out with this students you know how to manage all this and still compete and I'm we're both so proud of him but I know that um Mr gabal he he's he's a fan and he came for the competition which was really nice and and there's a little video mic that you can show we might have to enlarge it and it's just a quick little just make it bigger a little square [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thanks and we also have an electric car that we're working on and that's the frame of it and the robotics Club is been working on that so Mr Robot he'll be bringing you coffee pretty soon hopefully um we're learning how to program him and um we're super proud of that as well and the students really enjoy doing the Hands-On projects as you can say we have a great team of students and we actually have a lot of females that are interested in hoping to grow that number I'm going to turn this over to Mike we're just going to continue on with the uh the awards and competitions um I think we do a great job at the high school just sharing skills USA uh Deca all the Pro Stock competitions right um there's so much stuff that's going on at that school and those are just to to mention some of the few students who have actually have just done an outstanding job over the years placing the the thing that I want everyone to understand and um is we're everyone knows this we're a comprehensive school so we're competing with vocational schools where this is all they do on a daily basis is these type of uh competitions and um Awards and so forth and as a comprehensive high school that's something that we're extremely proud of um being able to have our students um go into these competitions and actually compete and place in the top against some of those vocational schools big vocational schools so we're very proud of that um skills USA uh State officer Logan robello um this student's been all over the place just just came back from Washington with as far as some of his competitions and some of his experiences that he's going through he's doing a great job he's a great kid he's he's just really enjoying it and it's it's one of the things that when we uh we have these students compete in these programs it's students like this that really you can tell they really take it to hun and they really enjoy what they're doing and we're so proud of him um more um I don't know if Mr Jake wanted to say a few words uh but the National Academy of broadcasting I mean again it's right there first place first place um honorable mention 2024 honorable mention I mean these students if if any of you you guys go through the uh the broadcasting area you see all the plaques all over the walls all the competitions everything that that's taking place up there these students are highly talented and they do a great job of representing ttan high school and the broadcasting Department um Pro stop in staying in line with Excuse me with our culinary program you know they were some of these students were over at um Foxboro Patriot Place competing again Comprehensive High School rubbing elbows with some of those vocational schools and doing very very well um as you can see we had second place third place finish and for management we had third place some of those um plates look absolutely delicious the presentation is above and beyond anything we'd ever expect so again students just doing a great job in that culinary program going under it's right here here oops sorry it just shows some preparing do you want me to go back it's really a quick little okay that's fine going under so again that was over in a Patriot Place um Nick he did a great job High I mean talk about stress highly stressful these students have you know they given a certain amount of time with their ingredients and their equipment and it's it's either you know you produce or you you go home and these our students have done a great job with that it's very stressful to be there and watch it well you know you've been there um Junior Achievement we um moving along with uh Junior Achievement we we presented last year we were over at UMass Dartmouth um from I believe it was the entrepreneurship classes and marketing classes these students acted as CEOs they were given a simulation and they were they competed and they had a great they did a great job um Edith from Junior rich she's here at Totton High School uh once a week she's in our classrooms she's working with the marketing students the Juniors and they're all working on a program again and they're working on a business and they're all going to have a product so we're looking forward to see where that takes us this year we also be going back to UMass in the springtime to compete against some of the other schools to see how we actually do and since we've been competing we've I think we've always come in at least in the top two or three and we won a couple times too um so I I mean Deca I probably don't have to say too much with Deca Mr mcf he does an unbelievable job Miss Sullivan um very very involved in the school I remember going back um probably 20 years ago when we had a Deca program Mrs moan remembers this we probably had maybe 10 15 students 20 students now if when he Mr mcf has his Deca meetings in the blgi I'm like can you keep it down there's like 200 kids in there it's unbelievable that I mean we have the best students in there we have um students who who struggle they everyone just loves to be part of deca it's such a great organization it's come such a long way so we're so proud of our DEA program U this is just something that we wanted to leave in the presentation it just kind of shows where we've come um over the last probably 8 to 10 years you know with the