everybody and welcome to our first calling meeting to order at six forty two we're running a little late and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance all right so we very much welcome this opportunity to combine our traditional format of the school committee meeting with a community forum to invite our community members to come and share their thoughts questions and ideas about  project you might have heard of the bell on high school building project so we're going to start we have opportunity at every meeting for citizens concerns are there any concern i mean you know ok terrific there are no adjustments to the agenda that i'm aware of so then the next item of business is a chairpersons report in an effort to be brief i am not prepared anything other than a thank you to everybody who has helped over the last snowy and frigid week to keep everything running and i suspect there's different and it will say similar things i've just everything that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that everything works well for students and families so a big thank you and things are moving ahead i know on a slightly adjusted schedule because of our snow days so i would just  people pay attention to the school websites to look for any adjustments and things like midterm exams or other activities that have been postponed due to new days that's all i had in my report we had no unfinished business and things like   goes a long way in times like these and they worked very hard for a long period of time so we appreciate and value their support in the school so thank you to  so we will move on to our first order of major business which is the belmont high school two thousand eight hundred nineteen program of studies we have that in our package that got presentation on the screen behind  turner and each year we take a look at our district initiatives our school vision statement and daraa strategic plan to make sure we're in aligned with it so this year new courses are being introduced in science visual performing arts i'd like to introduce elizabeth baker who is science director to quote first to talk about a new course being offered in the science department thank you so our new course being offered is entitled introduction to robotics what it is is really an update to our engineering design and technology class so that we can bring it into a more relevant and engag ing context for students and as you can see there's a more detailed rationale in the memo that you received but basically thanks to the f b we had a very generous grant and we received five thousand dollars to purchase our first set of the vax robotics kits which we will be using in that course and so we're really excited to sort of freshen this course up and really get students engaged in robotics which i just stop by the the meeting they're popular it will be budget neutral thanks to the f b i grant and we will be able to you know pay for the airport replacement parts from our existing budget and staffing wise it's also budget neutral and then i just have two other minor changes one is to make science ethics offered at both the college prep and honors levels it seems like a highly relevant course at the moment and  only offering it at the c p level i think is actually tamping down on some interest that's there and so that as one small change and the other small changes we are renaming cad to design and three d printing to reflect again thank you to the f b i this course is use of the three d printer as a really core piece of the curriculum there any questions i'd love to talk about there are a lot of so the robotics club is a first robotics team they actually started in the community last year and they were pretty successful at a couple competitions and we've now brought in house christina phillips a math teacher  the advisor and she's doing a great job her first year and then we have some mentors both in the community and some from be you and some other places we're still bringing those in who are working with our students to work on their robot is build season so they will be here burning the first one is called three d art level one three d art reflects our decision as a department to consolidate her existing ceramics and sculpture courses into one single strand of curriculum we currently offer ceramics and  sculpture and offer two to three levels of each of those and so what we are planning to do is to incorporate all of the important fundamentals of ceramics and all of the important fundamentals and experiences of sculpture into one cohesive course that students can take and this will give students the opportunity be creative in a greater variety of ways this will be a budget neutral change and and that's because we expect that the three d art curriculum will ultimately replace remix and sculpture  sections were started level one this year and then next year we will replace ceramics to the sculpture too with three d are two and then the following year with three d with level three the next class that we are proposing next course is called digital art one that the addition of digital art to our curriculum has been a major point of emphasis in the last two plans of action for our department and so we're excited that we finally have the opportunity to act on those recommendations and implement a digital art curriculum next year so this will be a half year course one semester two point five credit course where students will learn fundamental skills in digital art making graphic design and web design and that will be used for both artistic applications as well as commercial applications this will also be budget neutral in terms of f t we have requested a moderate increase to our software budget to purchase some additional software that we don't currently have i think that will be even made more moderate because the sculpture and ceramics classes that we will be replacing are pretty expensive classes to run in terms of material consumable material so so that'll be the budget impact here and the third and final course that we're proposing is called animation one this will be a one semester course also and it'll focus on various animation styles ranging from hand drawn traditional cell animation like old mickey mouse cartoons that you've seen a million times and ranging up to digital