School Building Facilities and Maintenance Special Committee

Good evening, everybody. This is the joint committee meeting on school buildings, facilities, and maintenance. We're here together with the school committee. I am Jesse Clingan, the chair of this committee. It is now 6.02 p.m. We're starting this meeting first with a little blurb that we read in order to be able to hold this meeting remotely. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post audio recording audio video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of some of our website and local cable access government channels that being said. Could you please click Madam clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum.

This is roll call. Councilor Sait. Here. Councilor Davis.

Here.

Chair Clingan.

Present.

Alright, with that, everyone is here and we do have quorum.

All right, excellent. I am going to now turn it over to the school committee so they can establish quorum and open their meeting.

Thank you, Councillor Clingan. This is Leron Betone, chair for the school committee's subcommittee of the same name. I am establishing quorum here at 6.03. Sarah Phillips, are you here?

Present.

Laura Petone, are you here yet? Not yet. Okay. So we have quorum with two of three. And I will turn it back to you, Councillor Clingan. Okay. Excellent.

We have a few things on the agenda. There are attached memos to the agenda for some of them. The first item we have, I will lay on the table. That's the approval of the minutes of the school buildings facility maintenance special committee meeting of September 15th. I will lay that on the table for approval at the end of the meeting. Item two, which is a standing update regarding that the administration provides a special committee on school building facilities and maintenance with regular updates about the Massachusetts school building authority process for the Winter Hill and Brown schools. So I have not watched the media, you know, I wasn't going to have this on the agenda. I didn't know if there would be a substantial update of any kind, but I guess, um, Since we did put this meeting after the CAG meeting, the Citizen Construction Advisory Group, that I guess, I'm not sure what happened at the meeting last night, but I know we have staff here to speak, to give an update or speak on this item. So I see Liaisoner Radassi's hand up. Go right ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I just, I was wondering if we'd be able to take item four, actually out of order, uh, director blaze has a time constraint and I was just hoping if it's not too much trouble.

Not a problem. All right. So madam clerk, we'll jump to item four, which is, uh, that the administration released the report on the school department composting pilot program and the commission of public commissioner, public works update this council on any plans to reintroduce composting in the schools. So there is a memo attached. It's a pretty lengthy memo, and we also have staff here to speak on this. Director Blais is here. I'll just say on this, you know, this is something that's been, you know, important to all of us as a council. This effort really started back in 2018 by then-Counselor-at-Large Hirsch. who really was very passionate about making this happen to the point where she would bring in trays with trash and leftover food waste and just wanted to be responsible in our schools for making sure that we're doing our part as far as composting and recycling. So that said, There was a pilot for a number of years. One of the schools or more than one, maybe. And so now, you know, we're once again asking and pushing for this to happen. So, Director Blaze, I'll turn it over to you.

Christine Blaise- Through you, thank you very much i'm happy to be here i'm Christine blaise i'm the director of the mayor's office of sustainability and environment speaking on behalf of this. Christine Blaise- item and the memo I can I can summarize it and maybe that and kind of do some table setting and maybe that's the best place to start, you know happy to take any questions, of course, to between 20 I should clarify tooth so for. I think about five months between 2018 and 2019, OSCE and the Department of Public Works ran a cafeteria composting pilot inside four Somerville public schools. And the pilot was analyzed by an intern who reported out some findings about contamination, about popularity, about operations, and made some recommendations on how to expand and improve on the pilot in the future so that we could take it out of its pilot phase and institutionalize it. That analysis also determined that additional personnel and resources would be required to maintain and expand the program. And of course, that all came out kind of mid 2019. And of course, we all know beginning of 2020, the pandemic emerged, our priorities and resources kind of shifted. And at the time, it was decided not to expand the front of the house, what I'm calling the front of the house program, because we sort of have two different sources of food waste in schools. We have the food waste at the cafeteria level, and then we have the food waste that goes beyond the cafeteria and into the kitchen. Um, at that point it was determined to try, uh, addressing the food waste in schools in a different way and try the, and potentially with less personnel and resources that we didn't already have. Um, and we ran a very brief kind of couple month kitchen organic waste disposal program. And, um, that ran in two different schools. Unfortunately, the results of that, the experiences, I guess, of that pilot didn't pan out as great as the cafeteria ones did. And there was a lot of concerns about kind of training for staff, the labor required to do this. And there were questions about frequency of pickups and Also communication between all of the different departments that were involved in trying to help the schools run this sort of program. So we decided to table that, but we agreed to continue discussing it over the years. And we've kept those conversations open with the schools. They've been a great partner in this. And we, at the same time, had an opportunity and identified an opportunity and a need to expand the staff that are working on all of these really complex issues, like addressing food waste in schools, which encompass operations, health issues. safety and sustainability issues too so we we've all worked together to sort of help to build systems on the city side to make sure that we're ready to plan for and can work with the schools to come up with a plan that works best for for everybody at the same time we've also released the city's first zero waste plan, which calls for a reduction in waste overall community-wide by 90% by 2050, which is in line with the state's similar plan with the same goal. Importantly, the state has also set sort of a timeline for regulations around food waste in commercial spaces that produce a certain amount of tonnage of food over a certain period. And we believe that they're looking over in the next couple of years to start enforcing that. Working on this together with the schools is a really good opportunity for us to kind of troubleshoot and figure out what works best for us while we have this time to experiment and play before we need to have something in place. We also have, of course, our community climate action plan. And the one that was released, the first one that was released in 2018 really only mentioned composting as a footnote and sort of said, hey, you know, people really want this, but it doesn't really match with our bottom line of our geographic greenhouse gas inventory. So we didn't include composting. you know, an item around this. But it did include a consumption-based emissions inventory, which does look at the kind of cradle to grave emissions of all of the things that we consume. And when you look at emissions from that perspective, it is really impactful. Food waste is really impactful. It's really valuable. We all would like to see, you know, and we are working towards getting these programs up and running. And at the same time, in our 2024 climate plan, that's the reason why we included goals around food waste in it, even though you wouldn't necessarily see it in a traditional greenhouse gas inventory of that type. We thought that it was important that the plans that the city was putting forward are reflective of what's important to the community. And composting generally is more than just emissions, of course, I think everybody it sounds like everybody on the committee is sort of heard or is aware of all of the different benefits of composting to. From a nutrient standpoint and. And all of the valuable nutrients that we can get from there and put back into our own food and our food systems. So we're really, and it's also an education tool too, and helps to build a culture of environmentalism and conservationism and teaches all of these really great principles too. So we're, suffice to say, we're working with the schools now on, we have a couple different composting programs going for the city. We just launched our first curbside composting pilot program last week, and we have 169 signups just within a week, which is what we were expecting over a two month period. So that's very exciting. It's clearly signaling that this is something that the community really is interested in, which we knew, but Now it's reflected and we're still working with the schools on this piece of it. And we're also looking for synergy between this particular effort with the schools and the participatory budgeting drop off food waste sites that were voted on by residents in, I think it was June of this year, where we have about a little more than $100,000 to site and establish some food waste drop off sites around the community to kind of like our neighbors in Cambridge, Boston, Arlington, all do now. So we're in contact with those communities. We're seeing if there's any synergies there. We're learning best practices and we're going to keep this moving forward for the community. So I'll just end by saying I really appreciate all your support with this. You know, this is something that our department is very passionate about, and we're working really hard to find a solution with the schools and a solution that is, you know, safe, won't exasperate the rat problem and keeps us in line with not only your community goals, but the state goals too. Thank you.