eighth graders at the high school they all start in our um they start with the eighth grade Discovery class they come in they get first exposure to CTE and then from there they make a selection and they go into our ninth grade exploratory those students are switching every 11 days 11 12 days they go from program to program and that will take them throughout the entire year and it's all the programs are listed U from broadcasting to culinary to web um construction and it just kind of gives you a little breakdown of where the students go from their level one level two level three classes um The Internship program that's come a long way over the last couple of years under Mrs Raposa she has done an outstanding job with that um these are some of our non- chapter 74 programs when superintendent talked about chapter 74 programs The Vocational programs and the non 74 these are called considered like Perkins programs there's still uh vocational programs in the school they're just not as rigorous that we don't have to meet some of the 900 hour requirement and those um those are listed up there from Criminal Justice to to Fashion Tech Finance marketing so forth so this this slide is always very important to us going back last week it was um the district ilt meeting you know and superintendent was talking about enrollment and enrollment in this district is so important to make sure that students are getting a high quality education and they're part of a school and part of a program to us this is very important from a department level so not from a school level from a department level our goal is every year we want that chapter 74 number to increase because we want those kids to be exposed to high quality programs so last year we had just about 870 this year we're at about 910 so just about 40 students or so we've increased um we listed the programs specifically there so some of them went up some of them went down we've identified the programs that we need to work on so we'll work on that going through our exploratory this year and try and increase some of those numbers for next year but that's something that's very important to us um and the number that we were referring to uh superintendent was referring to was the over 1500 students and that's in chapter 74 that's in non 74 that's in also Innovation Pathways we have two Innovation Pathways which Mrs Haron is going to talk a little bit more about with the healthcare and information technology so that's that's quite impressive again I keep going back to we're a comprehensive High School and we have a lot of students participating in vocational education um industry recognized credentials why are we these students are going through these programs and what are they getting well we're telling the the industry and our some of our committee members that when a student leaves our program they have a credential so the businesses come to us and they say well we want culinary students to have surf safe and food manager we want some of the business students to have mous certification we want early educ early Ed to have you know a CPR and so forth so um all our nth grade CL students have um OSHA ten card so that's again another credential so this this is very important to us that our students aren't just going through classes and programs but they're actually receiving industry recognized credentials um so I talked about that briefly um again the internship it's really taken off it started last year with Rebecca um the support of the district we're transporting students from uh school to inter internship sites and back if they're playing um Athletics and so forth and we had 52 seniors that went out last year it was a lot of work tracking those students where they are where they're going meeting with the businesses um it's and it's it's a high quality experience for our kids so again they're in classroom and they're learning but what's more important they're learning on their job and there some of these internships that very important to them uh this year we've increased it which is good we're at 69 chapter 74 students and we have 25 healthc care students and they're working with the Manet Health Community Center over on the C Parker campus so that's very important to us also it's kind of an internship and like a mentorship program um but again they're being they're getting exposure to that healthare field not just in the classroom but they're actually out there in industry and learning on the job which which is very uh very important to us and the students are really enjoying that so more expansions I know Mrs Mo has probably too happy about this but we're requesting a little bit more she's Mrs hard is going to talk about more more more more we want more anyway um so our expansions Renovations we have renovated The Early Education and Care Program and Innovation Pathways lab and chapter 74 broadcasting Studio I'm not going to read this because you can read but basically we are in line to put forward our application for a new chapter 74 program um the reason that we felt this was really important for us to develop and expand is because we need teachers right we need teachers in Taunton and what better way than to have our own students go through a program where they could potentially come back and work for us so again Forward Thinking doing it the right way to to get approved is putting everything in place and that's what we've done so Our intention is to apply for the program which we already submitted the letter of intent and now the process over the next five months will be challenging and a lot of work but uh we want to do this why because we want to increase opportunities for our students we want