animation and three d modeling it's another area where there's a high demand and among current students and in and in the workforce and it's an area where our curriculum has been i think well behind other other school districts so we hope that this would lead to a second level course as and same with the digital art curriculum we intend that these programs to grow and we hope to grow these programs in our current facilities so that someday when we move into a new facility that has a really great digital art lab will already have the curriculum in place and know how to teach it course also will be budget neutral in terms of f t e with the same moderate increase requested in the software in our software account for materials there are any questions i' could could use their projects making and things to to support other areas great thank you think there's frequently situations where we've got students in the halls and we're always looking for ways to engage students and i know we've got limits in terms of how many additional classes that we can fund but if there were an opportunity in the future to fund a couple of additional f t e s do you have a sense of where those empties would go and where the greatest demand is from students for additional classes or additional programs a couple of resources that we look at to one is the class size reports where most kids are in each department  which courses to address and bring down those class size and the registration time is a really important time to find out where the students interest are we ask the students to select their first second and third choice of electives and not all students are able to get their first choice and so we try to do our best to make that happen but there's a large interest in the first second and third choices that we're able to create or put them into additional actives so both the class size and their interests with electives are opportunities for students to be in classes more often so this is a civic areas in the curriculum that you would like to add additional classes or  programs not so much like but i'll go with the data the data tells me that our science classes need to come down in size not only for the numbers that are there but the current classroom space isn't conducive to learning in twenty first century or make being innovative the classrooms that they mainly use are previous labs so we're using them for a classroom and labs and often the kids will flow in between the two workstations in order to fit them in the classroom so to reduce that size and also to make sure that say because they're dealing with chemicals and we want to make sure that we don't have large numbers in those classes when there's firing chemicals so first that comes to mind is the science classes to make sure that they're safe and the numbers are also very high in that department not just that department but others but that's the one that comes to mind first th just to respond with some background in context when we're asking our department heads and directors and principals to be creative with a program of studies which they have been a budget neutral way we've also been asking them to give us budgets for f y nineteen their needs and their needs for f y nine hundred twenty and twenty one as we make a three year plan and in that three year plan to principal richard's point we are really focusing on in roman based needs right now in the budget and i think that and i applaud folks like listen are over being creative with budget neutral solutions to enhance the creativity in the options for us to use in the program of studies that exercises a little separate from the exercise of budgeting which is really outlining one of the budgetary needs for the for this high school for the middle school for the elementary d n has submitted a list of f t s that he needs for the next three years after working with the directors over the last few weeks and we have that and he'll prioritize it will present that to this body for what our three year plan is unfortunately sometimes that plan in the times that we are right now which are fiscally tight times with high and roman are more needs around class size in program expansion because of enrollment and not always necessarily the creative side of that work which is the program of studies work so there are definitely a list a list of positions that dan needs and that mike needs and that janet interest will need moving forward some of which are very creative that will support good student opportunities and some of which are just needed based on roman and then i would also just repeat a question that i asked in the subcommittee meaning the program of studies i have never seen a program of study before serving on the school committee so i have the luxury of getting it in hardcopy to look at while i have someone at the high school and so for families who have not seen it before or have not had conversations with their children i know that they meet with their guidance counselors and they think through what their interests are and so forth and teachers have conversations is the program of study available for parents who are curious and want to take a look at the rich offerings that absolutely they'll be posted on the website for parents to view during our registration time i sed i strongly recommend all parents to take a look at the program the studies and see sit down with the child to talk about interests by schools the time of trial and error an interest in discovery so why not reach out to that elective that you may be interested just to discover as far as creativity i really do have to commend the directors for being creative with the resources that they have to offer these electives that you see tonight and in previous years to be budget neutral they take a hard look at the numbers to see what is working what isn't working and they're constantly tweaking those classes or inventing new classes so my hats off to the directors being creative each year  great thank you all right so am i correct janice that we're going to vote to approve that next time ok so we can review these these materials in the next meeting on the twenty third we will have an official vote to accept the propose service delivery of our lab programming in lab like all organizations has to have a bottom line