Thank you. Before I turn to colleagues, I just want to say, you know, I see the sort of the little nuggets that are in the report and the memo here is like, less than 5% of Somerville's total emissions. I think at this point in time, like from my perspective, as far as composting goes, it's mostly about rats. Like I think that, you know, we've been told in the past, even with like the city's now doing a pilot for the composting because, you know, they said that we were paying by tonnage, but then we were just doing like, because this is about how much we pay for trash and whether or not, you know, how much it's going to cost us to run a pilot program unless we get serious buy-in, that the numbers don't work. And we hear that a lot. I'm just trying to figure out how, if we're going to be running a pilot, like how come we can't just have the food, you know, and the milk poured into the thing and the food taken off the trays, and just brought to DPW or something like there's got to be a way. And then the company that we're doing the pilot with gets it. I'm just, I understand the logistics and I understand we're asking food service people to do extra work. I don't know. I'm just kind of thinking aloud here just because, you know, it's frustrating because I do understand that the numbers don't necessarily work in terms of, you know, what is important to us as a community. So I've just been listening to this, talked for about eight years now, and it's just, we haven't really gotten very far. So anybody on the council side have anything on this? All right, I don't see any hands raised. All right, I'll turn it over to the school committee side.

Through the chair, sorry.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, the chair. Thank you, Chair Clinton, for kind of giving the summary of this and how we got here. I put in the order, but all my colleagues are in support of this. And I am inclined to agree with what you said, Chair. Yeah, I think at this point, we know there's so much waste, and thank you, director, for digging up this report. But similarly, I would like to see us really take action on this and just do it. We've done pilots. We, as you said, different programs. we have learned what we needed to learn. And we know also that rats, that's like a really, really big issue in the schools. So I'm really hoping that in the next, like by next September, we have like a plan on this because more pilots, I don't know how much, you know, they will help certainly. But yeah, I think.

Yeah. No, I appreciate it. And I just want to just to add on to my other comment, I just want to be clear. What I'm talking about is the fact that food waste is heavy. We don't pay by the pound, the tonnage right now with the trash pickup. And so a pilot program would potentially, I'm sorry, a composting program potentially cost us more than just having it in the trash. And I do understand that those numbers don't pan out, but then there is the rat factor. Then there is the, you know, there's other factors. I don't know what the, I don't see any actual numbers here on the breakdown in terms of what in the millions, how much it would cost us to compost. And maybe it's in there. Anyway, so I just want to like kind of make sure everyone understands this is, we've been told in the past, it's about dollars and cents and that's all right. Councilor Davis, and then we'll turn it over to the school committee.

yeah thank you as a chair i i guess i i should just you know add my voice in and and sort of echo what my colleagues have said um i i appreciate this the memo um so thank you to the director for that and thank you um you know for everyone who's put some efforts into this um you know i i i i did kind of when i read this i did kind of look a little sideways at you know one of the conclusions with the the back of the house pilot being you know rodent concerns i'm i'm I'm not quite sure how that works. If food waste is going in the trash, surely it would be better if we have a specific place for it that could be specifically more run-proof, but I don't have all the details. But I just wanna, even before Councillor Hirsch brought this up, I had brought it up, my daughter had prompted me for a project she did in school. And so, you know, there really ought to be a way we can do this. I understand there's a lot of challenges. I appreciate all the work. And so I'll just reiterate once again, my request that we keep pressing on this to find a way to capture the many benefits that the director noted and with a clear understanding that we are not trying to do it to save money on carding. So thank you for reminding me, Councillor Clingan of that. interesting response that we heard from a past administration. So, yeah, here's for figuring it out. Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. I will turn it over to Chair Bouton.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. I'm going to take just a quick moment to shout out Annie at the West Somerville Neighborhood School, who wrote an article in her school newspaper to highlight the importance of composting and the positive benefits she and I also think it will have for our school communities. both in terms of helping our kids do the right thing and help solve the problems that they have in front of them, right? So this is a way to really make sure that we're giving kids opportunities to impact the world in a positive way. I also Just want to note in the memo, it indicated looking at food donation possibilities. And I don't know if that has been explored. I'd be interested, Director Blais, in hearing whether that has been looked into. But in addition to the rodent mitigation, I wonder if this could help some of our community partners in serving those with food insecurity. And I know our school department provides nutritious meals for our students every single day. And the opportunity to provide leftover meals that would get disposed of otherwise that are still fit to serve could be part of a braided solution to addressing the food insecurity crisis that I have to imagine is only gonna get worse in the next couple of years. So, Director Blase, I don't know if you have a response to that before I turn it over to my colleagues.

Through the chair, thank you so much for the question. It's a great point, and it's definitely something that we are interested in exploring. We haven't, at least our department specifically, hasn't explored food donations there, and I can't I think it's important to note that the city isn't the only party at the table. We have to get the schools on board with this. And we have to consider their capacity too. So it's definitely something that we're interested in exploring. And I can't speak if other departments have looked into this already. I'm thinking back to the COVID days and the folks that were working on the food access. incident command team. So I would have to do more research, but I'd be happy to look into it and give back to the committee.

Appreciate that. All right. I'm going to go in order that I see the hands. So Dr. Phillips.

Thanks through you, Chair. Thank you so much for this memo and this presentation and to my colleagues on city council who have really pushed this issue so strongly. I really appreciate it. One of the many, many things I have learned in my six years on this committee is how hard it is to move an organization as big as a school district, right? And on this issue, we're feeding 5,000 kids at least once, if not twice each and every day. That is a lot of meals and a lot of food. And it seems to me, and Director Blase, please correct me if I'm wrong, we have some sense of what it would take to do this well. And I guess my request through you chairs to Ms. Berry is to request that the district work with its finance team to cost out. What would it take to seriously pilot a compost, any of the many models we could do you know, what would it take to pilot it? What would it take to implement it district-wide? And then let's get it to President Davis and our colleagues on the city council, because I think in order to do this, we have to add this to the district's budget. There's no other way to move this ship. And so we really need your help. And so I think a starting point is to know here's what we would need. And then to think about, okay, what are the trade-offs, right? I think like 40% of our eighth graders plus or minus are proficient on our standardized tests. That's just one measure, but like that's the trade-offs for this money in our budget. So thanks.

Thank you, Dr. Phillips. Thank you for raising that. I'm going to go to Ms. Barry first. It's Barry, sorry.

Thank you. Through you, Chair. Yes. Back in July, we had a nice meeting with Director Blaze. And that meeting was Director of Food Services, Lauren Mancini, myself, and Amara Enosike. And we are very much open to starting the pilot program as long as we are all in the same page with roading control. And as long as all of the measures are right for both sides, I know funding is going to be play a big factor. And from what I understand from food services is in the back of the house, they really don't have which was brought up in the July meeting, they don't have a ton of weight food waste. Because for example, if they have like chicken dinner, for example, then they'll then turn it into chicken pot pie. And they, you know what I'm saying? Like as, to limit the amount of food that is being wasted. They do have scraps such as like cucumber peels and things to that nature that would go into the composting. I guess the problem that happened in the past was around the pickup of the composting barrels not being consistent. So they were there longer than they should have been, which was a red flag for our food service department. Now, as far as the front of the house, I think that's where more of the funding issue would because we would definitely need more staff to support the students there. around properly disposing the items.