more students to be able to access the preschool uh prior to Junior and Senior year we felt it important to have have two preschools where we have three and four year olds and a preschool with four and five year olds depending on how the numbers go um why do we want to do this because we want more opportunities for our high school students to gain the access as I said um we're also thinking of having a summer camp which allows um you know our students to actually work at and I think that would be really exciting and we've actually talked about having a CT summer camp which we probably should do and we'll probably do some more on that as well so as you can see I provided a floor plan of what we worked on and basically if you look at a111 and a19 a111 was the existing preschool and what we've done is we've added um another preschool so we ripped up the carpet we retied we repainted um and we added Gates so we have a gate at a109 to make it safe so you'll see that in a little bubble um and you'll see the vestibule there that's not there yet but we're going to talk about that momentarily so this is classroom one um ready for the open house on Friday um and ready for school to open up on Monday the 7th so we're super excited about that this is Mrs fortunato's room and she'll have the four and five year olds and this is the second classroom um that we've worked on and we're very proud of this work and we're excited that our high school students have this opportunity the playground is in playtime is the best time without a playground students don't develop they don't develop the way they should they need playground time and we would we wouldn't have a chance of getting approval of the chapter 74 program without the playground so we're very thankful and appreciative of that um so we have also partnered with Trum trium in um in reference to the internship opportunities we've had eight students participate and they paid throughout the summer and we'll continue to doing that and we'll continue to add to that as well so that's really a nice partnership to have I should also say I mention because I'm not sure if you're familiar but our high schoolers actually go to all of our elementary schools um and they get the clinical experience of the hours that they need to be certified in Early Education and Care Innovation pathway we located a room for the ambulance simulator so it's my old CAD lab um so d102 um you'll see a floor plan there that shows the ambulance simulator in the corner and yes we can fit it in and hopefully when it comes in November um and we have some hospital beds we're super excited about the anatomy table that you see in the center that simulation table is unbelievable and you all get to see that when we have our ribbon cutting and open house for you to see all the great things that we're doing um so the go back one for one sec so up in the right hand corner we've purchased um tables and chairs similar to the presentation room so we can fold them up so the teacher can teach CPR and uh the other stuff that we need to do so we're going to continue just so you know continue to add to this program continue to develop this program a major PD that we need to do to learn how to use all this technology as well um so forward thinking so how can we maximize the health care pathway and have more they they're actually bed modules they're a system of a hospital bed that has the mannequins and all the makings of learning to be a CNA and such but it would be really wonderful to be able to add a large window between that classroom d102 and d103 so it would be more like a hospit hospital setting having a full I mean not exactly like I'm picturing there but um something similar because we believe that we the numbers will go through the roof right Carolyn for this Health Care pathway once the students see the technology I think that we're going to definitely need to expand and we do not have any room um we need space we need more classrooms if we're going to expand our programs which we are obligated we have an obligation right to give our students the best that we can um we need more space to be able to do that this may seem simple but this is huge um we were able to get access um you'll see the plan with a red arrow so there's an access door to the the library classroom which is a broadcasting classroom to the broadcasting studio and this makes a huge difference um in terms of just being part of the studio right and the collaboration that can take place between the different levels is wonderful and Steve is thrilled with it and and so am I we're all happy and we appreciate Brenda that you helped us with this because this is it's huge and the other thing is students don't have to pass through the library during mcast which is you know A disruption so Capital Improvements areas of focus um my timeline is a little crazy but um I shared this with Mark frus but we have to do construction craft labor excavation area that was part of our application approval we need a place on site for students to be able to do trenching and piping and actually use machines in in outside so that's super important that has to get done the tiger to's vestibule to me is critical it's critical for safety for pickup and drop off and just the inclement weather like when you open the door the cold air coming racing into the classroom um the outdoor din year for students which I'll explain in a second and then the new chapter 74 program Early Education in K so this is my proposal there's two areas that I've identified I need help and we're going to work more on this with with Mark um but I've identified two areas one across the street which is the one up on the upper right