and present their budget to the state and also has their budget audited each year in an effort to be in compliance with the d e s c regulations in our own audit group that we have work for us in assess our books each year we are being told that it would be important for us to have a capital account for the lab program to be able to use in th case that they would like to do some infrastructure changes in any one of our buildings so the lab team has a few ideas in mind but the first step from the audit is point of view is to establish an account that then will have money deposited in it for capital needs only as part of the audit recommendations from the state in from our private audit group so we are only asking in this motion to approve the lab collaborative board of directors  to two million dollars in a capital reserve fund that's up to him to create the fund at another point in time the board will make recommendations on procedures and policies about how that money will be spent and how it will be accountable to the board and the members school committees as well so we're only asking that this body vote on the ability for the lab board to initiate and create th are there any question all right so the proposed motion language then is a motion to approve lab collaborative board of directors to establish a capital reserve fund of up to two million dollars will someone propose so then we're going to end our meeting where we will transition if you will into our community forum mode we have our high school building committee members joining us and we also have a board of selectmen joining official we will have motions or we will call the meetings to order of the high school building committee and the selectmen accordingly and then we can commence with our joint meeting so if there are enough people here to do that we  all right so while we're transitioning just to lay a little bit of groundwork and context so we and i was reading and thinking we're fortunate to have an opportunity there have been numerous opportunities for our community members to be involved in the process of thinking through myriad details about our new high school building so this is another one of these opportunities where we've invited community members to weigh in with  questions and ideas and we have folks who have agreed to come and present to us to share more information after tonight's event concludes there will be more information that evolves between now and our subsequent meetings so we have this meeting tonight and then we'll have another meeting our second meeting in january and superintendent feeling we'll explain the finer points to you but this is an opportunity for us to hear where we are now with what we know now and invite comments and ideas from our community  large in some folks minds a large worry in a large amount of excitement it's it has a lot of magnitude when we talk about how we can shift our school districts so where very very cautious in how we approach thoughtful and how we approach it but i actually i'm approaching it from a very bright and forward looking manner as it brings great opportunity for the belmont public schools on many levels  we look forward to presenting tonight a recap of what we've gone through are ready as it relates to the process regarding configurations we're going to introduce also some new information regarding some of the data and statistics around cost and finances on some of the other parts of the building program which would mean our k through eight reconfiguration options and then we're going to ask to hear from you as community members to ask questions hopefully we can answer everyone and if not we'll find the answer and find you and make sure that we publish that answer as we all sit here and in contemplate what would be the best strategy for the belmont public schools our community moving forward as it relates to great configurations not just for the high school building program but for the remainder of the district so i will present for probably a good fourteen to fifteen minutes with two different slides so so if you have questions please raise your hand and i'll address them as we go but there will be a chance for you to ask any question after we did schedule this as an open form so we have to mark a phone set up for folks to walk up and ask the questions and we will have a question it's appeared at the end we also have with us tonight members of our leadership team dr trisha clifford principal of the burbank school jenna carey principal of the wynn brooks school mike mcallister principal of the reschooling indian richards principal of our high school we have him here tonight because we know folks may want to ask questions of our leaders who are on the front lines of this conversation as a relates to what's good practices for our teachers and students at certain ages as they transition through our school community one of the challenges now that we have one of the things that we would like to see differently and how do we feel about some of these transitions for our children as relates to configuration so we have a group of folks tonight to be able to answer some of those questions as we go through the presentation in our principals will be giving you a few quick words at the end of this presentation and will be available for question and answer as well yes there is nobody else here speaking to that part of the question was there is every school psychologist here tonight to speak on behalf of the district and the answer is no not that i'm aware of and dr lisa fury would be considered potentially that so we're going to move through our hour presentation in again if you have questions regime to come to the microphone or if you'd like to ask it at the end of the  presentation during the question the answer period feel free to do so as well we have a process that we put in place to bring some of this information to the public on december twelfth that a law school committee meeting tonight we are presenting the second half of that information as  relates to our k to eight buildings and the allocation of funds in the transitions for us students at the early grades and the next meeting that we have will be on january twenty third which will be where these  points of reference in different conversations that will be having will come