Okay, thank you. Ms. Patone.

Thank you, through you. I don't want to belabor this topic. I just very much appreciate city councilors, Director Blais, Ms. Berry for being here to talk about the issue. I think fundamentally it's clearly, at least to launch this, it's an investment and it's an investment from the standpoint of students in culture and developing a culture of composting that does, it's not maybe contributing to climate issues as much as we're concerned about it, but it does divert things from landfills. And for students in particular, and I think we've touched on this, like they really feel this very viscerally. If they compost at home, they're really, unhappy. Like my son, this is ages ago, this is not composting, it was recycling, used to collect the styrofoam trays and try to figure out a way to dispose of it because he knew it was something that could have been done differently. And kids aren't necessarily wedded with the whole sort of like big picture. How do we do something on a big industrial scale versus them personally putting a can in a recycling bin? So I hope that we can frame this as an investment. I think over time, as students learn how to do it, first of all, composting doesn't have to be perfect. If a kid throws something in the trash by accident, it's not the end of the world. And I think it's going to take time to get there. And it may not be like we invest and then maybe the cost will go down a little bit. But I just, I agree with Dr. Phillips that figuring out how to plan for this and do it. I think it's one of those places where we can keep our kids from becoming cynical because I think this is a place where kids become cynics and they go, well, if we, if we don't compost here, if we don't recycle, I'm just using it as an example here, then why bother? And like, we're catching them at this very critical, sort of tender part of their lives. So there's a value system that's not about dollars, but it's about culture and whatever we can do for the school pity side to further this. And, you know, again, thank you for this memo. So detailed and so specific. Someone has to decide this is an investment that we want to make in our community. And I hope that that happens and I will continue to be part of the advocacy. So thank you.

uh director blaze do you have any response before i turn it over to dr uh mr clinton uh through to the chair thank you all these were such wonderful um responses and i it's great to hear that there's just so much support for this and i loved that last comment about you know that kids really want to do something because that's really why i've been you know, pushing for this is that it's about creating that culture of conservationism, creating environmentalists today, because, you know, no matter how you look at this, you know, there's all of these environmental benefits, it's not always just about emissions, right? And it's really important that we get ahead of that now so that we can achieve our vision 30 years from now. I am totally, yeah, I think that really struck me. And Annie is a great example of this too, right? We've met with Annie several times. She's great. And yeah, it's great to see her. Couple notes here is that, you know, I think on the cost point, I think there were two comments made about cost or three or so. And I just wanted to kind of clarify, we are looking at synergies between a couple of composting programs, one being the participatory budgeting drop-off program, Cambridge, Boston, and Arlington, I think Arlington too, co-locate their drop-off locations with schools. So if we're looking for something that is a little bit, similar and we're kind of looking for somebody from the kitchen to go outside, you know, a couple of times a week and throw away food waste into like a rat proof bin or maybe rat resistant bin. And that is picked up hopefully on a daily basis. Then, you know, maybe we can figure something out. And we have now we have the best practice now through market research. We've had the best practices kind of laid out for us on citing those things. And that's a conversation that once we get a little bit more information from our surrounding communities and potential vendors for market research, we can approach the schools with some ideas there and include them on kind of the research arm of that too. We've also conducted some site visits at the schools too to better understand what the rodent issues are and what recommendations could be made to help them there too. there's this other idea the other point too i think danielle did a really great job explaining kind of the difference between the front of the house composting which is i think what the original item was about a report about front of cafeteria composting versus back of the house is true there's a lot more um food waste at the front of the house versus the back of the house so um it might take two different solutions. And I think that's why, and I can't speak for the administration at that time because I wasn't in Office of Sustainability at that time, but I believe that that's why the decision was made to try both pilots so that we could kind of get a sense of what we could do with limited resources and what sort of impact it would have. We are seeing communities decrease their total that they spend on trash pickup generally and tonnage. As a result of incorporating composting programs there's also communities that you know, in terms of like curbside composting generally. there's also communities that have turned to alternative methods and said, you know, in terms of the curbside piece and said hey you know here's a discount for you know. that the town can offer for our residents, right? So there's different ways that we can go about this. I think the pilot program is just, it's sort of our kind of proving ground, and then we can take what we learn and implement accordingly. and yeah i think and i think in terms of contamination too yes some contamination is okay i think that that's where a lot of the resources come in for the front of the house program and to get the aids to make sure students are composting or um putting their waste in the correct bins and to make sure that custodians are signing them properly too um so there's a A big effort here. We have a great partnership with our Department of Public Works team on this, too. We split the environmental program manager who was here for 20 years when he left the city for another opportunity. We split we were he was doing so much. We split his position to like five positions across three different departments. And one of those is a sanitation department. Hazardous Waste and Sanitation Program Manager that's based in DPW, who at that position, I think they're working to fill it now, but they would be really helpful in helping us figure out what the best way to go about this is. And if we get something in place, then they can help us manage it too going forward. yeah so i think you know we're we're investigating all of our options too and um uh we can certainly you know keep it keep in touch with the committee and uh you know as the schools and um the city continue our journey and figuring out we all want to do this what's the best way to do it for somerville that doesn't exasperate existing issues that we already have

Thank you, Director Blais. I think what I'm going to do is continue to check in with Ms. Berry and Ms. Anosike to find out when might be a good time to come back to this conversation. So that's very helpful. Back to you, Chair Clingan. Thanks. Thank you. Councilor Sait, something else on this?

Yeah, thank you through the chair. I just had my hand raised before Director Blay spoke and I just want to say thank you for trying to investigate all the options. And when it was a request that let's not let this conversation end here. I really hope this is the beginning of the conversation of trying to figure out how to work with the schools, what we can do at the city level. And I think it would be great to get actual numbers so that the council is prepared before budget season. And we were working with a certain number. So that's like one request in terms of cost. And then the other one is the request to just keep that conversation going with school staff. It's really great to hear from Ms. Berry just now, some of the challenges. And I just want to say to like the the point you made about, yes, it's important to have additional staff to walk kids, students through like, you know, all, you know, composting culture. Having worked in the schools, they will say, yes, absolutely. We always need an adult, you know, transitions take time. Learning new routines, you know, take time. But this is exactly what we do in the schools, right? Establishing new routines, implementing new systems. That's what... Staff school staff do all the time in school. So as a former educator would say, I don't think we will have like many issues there. What we need again is funding to for those positions, but I really trust that our students are ready for this. We've we've Our educators teach about this. Director Blaze, you know this better than anyone is you have worked a lot with staff. And you see all the amazing things they're doing in terms of climate. So we really hope we can lead the way. And I trust our students will be thrilled to join once we have a plan in place.

OK. So the order is that they release the report. Where is the report currently?

Through the chair. So we did find the report. It's in a draft version and it was created in a previous administration. So we can't like vouch for the information that is in it necessarily. So I took some of the or I took all of the recommendations from the report and I included in an Appendix A. Okay. But we do have, but so those are, I think, pages three and four here of the memo.

I got it. Okay. All right. Does that satisfy you, Counsel Said, as the originator of the order as far as the quote-unquote report goes, those bullet-pointed Recommendations?