hand side and then the one on the bottom is near um the parking lot adjacent to the Fieldhouse I'm sorry yeah but it's it's beyond that it's it's a good it's a good spot for what we need to do because we need it to relatively close to the classrooms um but that's what we're thinking but there needs to be work we need to have a retaining wall we need to have heat we need to have a lot of things so we need to talk about that more um we need we need a space building we need a building where we can store the equipment safely and the groundskeepers could share this with us but we need a space that seems big I know but when you look at the the campus we do have some space and maybe we can carve some of this out and make it a little smaller but we're thinking of a building Dimension 40 by 50 and a pit size 12 ft by 20 ft with 3 ft deep so they can be under you know and digging and fences and a concrete pad and Swinging Gates but our construction craft labor students can help with a majority of this project we do need the space metal building but the students it would be a great learning experience for them to be able to pour the the concrete for the building and even put the fencing up too the vestibule as I said is critical and I think it needs to be beautiful it needs to be you know it needs to complement the Tiga um Cafe patio it needs you know that playground so that whole facade that whole side driving by um and I'm not saying it's this one but I think that we need to think about what does it look like and if we could make it longer that would be better but I think it's really important so here we are at the outdoor dining area for students back in the day remember the tiger tent that's where we served people before we had our restaurant that's where we were and we served um Dr Harrison we served people from the community and teachers and it was really challenging because of the weather but we did it Dr hacket was important for her uh for us to be able to develop something for the kids and we did so this space is underutilized and Mr cabal came and talked to me about six months ago and we thought about or he thought about tisco um you know if you've been to Cisco um tsco and this is just like conceptual I haven't had students weigh in on this yet um but just to give you an idea of like what we could do to utilize a beautiful space because if you bend back there and you look up that with a high ceiling it has so much potential and it's actually a nice space for students like the seniors to hang out so what we're thinking is grab and go the bottom um of that floor plan you'll see the black rectangles that's grab and go in this seating and maybe this conole you know there activities for them to do in canopies and then having like beach sand and build it up and have Stones so that's welcoming too and that's similar to what you'd see at Cisco and also at the Jockey Club um we could also do things with those Transformers and they could be painted and or we could have abias in front of those to hide them but this shows you conceptually what we could do with like a black fence and brick piers and how beautiful the space could be and the canopies the sail canopies are just fun um obviously they would have to be industrial type they can't be the type that you would just buy at Home Depot these would have to really be sturdy and I think with the fence and the and the Shrubbery and the canopies we could that could help with the wind because it is like a wind tunnel back there um next slide so this is just an elevation view um showing like we could have lighting and do some really creative things that would be a really nice space for students another perspective this is looking towards it showing like all the decorative grass plantings big boulders black fence brick peers um so it's classic looking like the building like we did the tiger Cafe patio and then it's important to Mr cabal that students have an opportunity be involved in this and so it would be an opportunity for students to be able to design their murals and it could be club-based it could be cultural stuff that we do um but this would be all student driven and uh this just showing you like potentially what we could have and it could be a different it doesn't have to be Tigers but I just wanted uh Mr bour put those on for me real quick and I don't know about you but Mr gabal and I we love that we love that that gate downtown um with the arched black top and the brick Piers um and maybe that's a way we could incorporate something like that um like the city did couple more perspective [Music] views and thank you for all of your [Applause] support thank you both uh Miss Harang Mr raposo I'll open up to the committee for questions Mrs shavs I just have a couple of comments so I've worked with um um dollar and Mike so I understand the huge undertaking your comment was challenging and a lot of work I think that's an understatement about what you guys have gone through I also want to make it known that every time you add one of these programs I want people to understand that the teachers aren't experts in these fields so they suddenly have to become experts in these fields so the amount of PD and in a lot of of these a lot of these um areas it's not a traditional type of course that they would be able to take at a college so it there's a lot of extra time when I think about the new one that you just added in um with the construction craft laborer I was very impressed with dala with all of her knowledge of all of this which I'm certain she didn't have when she first took over the department so it's like it it's like that you're building a department as it's moving and you're trying to be