to a conclusion in a vote will take place by the school committee as it relates to the configuration of the new building program or also want to talk about the context of the building project and the configuration options that we have and the lens that we're looking this through this work and also the options for the corresponding grades of our pre k to eight population because that's the group of grades that we have not focused on at the first half of our many community meetings p t o meetings in school when your presentations lastly will get the principals perspective and then we'll go to questions and answers on december twelfth we had a presentation on the pros and cons of the configuration options with the school committee discussion tonight will be going over the configuration options and with this public forum in the twenty third will obviously have our vote  night of the twenty third the belmont high school building committee will be meeting as well that will be a joint committee that meeting will be held at the wellington school so we can accommodate the large table for the board of selectmen the school committee in the building committee as well as room for the audience so again that will take place at the wellington cafeteria on january twenty third the lens that we look at this work through and have been from the start is first and foremost what is the educational vision for teaching in learning for students and how we engage our students that will best increase not only the academic outcomes but the social emotional experiences and outcomes for our  children the next lens that we look at this work through is that the challenges that we have with space and enrollment in the operational needs that are very apparent due to the increase in roman that we have seen over the last five years and that are projected moving forward just what do we need in the short term the long term to ensure that our students have appropriate space to learn in and are teachers to teach in each day at this point in time that space is trained in challenge to the third lens is the financial cost as we look at creating and asking for funds for modular classrooms we really want to take a long term in short term view of what are the financial cost providing this type of space for our entire district pre k through twelve as a relay start owing to the building committee's work for the high school project but also the remaining corresponding grades in buildings that we have in belmont  specifically the when the burbank the wellington the butler and the cherry middle school buildings and lastly and i think very importantly this is a very time sensitive conversation that we're having  is increasing very quickly the building high school the high school building project will have decisions made over the next several weeks and over the next month or so in construction will and design and construction will follow and that building will not open for a period of time and during that time are in rome and is projected to continue to increase so decisions that we make now will definitely impact our ability to service the children and provide  space that we feel is of quality for our town and these decisions will have long term impacts so we really want to make sure that we measure or look at these issues through the lens of time because we are some of the options that may be helpful for us may not be able to come to us for a period of time and that may not be the best option for the district so just the last ones that we like to look at this work for so the visioning work this is repetitive for some of the folks who've been paying attention over the last six to twelve months and we have been at this for over six to twelve months in december nineteenth of two thousand and sixteen we had work with educators two days of education work with teachers april third we had a one day education visioning session on may fourth and fifth we had a two day session with parents families community members teachers and students and just this past september we had two full days with up to sixty eight students  guardians parents family members community members and educators these visioning sessions were in addition to the many school committee meetings on this topic the p t o presentations the belmont high school building committee reach out that we did from the league of women voters to the senior center to ones that we had updating the community on this subject so we have been at this a little while and we're glad that as we move through the process that we're gaining momentum of folks paying attention because we think your feedback is important and we think that we're getting to the point where are the citizens will be made this is a chart that we've been showing since the beginning that breaks down the conversation very clearly that will have tonight which really is a one slide that describes if we have a building for graham that addresses certain parts of our district what will be the remaining work that the district will need to take on when we wrote the application for the high school project and received it we were very surprised because it took us thirteen years to get a yes and when we finally got the yes we were we were aggressive enough to say can we actually explore some more options because we have challenges beyond the high school and i know a lot of you in the audience who have been at these meetings know the story but it's important for the public to know that many options were put in front of the the massachusetts school building authority the s b a in an attempt to not only remedy the high school needs but also remedy our district challenges that we have around space in roman so after several meetings at the boston office with members of the town we concluded and they allowed us to explore three options a high school made up of grades nine through twelve i had school made up of grades eight through twelve in a high school made up of grades seven through twelve they say you can explore those three options and see how they fit into your district and we will allow you to do so and make that decision by january two thousand and seventeen so here we are getting ready to make that decision on january twenty third with every one of those options comes a corresponding impact to the remainder