Yes, counselor. I think for now I am satisfied with this. Director Blais has reached out to me before putting this together so we understand what you've just explained about this being, you know, from 70 years ago. I think this is, again, just like to give us an idea of what was done since in this committee, this came up and our colleagues from the school committee requested to have this information that they asked for years ago and Yeah, I will put in a different order about the cost as they would like it to have to have a conversation around that. So I am comfortable marking this work as completed. Chair.

All right. So we'll work complete this. I do want to say this isn't about recycling, but I do remember Councilor Hirsch saying that the kids would she would see kids crying that they felt like to school committee person Paton's point. that they felt like they were breaking the law by not doing what we've been told as a society is an important thing to do. Madam Clerk, we will work complete item number four and go back to the regular order of business, which is item number two, that the administration provide the special committee on school building facilities and maintenance with the regular updates about the MSBA process for the Wendy Hill and Brown schools. I know Councilor Sait is recusing herself because of her location of her residence to one of the proposed possible locations for her school. So with that said, I know that Director Raish is here. And again, as I set it up before, there was new information that came out last night. Like I said, I didn't watch the meeting yet. It was just posted, I think, today.

um so take it away director i mean uh thank you thank you um yeah two two updates one um we are um Completing negotiations on the contract with Perkins Eastman, who will be our architect designer. We've negotiated the scope and fee. Both parties are happy with that. We have some allowances in there that I think will cover us. And we're starting to schedule meetings, starting with some focusing on the educational program. So a lot of the educational folks at SPS will be meeting with Perkins Eastman to get that going. So very excited to be entering that next phase. In terms of the construction advisory group, the CAG, we did have a meeting last night. The primary topic of that was a readout of the survey and the focus groups. I think most everybody here from all the outreach and billboards around the city know that we had an online survey. around questions around the location, the size, the programming, preferences for the new school. We had an outstanding response, something like 2,500 respondents, which is like a new record for that type of polls. So the consultant that we had hired to work with the CAG on developing that survey reported out on the data. I think the one conclusive thing that we can say is that the preponderance of the community is opposed to citing a new facility at TRUM for various number of reasons, but most everyone has objections to it. So perhaps Councilor Sait won't have to recuse herself from this item for very much longer. All other sort of topics of the survey were more inconclusive Not surprisingly, I guess, the community as a whole is somewhat divided on the issue of to combine or not combine. If you look at different demographics, certainly wards four, five, and six are in favor of separate facilities. Wards one, two, three, and seven are in favor generally in favor of a combined facility, seeing the benefit, sort of the cost benefit of a combined facility. The different age demographics, you know, the ages that are sort of brown, you have children that are brown school age tend to favor a separate Brown school, the ages that are either younger, as in going to be going into school, or older, as in already in high school, tended to favor a combined school. So the report is released. I think we'll be posting it on the website soon for everyone to be able to take a look at the graphs and the data. But that's generally the upshot. In broad brush, nobody likes the idea of Trump. The rest of the community is divided almost down the middle on whether to combine or not combine. And clearly the preference there would be for combining Sycamore, not a Trump. We also had a presentation on the focus groups, which were intended to be a deeper dive with smaller groups of people so that not only would we have that sort of top level data, but also dive more into reasoning behind their sort of preferences. And there were focus groups with educators, with teachers, with parents of both Winter Hill Brown and non-Winter Hill Brown families, special education parents, non-parents. So we had a bunch of different focus groups. And there again, there were differences among those different demographics. You know, certainly that the existing Brown and Winterhill folks seem to favor separate schools. The educators, interestingly enough, favored a combined school and that there was just sort of a range there too. So there's no clear consensus among the community and it's fairly evenly divided, which I think is why this is such a difficult topic. And I do think it, I think the CAG really needs to, the members of the CAG need to be commended because they've been looking at all of this data. And now we've got the additional sort of outreach data for them to look at. And the intent is that their next meeting is on the 10th. Between now and then, they're going to start filling in some, you know, like online forms. And the idea is that on the 10th, they'll do some deliberation. around their recommendation and then finalize that. We've got one more meeting scheduled after that, I think on the 24th, which would be two weeks after that to sort of finalize it. And the form of it in broad brush, what we're kind of talking about is similar to like a Supreme Court decision. where there's a decision and the justifications for it and the additional information that the CAG has gleaned to offer to the mayor and to memorialize all it is that they've sort of uncovered during this exploration. There's also an expectation that there likely will be, as in a Supreme Court decision, a dissenting opinion because I don't think we're going to get to unanimity on the CAG. Not everyone will agree, but there will be sort of a majority and a minority opinion that sort of states their reasoning behind that. Um, so all in all, I think, I think that the direction that that group is, is taking is a very good one. And, and again, on behalf of everyone on the city side team, want to thank them for all of the work that they've put into this effort.

Uh, the director, I have a couple of just rapid fire questions. Uh, the first one is, um, okay. So the CAG decided that they don't want to build on Trump. We've been told ultimately this is the mayor's decision. I'm not sure what information that they've looked at in terms of the dollars and cents of it, or just what information they've put into this calculation. And then the second sort of part to that question is, where does this put us in terms of timeline with regards to a final decision being made where we have an outgoing mayor? Is she prepared to pull the trigger on something or is this going to have to be pushed until the new year? And does that affect the timing?

Yeah, thanks for that question, Chair. To be clear, what we're seeking here really is more directional than anything else because we still do, for the MSBA feasibility study, explore TRUM options and essentially provide to the MSBA reasons why Trump doesn't work for the community. We still have to have at least two sites to weigh, but all of this information, both from the survey and from the CAGS deliberation, and another important thing to remember is that Trump field is protected under Massachusetts Article 97. which means that if we build on it, we absolutely must offset that loss of open space at another location. And for the purposes of evaluation on like what that would cost, we did estimate what it would cost us to build a softball field at Sycamore Street. And when you account for that sort of land offset and construction cost, it actually makes that a more expensive option. So there's a number of sort of things lining up to document to MSBA why it is that Trump would not be a preferred option compared to Sycamore Street. So I think that all of that is coming into focus fairly well. And the reason why we want to do this is, again, we're on a certain timeline with the MSBA. Through their process, hired the architect. The architect is now going to start the feasibility study. But we wanted to do as much legwork as ahead of that formal start of the feasibility study as possible. And I see all of this effort as feeding into this so that as Perkins Eastman starts the feasibility study on day one, we've already done the community outreach. We've already done due diligence on the sites. We've already worked up some cost estimates. So, you know, we're essentially giving that feasibility study a several month head start. And all of that is to say that the city won't be formalizing that report and sending it to MSBA for approval until we're into 2026. which means that it very much is, the next mayor has a lot of influence on that because really it's gonna be the next mayor in his capacity of being on the school building committee and in his capacity as signing the documentation on the funding agreement. You know, it does sit there. But for us to cash in on that head start on the feasibility study and getting Perkins Eastman hitting the ground running, you know, we do want to have that, you know, to have all of this work of the CAG wrapped up. in December and Mayor Ballantyne is very much taking this, because she's been with this since the Winter Hill closed, she's very much invested in seeing this CAG process through to the end and does want to get that recommendation and make the decision. But there is the acknowledgement that the next mayor is gonna be the one signing the documents And so we don't exactly know what the contours of it is, but the thought is that Mayor Ballantyne will consult with the mayor-elect in November and December before releasing the decision and essentially giving the team their marching orders.