relevant in the 21st century and I I have to commend you both as well as your teachers of the amount of time that they put above and beyond the classroom and it's just amazing and you know I saw it at the beginning as you started some of the programs so to see the amount of programs you have and then to see all of the awards that the students have done with the different areas I mean I I know I did the programming and I know how much time your teachers worked outside of the building to try to get these kids prepared for all these different things so I want to commend you I think this was an outstanding presentation and I appreciate everything colorcoded and the little little hiber links you had in there so thank you I I think our students are I'm sitting here as a grandmother of two grandchildren and thinking to myself will I be able to talk my daughter into um having her kids do school choice at Taunton when the time comes because I don't know many school systems that that look like this I really don't because we also know we have an incredible AP program and you know we have inedible electives there a I mean the school is so comprehensive um that I just think it is amazing you two have done an outstanding job so thank you so much thank you Mrs shvs anyone else Mr window so I would like to begin by commending um both Mrs Hartong and Mr Raposa the administrative team at Taunton High School school committee uh central office superintendent office and everybody who was involved in making the CT program the way it is now um seems like you have some big aspirations for how we can improve and there's always room for improvement and I love that idealism um one thing that I I I I just loved your presentation um speaking as a student I commend your teachers the teachers within the uh career technology department and just overall the hard work that everybody's been putting into this it does not go un noticed by myself or other students um as you mentioned in your uh tisco plan no students wait in I'll be the first I'll be the first to weigh in on that um I think it's a great idea I think it's a great idea and I would love to um be a part of helping develop that um but like I said I'd like to commend everybody um great work wonderful job pres uh presenting um thank you for all the work you've done very highly um respected and commending commendable Educators thank you thank you Mr Wendell was there your hand up here Mr powalski yeah guys thank you that that that's an amazing presentation and I just feel a really great sense of Pride being affiliated with ton high and knowing that my kids came from there and I was just telling uh Mr cabal today even though my my daughter is graduating from ton high this year I'm still always going to be invested in ton High because I want to make sure there's really skilled talented kids coming out of the school living in our community to take care of me as I get older so now I see you've got this whole Health Care pathway I feel so much better I'm like they got all that that technology so I'm going to be well taken care of for years to come thanks to you guys so really awesome work and thanks so much thank you Miss psky Mrs Fagan yeah I I the healthare pathway my son was recently in the hospital and he was down at St Luke's and he was they had a girl come in that was so unbelievably kind he said she was a little bit of a thing and he starts talking to her and she knew how to fix everything on him she knew how to work the he had a brace on him everything like that and he just found her so nice and my husband was in there and they kept talking about this girl and Patrick said to me he said I was talking about my daughter and said she was a cheerleader and she said so am I and he goes for the New England Patriots she said no I'm a student New Bedford V and I I you know it was just so funny but he the the kids that are coming out after they've been with you and I I remember I used to go see Mr salvie all the time I went in there one day when a kid was trying to cut an apron out for a skirt and I said it's he was a football player and he said I I can't do this and I I said let me see that thing and I went Zip Zip CU I use those saws all the time and the kid was like oh but I love to see people that that try doing things with their hands because there's not that many people that do it but just the way these kids are after they come out from from being in your program there's a level of maturity there maybe it's because you put so much faith into them and there's mutual respect I I'm sure that's some of it but it's just nice to see how those kids are and I I've always like your programs and because I like doing things with my hands and I I appreciate it when other people can do it and I can't wait for you to have a nice little open house at that thing outside because I hope you invite us all and somebody makes some goodies too thank you I just want to say one more thing I would be remiss the healthc care pathway expansion has a lot to do with Carolyn and her visit to the bar and the things that they saw so I want to make sure I give credit where it's still yep I just roll with the punches and thank you uh if I may uh thank you so much for the presentation thank you for your energy Your Enthusiasm and if Isaiah Wendell says it's a good thing to do we support Isaiah and of course the students that he represents so thank you for your work and looking forward to the uh ribbon cutting superintendent yeah just real quick I also I don't think I should go unnoticed that dollar hot tongue has been under the weather so I want to commend dollar for coming in this evening uh again putting in the work not only during the school