of the district so this chart breaks out with the first call in nine through twelve then down to eight through twelve and seven through twelve as we think about what the new school could look like in terms of what grades it will encompass it also presents either a good remedy of taking people out of the generally for example if we go eight through twelve and taking the eighth grade out and making that school school one hundred smaller that that would really accommodate  our need for more space and a challenge of enrollment at the middle school if we actually go for a school that has grades seven through twelve you can see the corresponding impact on the district that we could actually take one grade out of our middle school two grades out of our middle school and add a grade from our elementary and put it into our middle school as an example of how we could use our space and best utilize our space for the class size in a roman challenges we have so we've talked pretty at length about what seven to twelve could mean and how we could separate students in a meaningful way and how we could connect students in a meaningful way around safety and enhancements to our curriculum tonight we're going to focus a little bit on the work of what would the lower grades look like and how would we organize them in what would it cost so that's going to be the main thrust of the second half of our conversation the good news is as we've been working with our design team of perkins and will and are dangerous our own are project manager they've been exploring the site they've been exploring how much land we have they've been exploring the different configurations and if you have gone to some of the meetings with about don't want high school building committee you've seen that they've already have several designs that they have put forward and they have done each design at the maximum of the grades seven through twelve to see if the biggest space can fit and then if it becomes an eight to twelve solution we obviously know a smaller school fit and it becomes a nine to twelve solution we would then know that a nine to twelve school could fit so we're confident that all three great configurations can actually fit on the current site of the high school and i say that because that was not taken for granted about six or eight months ago we really want to make sure that i design professionals could bring us information that that showed that these buildings in the size of these buildings could actually fit on that on that current site that is the only site location that we are considering for the new building project after discussions in visioning sessions and community meetings with many folks over the last six to when we had our vision group twenty six out of the thirty members chose grades seven through twelve four chose a through twelve and no one chose nine to twelve the visioning sessions that we did in september of two thousand and seventeen which was a larger group had about fifty eight seven through twelve to eight through twelve and six for nine through twelve when we worked with our own leadership council which is made up of our principals and our direct just wrote the district which is about twenty twenty or so folks we had a twenty vote for seven through twelve a one vote for eight to twelve and a zero vote for nine through twelve we actually also surveyed our staff just to get some feedback quickly as to what their thoughts would be on the different configurations and as you look at that chart the purple in the green is essentially our option of seven through twelve the options that we gave our staff were would you like to do a kate of four five to eight nine to twelve option which is the top one there is there it is the second option was an eight through twelve configuration and having the eighth grade by itself and then one through twelve high school stay separate from our eighth graders the next option for eight to twelve was grouping our eight ninth grade students together in a certain part of the building and having our ten through twelve students stay together as high school students on a different schedule the seven through twelve options were seventh and eighth graders by themselves with a nine to twelve high school next to them sharing some facilities but also separate for the majority of the day and our last option for seven through twelve was keeping our seventh eighth and ninth graders together and having i ten through twelve students in a different part of the building again sharing some parts of the building but having the majority of the day being separate with separate schedules so that vote when you look at it this seven through twelve these two configurations right here which is seven through twelve captured seventy two point six our staffs vote for what they would choose for their option we give you this information to show you that we have been asking folks have as we've gone along w vassal leadership council and in the the many different visioning meetings that we've had at the end we've always asked folks for their opinion and that's what it's been thus far so when we after many community meetings in the information that we've already presented right now you're looking at the preferred option for the folks that we've been involved with to this point in time and that does not mean it's a done deal but to the folks that we've talked to this point in time that seven through twelve has been the preferred option that does not mean that at the meetings that we've had at p t o at school committee at the senior center at the league of women voters that there are not folks out there that are still either a worried about seven through twelve or b would prefer eight through twelve or who might want to still consider nine through twelve so we're here to say that we understand that that's still the thought of some folks out there that we're now looking to give everybody the corresponding view of the other part of the district to help balance the information that we're presenting about the high school project with the remaining grades that we would be impacted as well in the district k we talked a little bit are not december twelfth meeting about the research and what does it say when we first presented some of the data on the december twelfth meeting i felt like