I mean, I actually think my question was a little off base anyway, but it's just trying to square a lot of the past talk and past thought process about, you know, we should have a decision in, you know, October or the fall. But then when, again, this comes just from so much confusion and it being such a storm, that it was never really going to be the CAG. The CAG would inform the mayor. The mayor would be part of the MSBA building group. And then that's where her vote would be part of it. But then, of course, we want to obviously want the mayor to be in. So so it hasn't really affected timeline. At all, as far as from your point, I don't have the graphic in front of me that show you, you know, not like it matters at this point anyway, but I just, you know, just thinking kind of looking back in the look look back machine, but So either way we'll have a new mayor that will be on the MSBA thing and they'll, so they can still take that recommendation for what, for what they want to take it for. All right. Yeah. I don't really, you know, the only other thing I was going to ask, this is kind of meetings going on a little longer. You know, we spent a lot of time on the composting was just about the, the, when, when the folks were at the CAG were presented with the, the the, I don't know what cost analysis they're using or if they're just voting out of their hearts, because I know there's a lot of people who feel very passionately about the Brown School, but what were they using to come to their decision as to whether or not they think we should be combined like and what are the alternative options like you know we've talked about if you have to make the middle school bigger maybe like again this ain't happening because we're building a new school out of this kennedy but maybe building on to the kennedy at one point was so you know there was these sort of potential ideas to help with capacity um has any of that been part of the discussion and i'm sorry i spent a lot of time at the bit over there yeah um

For what we presented to the CAG in terms of options, we sort of took the Kennedy option off the table because that, for a number of reasons, it really wasn't pertinent to the CAG's exploration, but we did update the cost estimates from that K capacity study to reflect the enrollment numbers that were agreed to with the MSBA through the eligibility phase, and also just to update the cost estimates to, you know, $20, $25. So we ran a number of scenarios for different size schools, different location schools, and came up with construction cash flows for a number of different scenarios on different timelines, worked with Ed Bean and Mike Mastroboni on then what the debt service would be. And because we don't have valuation projected out, we couldn't actually estimate what the resulting tax bills would be. on the debt exclusion for those different scenarios. But we know what the total debt was for the high school and then what the impacts were on homeowners. So we kind of were able to draw an analogy there. So the CAG had a number of different scenarios And I should be able to share that widely once I update it and can get that out.

It's like you said, I'm sure this is all going to come out in the feasibility study. They're going to take all this. I'm just kind of, I was just trying to get a peek into the folks' heads. I didn't know if in that conversation, anybody said the words like, and I don't know if this is, I'm not going on record of saying this, but I've heard something like, you know, in 2020, at this point in time where we are, the building envelope for where the Brown is, there wouldn't be a possibility of rebuilding a school there, like at least not with any MSBA help. Is that a factual statement?

Through the chair, yeah. I mean, it is, it's somewhat speculative. And, you know, I don't think MSBA staff wants to speak for the MSBA board any more than I do. But essentially reading the tea leaves is, It is exceptionally unlikely that if we don't combine the schools and then try to address, start addressing the Brown under a separate application starting in like, you know, 2032, it would be very unlikely that the MSBA would be granting the city of Somerville money for that project, at least for the foreseeable future.

Okay, that's all I have. Any colleagues, anything on this? Comments, questions? Counselor Davis, Counselor?

Yeah, actually, Mr. Chair, thank you. If I could, just a clarification on that. You asked a question about MSBA funding or financing for a project involving the, in some way, involving the existing ground school. And I think I heard Director Raish answer a question about the timing of any potential project. And so, you know, at this point, honestly, I think nobody actually really knows what members of the MSBA might do down the road. And as Director Ray said, it's highly speculative anyways, but I just wanted to clarify that You know, what we do know is that, what we do know with some confidence is that it would be a bit, if at all, down the road for any MSPA project that involves a renovation of the Brown School. We don't really know, as I understand it. You know, we have no reason to think that such a project would or wouldn't be viable purely because of that building itself. Is that fair to say, Director Raish?

Yeah, I mean, again, it's highly speculative at this point. But the indications are that the Brown School would be very much low on the MSBA's list. So it would be a long matter of time before it would become eligible.

Yeah, and I was just asking that because it's probably rumor mill stuff. I had heard that, like, you know, based on the size of the lot that, you know... You know, based on the size of the lot or whatever. Anyway, yeah, so there's absolutely the possibility in the future. But in the meantime, we'd be thinking about if the brown goes down, we got to have a plan for another school in the short term. Let's hope that doesn't happen. We'll see how this all goes. But, okay.

Chair Paton. Thank you, Chair Clingan. I will turn it to Ms. Paton.

Thank you, Director Raish, for giving us this preview of the information. I have a couple quick questions. One, do we know when something's going to be published about the survey and focus group results?

Through the chair, I think it's just a matter of getting them posted and all that. Possibly as early as this week. Maybe next week. I don't think it would be much longer than that.

Yeah, because it sounds like, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I had some expectations that it was different than what I expected. So I think that it's important that it gets out to the community, obviously, beyond what we're talking about here. Just to clarify, I don't think the CAG has necessarily made a recommendation not to use TRUM. You were saying there was a very clear message from the survey. that the people who participated in the survey said they were not interested in Trump. And I also know that the city administration, which I guess is you, is skeptical about the opportunity to do that based on the concerns about cost of replacing the contiguous outdoor space. But the CAG hasn't made a particular recommendation on that. The last thing is about, it seems like this decision-making is kind of a moving target that I'm struggling with because, The last conversation I asked very explicitly to the district to ask the city who this is, how this decision would be made. And it was the clear message. Uh, was that the current mayor was making decision before the end of the year. I totally understand why the current mayor would collaborate with the incoming mayor. I also totally understand that the CAG is technically the advising body, but we all know that if a mayor is not on board. incoming mayor is not on board, it's really hard to be successful. And MSBA would not be supportive of a plan where they were going to invest a lot of money if the current mayor wasn't on board. So it sounds like it's just a little more complicated. And if the CAG makes a particular recommendation, I appreciate that they're going to try to be as nuanced as possible, it sounds like. They already know that there's kind of camps And it sounds like they've made some progress to kind of bring people together, but having the idea of having a decision and a dissent is really, I think, valuable for the community. And it just reflects how emotional and complex this decision is. But, you know, the bottom line is a decision has to be made to factor in you know, how accessible our schools are, how safe and the risk mitigation concerns that some people have, the cost, you can't take that out of the conversation. And then where does family choice weigh into that decision? And I really respect, and I always gonna say this, the CAG for taking this on because it is so complicated. And I look forward to seeing how this process goes. And it sounds like, we may or may not have a decision by the end of the year that it may bleed into the next year is what I'm hearing. Which is different than what I was told like a week and a half ago.