day but in the evening even when she's not feeling well and Mike you guys just compliment each other so well know you really do and uh the work that you've accomplished uh as a superintendent I just think it's transformative we have really transformed the high school experience for our kids and what we've learned when we visit these other school systems in our backyard across the country and how we able to bring it back here to really become a model in this region in this area I I cannot commend you enough and I'm very very proud to be the superintendent and able to be uh you know part hand inand with you in this work so congratulations and thank you thank you for coming tonight thank [Applause] you okay next up we have the governance core School Board superintendent and schools working together by Davis Campbell and Michael fulan superintend so uh I would not be opposed if somebody wanted to make a motion to um know receive and place on file for the next meeting since it's been somewhat of a long meeting so somebody would need to make that as a motion a motion to I'll make a motion to um refer this to the next refer this to the agenda for the next school committee meeting motion on the floor second by Mrs shavs all in favor I opposed eyes have it and I was all set to go Mr C well we we can uh have you stay after school Mrs good night good night thank you uh next up we have administrative business Staffing report thank you everybody thank you you uh C enclosure any action comments questions all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the taunt Public School Staffing update see enclosure I'm just very happy to report that we are at 93% and inching closer and closer to that goal of 100% wonderful second all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the in increased development impact on schools uh discussion item C enclosure so I added this as an item uh and I would I would request that the school committee make a motion that we request Kevin scanland and the city engineer Michael patard to attend a committee of the whole with the committee to discuss the impact of all the housing and the future housing with the school committee so if somebody would make that in form of motion I'll make that in a form of a motion Mr Cabo second all in favor I oppos eyes have it thank you next up we have subcommittee reports High School advisory subcommittee Mr paulski uh thank you Dr Dello so uh this is uh among my favorite meetings of the year so on Wednesday September 25th at 1:00 we had a meeting of the high school subcommittee specifically the Taunton High School student advisory um so in attendance was uh myself Mr Vieira Mrs Fagan for the uh High School subcommittee uh in addition we had superintendent cabal uh Dr Harrison uh Carolyn Carolyn blenau and we had a special guest Barbara croc from the bar Foundation students in attendance that gave us uh great feedback we got uh David McAvoy in the n9th grade Pedro Sanchez in the ninth grade Mia O'Reilly from the eighth grade Gianna Foster from the 11th grade Lyla Hoy in the eighth grade Cassidy Lynn in the 10th grade Natalie Duncan in the 12th grade Mary Kelly in the 10th grade elany Murphy in the 11th grade juliam and Dona in the 12th grade Jessica chuku in the 10th grade lyanna MOA in the 11th grade and Denzel chuku with a 10th grade unfortunately we were missing Isaiah so that's why I got to make sure I give a really good presentation right now he can get the feedback but just really continue to be impressed that we got representation from all of the grades really representing the students and and and that's what this is about so all right we got a lot of good feedback so one of the 10th grade students noted that the school is much more organized with less congestion in the hallways and visible staff presence um however some of the areas still had a bit of clutter um but they did notice this is something that they had issues with last year and they marked the Improvement that we've seen in the year so you know kudos to to the to the administration there 10th grade student highlighted fewer students loitering in the restrooms but expressed concern about the lack of paper towels ongoing fight an 11th grade student praised the work of the link crew in helping the eighth graders adjust um positive but on the uh negative side this 11th grade student felt unprepared for calculus which they attributed to the IM curriculum and their previous class uh 12th grade student praised the new school Furniture in the library in the main lobby uh and the improved communication um however they felt concerns about long lines at at the security checkpoints upon entering the school another 12th grade student shared positive feedback again on the link crew support of new students uh the helpfulness of the newsletter which is improved communication um however they were concerned about their pre-calculus preparation and the grading policies in their math classes uh 90% of the grade going to test and 10% of their grade going to classwork um the student was also concerned about overcrowding on the buses uh an eighth grade student uh really again lots of props for the link crew so really really doing a good job there e8th grade student appreciated the support from the link crew which helped ease their transition and ease their first aid Jitters we an 11th grade student um noted issues with the e8th and ninth graders using the senior Lounge making it difficult for upper classmen to access it at times they stated that they wished guidance allowed for more choice and more voice with regards to scheduling they felt like students don't always know which classes are an option for them um 8th grade