the research fell flat a little bit and we went back and read  articles and we accessed one of the experts that we use in our district on social motional learning in transitioning through schools dr richard posner and we really looked at some more literature and what we what we found is that there in what's backed up in some of the research is that there's really very scarce research on great configurations as they connect to student achievement there are some themes that i think are valuable for us to consider so she has some of those right now graders it's interesting this is a middle school study that says maybe sixth graders should be kept young and kept at that elementary level so we looked at that we thought that that was important for us to note below that in the study of fifteen schools in missouri it is noted that the later students the earlier that students enter high school the less likely they are to drop out so do we think that that means that the seven to twelve option is better for them or not that's a data point that we would consider this will all be on the web for you we get out tomorrow and we do have the the list of all the references that you'll be able to click and read the entire article if you choose to do so on the right hand side importantly one students one student in school characteristics are considered school grade configuration is not significantly contributable to students academic achievement and below that despite low risk populations along several observable dimensions students who attend middle school and sixth grade are more likely to be disciplined to receive than than their counterparts at the elementary level i'm not sure whether that's a reflection of how we treat our students who are more middle school like at the middle school and we would treat them more elementary like if they remained in our opera elementary schools the last two slide show that there are very few statistically connectable studies that have controlled variables most of these research studies rely on self reporting from school districts and there is no particular sequence of grades that spans span that is perfect in and of itself that guarantee student achievement so with thought and effort effective practice is can be implemented in a variety of great configurations and lastly few studies that used to to school procedures in an effort to yield a clearer picture of cause and effect between grades been in configuration and student achievement exist are nine factors and several factors that the district administration article that we cited lets us know to pay attention to fiscal constraint projected or romance political tension school size school community goals geographic realities all these things come into play when we start to think about configuration and lastly effective programs and practices not create configurations determine the quality of our schools and we are making a wise decision about great configurations it means finding a balance between the needs of our students the needs of the school system and the expectations of the community my takeaway from the research that we've read over this last month the so is a it's hard to find out what find a match directly related to our belmont experience which is growing in size in a suburban urban environment not in a roar rural environment that has high achieving students that matches up with some of the studies that we've seen that are more rural in nature focusing on low achieving students who may have other issues that relate to their learning  take very seriously the concern of folks thinking about how students transition but we take comfort in the research that says if we pay attention to the different transitions that we may experience and we create good cultures in our school that's the most important part of what will make our student achievement and our students social emotional experience be maximized and we feel that we can do that whichever level of transition that we create or whichever change in our review the building options for the corresponding grades and buildings that are not involved in the high school building project the goal of their work was to see what the districts options were related to each and this be a configuration option that the school committee will be thinking about in deciding in what will it look like when we rightsize our school buildings for for the future and i will talk a little bit about what we mean by rightsizing when we get to the next  the next slide show i want to make sure that we focus on in this is a repeat slide first and foremost what's the what's the best thing for us didn't in terms of teaching or learning in engagement for their academic outcomes and their social emotional experiences in our comes what's the best thing that we can do for our space in a roman needs in the short term in the long term as that's a real challenge that we have in belmont that we're experiencing currently and we will continue to experience one of the financial implications of that work and also one of the timeline challenges in what is the pressure of time as a relates to increasing role meant that we have to make these decisions that w does anybody have any questions about the first part of what we presented that they would like answered now or they can wait for the end yes don't yes and that's exactly we're going to talk about right now that's a great question and i think i hope to answer that in the next few slides so we have the initial report there's a written report that been in draft form that we asked these folks to study and identify short term and long term options for the belmont public schools for the elementary and middle years in the context of the building high school project as we begin to decide whether or not nine through twelve a through twelve or seven through twelve are the best configurations for our new project we want to make sure we put the correct context into this work that we know that some of the current conditions that we have in our elementary schools and our middle school and our high school quite frankly are already less than ideal so when we ask this group to rightsize and i'm going to use that term a lot tonight we're going to ri to school with the hope that and with the expectation that folks will see what the capacity of