Through the chairs, I'm cautiously optimistic that by the end of this year, we will be able to tell the communities what our preferred solution is. with the caveat that we still have to go through the process, we have to document everything in a report to MSBA, and MSBA has to agree with that recommendation. So there are more hurdles, but from two perspectives, I think it's really important that by the end of this year, we're clear as to what our preferred alternative is. One, because again, as I say, I want to move through the feasibility study as quickly as possible and give the Perkins Eastman team some clear direction on this. all of the factors that are gonna go into this decision and so that we're not wasting a lot of time and effort on something that isn't supported by the community or the mayor or mayors. That's important in delivering this project as quickly as possible. I also want to acknowledge that the Winter Hill School community in particular really is owed that direct confirmation of what direction we're going in. you know, with the acknowledgement that they're still going to be at the edge of the league for a number of years while we design and build the new school, I at least want that community to know where the home is going to be and likely the size of the building, you know, the general size of the building that we're looking for. I just think that will give that community a lot of solace in that understanding. So I don't think there's any reason for delay. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic on how easy it is going to get consensus, how the recommendation of the CAG. And honestly, don't forget, there's also going to be a staff recommendation. We've said this all along that there's and all transparently, it's largely myself and Ed Bean that makes the staff recommendation. But I'm cautiously optimistic that both the outgoing and mayor-elect will be able to synthesize all that data in November and December and come to sort of the same conclusion on it.

Thank you, Mr. Raish. Dr. Phillips.

Thanks to you, Chair. I just wanted to appreciate Director Raich for that last comment. I think the families at Winter Hill will feel heard and seen. So thank you.

Hey, not seeing any further discussion here. Go back to you, Chair Clingan. Thank you.

And just one last comment on this, just so it's abundantly clear, is that whoever the mayor is, is going to be on the MSBA group and they will have a voice, but And obviously we want the mayor to be on board, but those discussions will happen in the MSBA. So hopefully we can all have a unanimous decision coming out of the MSBA group that we send up to the MSBA. And I have faith in whoever the mayor is, they will respect the wishes of taking all that information into account and deliberating and coming up with the best direction forward. they will support. I don't think we'll have a contentious thing, but I guess we'll see. All right. So that one stays in the committee as usual. Madam Clerk, let's jump over to, we'll just get through some of these quickly. Number three, that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management update the Council on when the school buildings maintenance project website will be available to the public. That's from Councilor Sait.

Yeah, through the chair, I have to express my apologies to Councilor Sait. We have just been so flat out with all of our priority projects, most of them school related, the Argenziano kitchen, the Argenziano classroom, this MSBA thing, and trying to, we just have not had the person power to turn our attention to this. hopefully as the summer construction season winds down in over December, January, we can work with comms and make some progress on this. The other update I can give, which has something of connected tissue on this, you've probably heard me talk about the asset management system and the CMMS. I think we finally finished, there's one last term remaining on that contract. I think we'll resolve that tomorrow so that, contracts should get signed this week. And that group is chomping at the bit to launch the CMMS. And I think as I've described, one of the things that that's going to do is give much better reporting, particularly on like 311 requests, but also routine maintenance. And we're going to be able to put the additional work that we do on the schools and there'll be a reporting mechanism out of that. So we're one step closer to making that a reality for us. Okay.

I appreciate that you are all very busy and I look forward to when we are able to get to this. I don't know if we're all imagining the same situation. I mean, I'll turn it over to Councilor Sait expand on you know what her order as well but we've talked about this before similar to chelsea where they sort of have their you know capital project ideas and what like whether you know we're going to be updating the chiller in 2026 you know i always i always hear these words i never knew it before chiller you know um the these couple of different terms with regards to big systems in the buildings So I'm happy, I'll be happy when that goes up. So people can really just kind of go to the school department website over wherever this is gonna live and look at the school buildings and see, you know, what's in the pipeline, what's happening or what, you know, what's in the future. Councilor Sight, you're the originator of this item. Take it away.

Through the chair, yeah. Thank you, Director Raitt, for the update. And I understand September and October are really busy months in the schools. Unfortunately, we missed an opportunity again to have all those updates on the website. So constituents, school parents really see all the work we're doing in the buildings. But to your question, Chair, about what's my request here, Director Raich explained briefly what his staff are working on or hoping to... have like live on a website um yeah so I just want to clarify that I'm not here telling you how to do your job I just want the information to live in one place and for updates to um be added consistently regularly to a website. So yeah, happy to keep this one in committee so we can take it up next month or whenever we meet next.

Yeah, absolutely. What I was just saying, counselor, is that there's been talk about something similar. I don't know if you're talking about the exact same thing. So like, I'd hate for them to put some information out and then it's not exactly what we were looking for. I think we can work together to make sure that whether it's smaller things or whether it's, for instance, the stuff over the summer gets posted. We have these great things that the DPW and the IAM team was able to accomplish through the summer months. Um, you know, everything from the small to the, to the long-term, uh, I'm down.

Yeah.

So, uh, I don't know where that could get discussed offline between, you know, counselors and school staff or, or here. Um, we tend to have a agenda that runs long, especially with the two bodies. Um, but yeah, so we're going to keep this in committee anyway. Uh, so we'll, right. You want to keep this in committee?

Yes, I would like that chair, and I can reach out to Director Rage offline about this. But last time we discussed it, we discussed this in committee was very sounded like this is the very initial phase. So Director Rage staff imagine is open to suggestions and to what school parents are looking for here. We're about to build a new school and having a place where people can get updates is important.

Just a real quick declaration, I'm not trying to put any work on anybody or shift things, but this is where it gets a little interesting. where we have like, because I understand the mayor's comms team, you know, I don't know how busy they are on a daily basis, but would this be like something where we could talk to the school side comms team? Would this even be something that would be on the K-12 side of things or the city? This is, because it's, you know, I know it's school, it's the city side, the buildings, but I don't know. Do you have any idea where this would live in your mind?

Yeah, we've always envisioned it as being on the, coming out of the city comms and being either on IAM or DPW pages. And yeah, that's just sort of the way we envisioned it.

Okay. All right. So then we'll have to talk about this some more. I'm going to turn it over to the school side for any questions or comments. Chair Paton.

Thanks. I wonder if Councilor Sait had another... Thing to add? No? OK.

Was your hand just still up?

No, your hand was just still up. That's fine. Residual hand. I didn't have any question. Do I see anything from my colleagues? No. No, I think we're good. OK.

All right. Yeah, I don't know if any of you have ever checked out that. And by the way, it's funny to point it out since it's not really updated, but Chelsea did have a good theme for a while where they have the different schools and what's happening, construction that's happening for schools. All right, so let's um we'll keep that one committee man clerk and we will move on so we'll quickly we'll do item number five. That the Commissioner public works, provide information regarding installation safety and accessibility of a railing of the concrete stairs between the play structures soccer field winter hill innovation school playground. i've been working with the administration for a while on this counselor so put an order in last meeting, there is a memo attached this really will be installed. There was a lot of back and forth for a bit about, because there was a massive community, like a big community process around this, and the design was a design. But then some conditions changed. It's not acting as a schoolyard. There was a differentiation when it was a schoolyard. The Parks Department in the city has agreed to put a railing in. As it's been pointed out by some constituents, that it's the only fully like only accessible slide in the city. Okay. We have liaison Radassi. I see your hand up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just quick correction. Not parks department, public space and urban forestry. Peace off under director Oliveira.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. So this is done. We're complete. Number five, Madam Clerk. It's happening. item number six, we might need to direct your reach for this, that the administration informed this council of the process, action, and communication used to consider acquiring the closed school building privately owned by the Archdiocese of Boston on Thurston Street after the window community school innovation school was deemed unsuitable for use. So this kind of speaks to, you know, and I've been talking about this for a while because I do feel like You know, we have an opportunity to sort of build a larger sort of campus style. The St. Ann's school building is no longer in use. It sits vacant. It's sort of directly adjacent to the Winter Hill schools. The way it would be in terms of the layout, it would be a really great opportunity to be able to increase capacity on the site without going too high and then having to rely on elevators. So that's why I've been continually talking about this site. And I don't want to lose the opportunity to be able to acquire this site if it ends up getting sold or into some 20-year lease with a charter school or something like that. So can you just give us an update? And last time you talked to the Archdiocese and whether or not they're open to a sale or Should we take it by eminent domain? Nobody's doing that now. Yeah, so Director Raich, turning it over to you, sir.