student felt that they were safe in the building praised the announcements and mentioned improved hallway etiquette n9th grade student commented that their buses are overcrowded and noted a lack of soap in the restrooms and and also that the buses were always late and they found themselves being late to class um ninth grade student praised the AVID program an early college program that teaches study skills and earns them college credit um so the meeting concluded General praise for the improvements but on coing concerns about specific issues like bathroom supplies grading policies and services so just to sum up the security lines are too long they want to see some improvements there it's an ongoing thing it's not easy so I'm confident that the the administration will put some work into it and see what they can do um you know one of the students really stressed that she wanted to ensure that all students have an opportunity to to understand what classes they have open to them they felt like perhaps some of the kids on a CP path didn't even know it was available to them so by the time they're in 9th or 10th grade they felt behind um the same student noted that she saw really great work being done to motivate the young kids coming into the school but she felt like we weren't doing enough to motivate the upper classman who she sees some of them losing motivation as as they go through um and again lots of complaints about the bosses so these kids have a lot of great feedback a lot of positive things to say but you know we want to make sure that they know their voices are going to be heard and we're going to work and do some things about it and we're going to have this meeting again at the end of the year and the hope is that many of these things that they brought up will have uh ma made some improvements on it so that was the first meeting the second meeting at 3:00 we had a high school subcommittee with the ton Alternative High School student advisory Council uh so myself and Mrs Fagan from the high school subcommittee and attendance superintendent Cal and uh principal Bert uh so our students were Marcio Pinto from the 12th grade NAA Quon from the 12th grade and Delilah Rodriguez from the 12th grade um all new members of uh ton Alternative High School so one of the students expressed positive experience so far noting improved focus and ease in accessing learning the alternative schedule allows him to attend school during the day and work their construction job which he works from 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. often sometimes till 2 2 2 in the morning um and he finds this beneficial another 12th grade student St shared that they had previously been strugg struggling with poor grades and poor attendance at TA high school but had seen a significant Improvement due to smaller class sizes and a lower student teacher ratio um at ton Alternative High School the final student uh appreciated the smaller School environment feeling they received more individual attention from teachers uh they mentioned that the afternoon schedule allows them to feel more refreshed and they recently started a job uh they were recently started a job through you help from their their their teachers at ton Alternative High School as a dietary aid which they were very excited about so overall the students expressed satisfaction with the Alternative High School setting highlighting the flexibility and personal attention that they received and they really just just hammered home they really feel seen and they feel like their teachers care about them um something that they they they never got that feeling in the in the larger environment so you know we appreciate the great work that they're doing at ton Alternative High School and it's nice to hear from the kids and see their perspective so that concludes my report thank you thank you chairman pulski what are the wishes of the committee to accept the report M de a second all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have Finance in law um by myself as chair chair first we had an attendance Mrs shavs uh Mr VI was absent uh first item we reviewed was the use of facility Mrs Monahan explained uh the attached memo which is basically self-explanatory some organizations we wave fees in Le of community service others we charged for rental custodian police fire and facility management that was received uh unanimously uh in placed on file uh next up we have the TT and high school softball field bid opening we had four bids uh at the conclusion of the fourth bid it was referred by Mrs schs to Administration to uh do due process and make the best selection uh based on the bid specifications and that was voted unanimously next up we have the special education expense Service attached memo uh that was also um explained to us by Mrs uh Monahan assistant superintendent that the total charges rendered year to date this is of course fiscal year 25 which started July 1st was $814 leaving us a balance of $41,988 for the remainder of the fiscal year I question that seemed to be a a very high number and I was assured that that's pretty normal at this time of year and that uh things could get better and we could be under budget like we were last year so that's hopeful thank you uh that was received and place on file unanimously uh once again and fourth item on the agenda we had bills payable first up we had fy2 in the amount of $7,350 there were a few questions asked regarding the warrant uh one specifically uh Mrs shavs I can't remember yours uh but anyway they were PD with Boston College one was the health lab one was the health lab and then the other one was the PD from from Boston College that was part of