each school in the service delivery of space needed for our schools could look like if we were able to invest in them in a certain level so we don't want to just do the same thing at the elementary level and have a seven or eight or nine through twelve building that has all the bells and whistles what is the right sizing of our schools how do we accommodate certain parts of our service delivery because we are building for the next twenty to thirty years we look at the list of assumptions that we asked the engineers in architects to look at in this is a meeting with all of our elementary principals  and we asked them to assume that we are going to be a district on average of three hundred sixty students per grade so right now we have three hundred eighty eight in fifth grade we have almost three ninety two in fourth grade we know we have higher numbers than that but we believe that the new watermark of the district on average and we're trying to be accurate without thinking will be about three hundred sixty students per grade so were looking to build the schools or designed the schools to accommodate that many children we do not see modular classrooms in our future for the next twenty years so we're going to subtract that space from this calculation all schools should have room for art music in physical education and well all schools should have appropriate special education in english language learners space for us today and the service delivery classroom capacity is a based on the class sizes and i'll talk a little bit about that in a moment we've also wanted to put in each of the remaining buildings innovation or maker space because we're x asking our architects to the zine that kind of space at our in our new building if we're going to design curriculum experiences for our children to get ready for that building we need to have that kind of space in our younger grades schools so we're going to take one classroom and design that appropriately if we could lastly we're going to continue our partnership with lab that uses our space and leave this space untouched and we will also keep our community rooms at the wellington in the chanterelle as is as community rooms when s s m a began the process of designing this work they had to route their framework of reference to a standard that would not leave this data up to be challenged around any kind of opinion or subjectivity so what they did was they actually rightsize the schools based on the square footage expectations of the massachusetts school building authority which is the emmis b a they took the m s b a guidelines for class size at each grade according to how big those classrooms are and they also took our own class size expectations that we have as a school committee although there are guidelines to what we would like to keep our classes in a certain range of these parameters this framework has resulted in a different capacity in each school because if in fact the m s b ace's a classroom should be a certain size to accommodate twenty three third graders  some of our classrooms at some of our oldest schools i'm not that big they would say that there shouldn't be as many students in them so i give you that example because they're trying to right size the school and this is a conservative approach to show that if we build these schools right or if we reallocated space correctly this is the kind of capacity to these schools would have and this is the cost that would be attached to that renovation that's an important point because i think you're to see some information that will kind of set you back a little bit so i want to make sure they're not using an arbitrary number they're reading their work in the m s p a regulations around class size in terms of square foot and class size in terms of how many students should fit in  class of a certain size of a certain grade so if you have a question about that please feel free to ask and if i'm confusing you hopefully it will be clarified as we work our way through currently we have the burbank which is k to four and as of november first it had three hundred seventy four students bottler three eighty eight when booked for ninety wellington six twenty six general fourteen hundred twenty two if we measure that existing number versus if we rightsize the schools in it if i had a dollar for every time i said that i could take us all over for dinner after is that or buy a new school well that comes in at the end be patient i'm glad to see that we've we broke a little bit we laughed it was a little tension in the room for a little while if we rightsize a school or make a new school we have a delta of about seven hundred four seats just k to eight so what that says is that if we continue to grow when we average three hundred sixty students per grade which were predicted to be two average and we keep everything the same we're going to be short at about seven hundred four seats that's if we right size the schools and we create the appropriate space in every building that we need to service the children appropriately and what i mean by that  we have students and teachers working in learning in rooms and spaces that are not classroom spaces they're not appropriate shared they're small they don't have windows visit this is a factor here that we need to make sure that we're aware of that if and when we rightsize which would be something that would be our goal that the existing concern would be would be short seven hundred four seats this is almost almost like a couple of years ago when you had to click as one for cable and one for the t v back to two thousand and seventeen here are the options that we had as an m a explore and the reason why they have different titles is is back to the survey that we did with our staff we have the main option of we asked for a high school that was nine through twel that would mean would keep our five six seven and i k one two three four we asked for an option of eight through twelve they could take two different scenarios eight by itself and one through twelve or eight nine by itself with ten through twelve the third configuration is seven through twelve which could be seven and eight next two are nine through twelve folks or seven eight nine next who are ten through twelve folks and here are the corresponding  potential effects that that they