So to the Chair, I last talked with the Archdiocese a little over a month ago about this property. We're not in a position where we're ready to jump in and make an offer because we still have a number of... of steps to go through on the MSBA process. You know, the late breaking news of like an hour ago that Trump field is proving to be pretty unpopular is late breaking news. And, you know, so the, We're not in a position to be making a solid offer, but the Archdiocese is still open and discussing with a few different entities what could happen there. So the conversation remains open. And I think it's in terms of a potential negotiation, that's probably about as far as we want to talk about it in a non-executive session sort of setting.

I got you. All right. Well, thank you for that. I'm tempted to leave in a committee, but I'll probably work complete it. Not yet. I want to hear from the school side and stuff, but, but I, but I, I really, you know, it makes me anxious to think that, you know, the window could close on that, but again, it's all timing and you're right. The timing's not right. We don't even know what we're doing, but it's good to, you know, keep, I just want to like, we want to keep bringing this up to you all to let you know that, because I don't know what the challenges are. Like the higher you, you know, if you have five floors on a school, you know, is that too much for the little, like, you know, I mean, maybe older kids, like that's where the, you know, the professionals come in, but it's always, I've always heard that we didn't want to build too high up on that site because of the incline, but that could be, that could be also, that challenge could also be met in some other way as well. So, we just want to kind of keep keep the eyes on the possibility that'd be a great way to expand the footprint of the school um okay uh anything from this school the city council side nothing anything from the school committee side well i'll just take this opportunity circling into um uh

echo your interest in exploring this opportunity. And I have great faith in Mr. Raish and his team that they are doing everything that they need to do. And without having any interest in jeopardizing potential negotiations, I will leave it to them to find the best path forward if such a path exists. So just full support. in that exploration, at least, and not seeing anything from my colleagues. Nope. I will turn it back to you, Chair Clingan. Thank you.

You know, I am going to work complete this. Like, you know, I've been talking behind the scenes about it. Council Strasl did put this in, and like I said, I'm just backing her play as a way to have, you know, make sure that we'll keep an eye on this. But let's work complete this.

Chair Clingan, I apologize. I see a late-breaking hand from Ms. Patel.

Not a problem.

Thank you. Through you, Chair, you know, in an ideal world, it would be great to have more property at Sycamore Street. That's a given. But I also want to acknowledge and recognize that if that is going to be part of the calculus, it's going to cost money, whether it's to buy the property, whether it's to dismantle and take down what's already there. It's not... a zero cost consideration. Again, in my fantasy, I'd love that we'd have that property and be able to work with that. And I know that the city folk would too, but it's going to have to be something that's factored and I totally trust the city to put that in their analysis. But it would be tremendous to have that extra space and add more outdoor space and have a little more breathing room for a building that's considered at Sycamore Street. Thank you.

You're welcome. And you know, one of the good news is that the consultant, I think that we ended up going with, or at least some of the, I know one of the consultants or two, maybe they're aware of this site and they're aware of, you know, these conversations and they do have, they did have it in their presentation when we were picking firms. Um, so it's very much, you know, going to probably be part of the calculation and conversation. So, um, oh, absolutely. It's yeah, it's, it will increase the cost, but, It's just from everything what I was hearing about capacity and challenges of building. So yeah, hopefully we can make something work. All right. Madam Clerk, we will work complete item number six. Moving on to item number seven by the Director of Health and Human Services inform this council which buildings have menstrual products available and which buildings have inoperable menstrual product dispensers. and when are they scheduled to be replaced? There is a memo on file from the DPW commissioner in charge of buildings, and it basically has a list of the schools. They state in the memo that, as far as they know, there are no inoperable dispensers. I'll just read a little bit of it. So the only schools that do not have dispensers are the Capuana, which is an early childhood center, and the Brown, which goes up to fifth grade. SPS administration and DPW are not aware of any inoperable menstrual product dispensers in school buildings. If individuals are aware of an issue with the dispenser, notify SPS administration, and the city will work to get it resolved. Then they have a list of the schools. And they also note that menstrual products are available at all the nurses' offices in all the schools, but there are dispensers in all of the schools except two. And yeah, so I think that answers that pretty definitively. I can check back with Councilor Strezo as far as what she's hearing about inoperable dispensers. And with that, I will turn it over to colleagues. Councilor Sait, the floor is yours.

Through the chair, since we have staff from the schools here, I just want to ask, in the event the dispenser is broken or What is the process for making sure it's fixed? And yeah, that's my question.

This will go to Dr. Barry. I thought it was Barry. Is it Barry or is it just spelt wrong? It's spelt wrong. It's okay. It's Barry. B-A-R-R-Y. That's okay. I'm like, I've always thought your name was Barry. Yeah. And I do know that there is, yeah, there is like a, you're trying to, a different reporting system instead of having staff put in 311. So I'll let you speak to that.

So through you, Chair, thank you. First off, Seminole Public Schools is very appreciative to DPW, Commissioner Lathan, Liz Cortiello, and Karen Carroll in Health and Human Services for getting this program into all of our K-8 schools.

You can't forget Counselor Strezo.

Yes, so actually her and I had a great conversation about this last night after the CAG meeting. As I was at the high school, I was like, oh, I'm going to check some of these while I'm here. And to come to find out, they were in working order. And we have no data that shows any of these being out of service. And the correct way to report if they are out of service is via 311 request. And just a little background on how we do the 311 request. So typically at school level, either the school secretary or the school principal or AP will enter the 311 request. Amara, Anasik, and myself are typically always see seed on those. So we see everything that's coming through. That way, they are in the loop of what's happening in all the buildings. But at this time, we show no data saying that any of them are inoperable.

What they say.

Thank you. Follow-up question. Yeah, it's great to hear they're all functioning. Can you tell us very briefly how does the refilling, how often do they get refilled? And if we have some schools that need them more than others, and how do we address that?

So through you chair, yes. So our custodians are the ones that are refilling the products. I don't have specific data on how frequently they're being used. You know, if, um, at the high school, they may be being restocked more than in the K through eights. Um, I would say Liz Cortiello would be the one to have that data. I'm happy to ask her to share that, um, in collaboration with DPW and the custodial staff.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, I think just thinking, since we have this item, we were having this conversation about, you know, uh, I can just imagine currently, you know, that family, I'm sure you know that there are families who are making these choices between food on the table and getting these products for their students is just to be mindful of that. And if that are, if they the students, you know, go through them within like the first couple hours of the day to think about refilling them or they can go to the nurse. Um, having spent years, you know, in the high school building, you know, that's where we need them the most. And, uh, Yeah, usually that's the issue where they're just not by 10 a.m. So you go to the nurse and not every teacher, you know, will let the students go to the nurse, you know, like the whole dynamic. So just thinking about that. Yeah, right now we're like learning that many families are going to lose their SNAP benefits. So I'm sure hard decisions will have to be made in terms of food on the table or getting... things that students need. Thank you.