the bar Grant exactly and I also qu questioned one of the and there's a a coaching for change on the uh High number for the uh you know start of the school year and again uh it's a pay by youth service what do we call that superintendent believe we pay them on a monthly basis pay them on a monthly basis so the uh uh the uh warrant was uh voted and approved recommended for approval by Mrs shabs I second it it was all in favor voted nly to pay the warrant and last on the item uh checklist was FY 24 uh bills payable the amount of $576,500 187 and if I can just refer to that one quickly uh was basically a two-page warrant there were two major items uh one was uh questioned by uh Mrs shavs regarding $58,000 imagine imagine learning uh LLC I believe question that was that you no was it me sorry uh it was uh basically instructional software and I also questioned uh an item uh do imp payable to Polar construction the amount of 23325 which is ongoing construction maintenance of buildings explained by Mrs Monahan and once again it was voted unanimously by Mrs shabz and myself to pay the warrant and that concludes my report motion to accept the report all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have new business executive summary Taun and comprehensive District review for 2024 C enclosure so in your packet I provided you with a highlevel overview of the recent comprehensive review that was conducted last spring by the department of Elementary secondary education now the areas that they evaluated the school system again this is a comprehensive review was leadership and governance curriculum and instruction assessment human resources and professional development student support Finance financial and asset management so again I provided you with a paragraph highlighting some of the things that they commended the district on and also identified some of the areas that they made recommendations that we will know review and address throughout the course of the year so when we when we provide the school committee with a comprehensive mcast review we'll take a little dive and incorporate this into the presentation as well so this is just for you to have on file and uh if I thought we had Incorporated the actual report so I will make sure you get the actual report in the next packet thank you superintendent wishes of the committee motion to accept the report second on discussion superintendent since it's part of this uh memo the assessment piece what could be the implications of a upward down vote on the mcast for the November 5th election implications referring to if this committee took a vote took a stand well I mean we we we've put so much work into this and let's say the general public votes it Down Right a no vote means no more mcast is that correct a yes vote means no more mcast it's just a graduation require they would still have to take okay so not a graduation requirement yes they would get rid of that how would we change course so to I can I can provide the committee with an update at the next meeting about the impact that way um one it's not listed and two um let me work with Mr Bara to provide the committee with a with a summary because I do have some supporting documents that I think would be helpful for the committee to understand the full implications and what would result at the district level where where we would have to develop our own assessments to take the place as a gradu graduation requirement if the ballot question were to not pass right exactly exactly so you've thought about it you've talked to fellow colleagues in your roles around the district and of course Miss Barat is part of the conversation so we'll deal with it after November 5th uh thank you so much the motion was seconded all all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have unfinished business action items updates first up we have the H Poole roof update see enclosure superintendent so I provided you with a copy of a memo that was sent uh by superintendent of buildings Chris carmichel to the long range subcommittee and also sent it to myself regarding the status of the hope well school after a visit and in his memo that I summarize for you he does identify that they will hold another election at the hopwell school on November 5th uh one of the reasons why they're not moving no the polling site is to eliminate any potential confusion with voters who have used that site for many years but he does anticipate or I believe it's election director Mark Pico does anticipate that this will most likely be the final election held at the hopwell school so therefore uh they don't believe that there are any extenuating circumstances that would lead or any urgency that would lead to replacing the roof at the Hope World school at this point wish of the committee received and placed on file second all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up we have the action item update uh we have the list in front of us not sure we can pull anything off of this yet should we add tonight's motion to this uh superintendent regarding the planning for the coil cast so Mrs Lassa can we add that to the action items the within 30 days to have the plan and the reason I mentioned 30 days because I guess the city council is going to get that same report in 30 days so it would coincide with uh the results yeah yeah we'll begin working on that right away thank you I guess a motion would be in order to so moved all in favor I'm sorry second by Mrs Santos all in favor I opposed eyes have it press time any press I saw a few folks out there no uh motion to adjourn will be an order so move second second by Mr Reus all in favor opposed eyes have it have a good night everyone