You're welcome. I'm happy to get the data. And also in the buildings, including the high school that I have done spot checks on, they have been at least three quarters of the way full. So it seems like they're being checked as often as toilet paper, soap, paper towels, things to that matter. Well, that's great to hear.

And the kids are using the honor system, it sounds like. You know, because I imagine scenarios where, you know, somebody's taking more on their share. All right. So anything on this side? No? All right. So we'll turn it over to you, Chair Baton.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. So because at our schools, our students are... allowed to use whichever bathroom best represents their gender identity. Not every student who uses a boys room or let me rephrase that. Some of the students who use the boys room may be menstruating. And I noticed in the list that There were some gender neutral bathrooms, but there were no boys rooms listed. And that surprised me a little bit for the high school. I do know that, you know, it may get more complicated now. placing dispensers in the boys' rooms. So I don't know, Ms. Berry, if you could speak a little bit about how those are placed and if that has been a topic of conversation. And, you know, because I really want to make sure that we are serving all our kids and make sure that, you know, everyone is supported to the best extent possible. Yeah, we'll leave it there.

Through you, Chair. So I wasn't originally part of this conversation as to where the dispensers would be located within the school building, but I'm happy to find out how the decision was made as to where they were going to be installed and get back to you on that.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Ms. Patone?

Oh, thank you through you. I just want to thank you for bringing that up. I think, you know, obviously there's some decision that a gender neutral bathroom, I don't want to make assumptions, but the way I'm reading this is that a gender neutral bathroom would be an option for any student that's seeking for something, but you have flagged. It looks like the only school that doesn't have one in a gender neutral bathroom is your GenZiano. unless I'm reading it wrong. So I'll be curious, and I just want to thank Mr. Petone for .

Thank you, Ms. Petone. Okay, so Ms. Barry, we'll look forward to hearing from you back about those two questions then, and I'd be happy to relay it to the other councillors here and turn it back to you, Chair Clingan. Okay, thank you.

Do we want to keep this in committee? Is that what I'm hearing? To get those follow-up questions answered? All right, we'll keep it in committee. All right, so item number seven, Madam Clerk, will be kept in committee. Moving on to item, and it's our last item, Item number eight, let the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management provide an update on the condition of the high school building exterior tiles and efforts to prevent and mitigate future tile failures. I remember there was a notification that went out telling neighbors and people and folks that there was some drone activity. There was some investigating going on using the use of drones. And there's certainly a lot of concern about tiles, tiles falling. Director... Director Raich, you're still here, right, to speak on this one? The high school tile situation? The floor is yours. Okay, thank you, Chair.

Yeah, so soon after the event happened in late September, we did provide a memo to the school committee and copied the city council on the situation. So, you know, I'll just sort of reference that in terms of the history of the tiles. Since that time, I believe the date of that memo was September 29th. Since that time, we've continued investigations. We did bring in a third party, an outside independent third party to review the situation. That was the company that flew the drones that was flown on October 6th. They turned their report right around on October 8th. and supplied that to the company Sunrise that was doing the hands-on inspections. They were thankful for that additional information that helped them sort of triage and prioritize their hands-on inspection. At this point in time, they have finished inspecting all the areas of the school that they could reach via boom lift. There are some additional areas that they need swing staging to get to, and they're getting to those areas this week. And so the entire building should be wrapped up in terms of the inspections by next week. They've been documenting everything they've been doing. They've brought in the manufacturer of the system. They're a licensed installer of that manufacturer and are reviewing all of their findings with that manufacturer as well. And they've been giving us updates. We will get a full report once everything is complete. The good news is that... They did discover the root cause of the tile that fell in the rear of the building. It was the same location as last year. It was the replacement tile that fell this year. They know what that cause was. They did a lot of investigations. pulling off tiles to see if that situation was happening elsewhere. It was not in all the areas that they investigated. They also came up with a less invasive way of measuring for that, which was approved by the manufacturer and everybody that reviewed it and proceeded to do the investigations for the remainder of the building using that methodology. There was a nice sort of endorsement. Principal Kirsten had been sort of spying on them, watching them through the investigations, and she remarked to the team how thorough those investigations were and how she was feeling assured that the investigation was being conducted in a very thorough manner. So we're hoping to have a final report early November, and we can disseminate that to everyone. But things are tracking well.

Okay. I don't see any questions on our side. Turning it over to Chair Baton.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. Well, I did see Dr. Phillips with her hand up earlier. Do you still want to speak?

Mr. Raish went on to address my question, so I put it down. Thank you.

He has a knack for that. Well, I will ask a question that I'm not sure if you know the answer to, but we'll give it a shot. So I understand the tile, as with last time, the tile fell and struck a parked vehicle. No one was hurt, thank goodness. Do you know whether the damage to the vehicle is covered under the insurance for the building?

That's actually a good question that I can't answer off the top of my head. I'll have to get back to you on that. I also don't know how extensive the damage was. Those buses are kind of beat up as they are. But I'll get back to you with a definitive answer on that. Appreciate that. Dr. Phillips.

Sorry, I did have a question. What was the root cause?

So the root causes and how that panel was installed originally was out of specification. So it's a whole system and there are metal rails that run vertically and they have pre-drilled holes in those metal rails at exacting locations. And then metal clips go into those rails and the terracotta tiles sit on those clips. And the location of those holes are really exact specification so that the top and bottom of those tiles sit up against that. And there's also gaskets on the back that sort of provide outward force so that they don't rattle around. What had happened during the installation of that particular tile And it's unknown why, because it's clearly out of specification and against the manufacturer's policy and against the installer's policy. But whoever put that tile in elongated those holes, the bottom holes for the bottom two of the four clips. And so they were larger and over time, the bottom clips sort of worked their way down, which meant that the top of it then came free from the top clips. The installer is mortified that one of their laborers had done that. which is also why they went to the extreme measures of pulling off as many panels as they did to see that no other holes were elongated and then came up with this measuring device that they could do that from the outside. So that was the root cause of it. It was a laborer doing something out of specification on that one bloody tile.

And thus began a great investigation. Only the laborer had spent, you know, that goes to the old adage, measure twice, cut once. In this case, measure twice and don't cut. Don't cut. There we are. All right. Chair Clingan, I think we're at the end. I'll turn it to you. Appreciate it.

Okay. Great. Well, that's everything on our agenda. Any questions, Madam Clerk, on... disposition of any items or you have everything done yeah just what would we like to do with this last item oh um any recommendation from school committee side I I I think we have a commitment from Mr Raich to send us the final report so I think we can close this and uh look at that when we get it all right perfect so we're complete on that one madam clerk and then I would, Councillor Davis moves to adjourn. So roll call on adjournment and the minutes from the September 15th meeting.

Perfect. Okay. So on approving item number one, the minutes and adjournment. Councillor Sait. Yes. Councillor Davis.

Yes.

Chair Clingan.

Yes.

All right. It is 746 and that's all in favor of adjourning and the minutes.

All right. Thank you, school committee.

Thank you. And we are adjourned. Appreciate it. All right. Have a good night.