would middle school get smaller if we go through twelve this is repetitive from earlier and there's a grade shift here if we go seven through twelve which means our elementary could go to three and our our middle school which would become more of an upper elementary school would be great for five and six and we can talk a little bit about what that student engagement instructional practice would be this would not be a middle school is to basically be an operable metric school where hypothetically students would stay with one teacher in fourth grade like they do in elementary stay with partnered teachers like they do already in fifth grade and have a sixth grade moderate middle school experience here and that would reduce the challenges of transition for them as they go from this elementary grade to middle school so this upper elementary if a third grade student went to the new building at least he'd be staying with that one teacher model that he's used to or she's used to and then these mini transitions happen in a building that they already know in from the u s and the sixth grade would have a little bit of that travelling schedule of a middle school child when they got ready to transition out to that different school so there's been a thought behind what that would look like and i know that our principals in our will want to talk about that a little later but that has been thought through and this lapse option to the point of the folks in the crowd is what if you just built another elementary school what would that cost you had to find a spot to fit it in put it but we did actually try to cross that so the next few slides outline the financial cost of these options and we have to understand that at the current time the only organization in the only committee that's been made official by the bites how meeting is the belmont high school building committee that group has a charge of a new building project that serves the town for those three different options there really is no other vehicle to fund what we're about to see for the corresponding cost that's going to have to be an ongoing dialogue that we have with the community so i hope you have this in paper we do give it out to folks who are in the audience and i hope you can see this with your place in the auditorium here's the cost if we did nine through twelve what would have to happen at the other schools first of all there's a couple of terms of like to unpack with you when it comes to the terms comprehensive renovation that means it would have to bring the schools up to a certain code whether it be eighty eight code or electrical and other and some substantial changes would have to happen then there's a moderate renovation and then there's a light renovation each one of those terms behind this document has a different price per square foot that we're allocating to come up with this ultimate dollar figure so you'll see it in the in the b ends as it reads across but basically that means that if it's a comprehensive renovation the number per square foot is a lot bigger than if it was a light renovation and examples would be a light renovation might be generally making those science classes for eighth grade students and pulling those sinks out and making them until the regular classrooms for the fifth grade of the fourth grade students that may be in that building versus a major renovation which would be making a bigger cafeteria at the burbank or at the butler shifting walls to ensure quality programming space for elementary special education and early intervention students etc so there's this different levels of construction and they involve different levels of price per square foot and this was the architects attempt to price it with some detail so in that yellow band if we were to go nine through twelve we would have a comprehensive renovation of the building that would cost between ten and thirteen million dollars an addition that would have to go on the school of five to six million dollars so the burbank along would be about a fifteen to nineteen million dollar cost at the butler we would also need to do a right sized comprehensive row of a tween seven eight million dollars input in addition on that school between six and seven million dollars the total for butler would be thirteen five to fifteen five at the wellington we have built a brand new school that has enough room for the students so there would be no cost at the wellington at the wynn brook we would have to have a comprehensive renovation as well which would run to the tune of about eleven to thirteen million and at the generally we would have to do renovation as well and add a bill add part of a building because we have the  biggest in roman tissue at our general and that would be fourteen to eighteen million so you're looking at between fifty four and sixty six million dollars in costs if we chose just to build a nine to twelve high school that money would be on top of what the high school building project would cost so to the question of the gentleman who right who rose to my curly hair this is that kind of analysis this is the type of funds that would be needed if we only built a nine through twelve brand new high school so correct so the funds that are that are outlined here are not m s p a funds that are part of the s b a project they would have to be designed planned for and the funds for these would have to be approved by town meeting so right now there's no mechanism in place right now there's no vehicle in place to to find this money this is just what the cost would be so these a separate separate projects separate programs this is the non  of the work that we're doing for the t because that wasn't one of the original options serve we put it at the end it would have made sense to put it in this on the next page but we put at the end yes tom kings in the form of superintendent and they did come up with some scenarios that had additions on those street schools so there is sufficient space for those renovations i am sure they would like to re explore that if in fact that was the case but at that point in time there was sufficient the next slide is what would it look like if we had an eight through twelve scenario if we had eight through twelve again the burbank is in yellow at the burbank it would remain a still major and an addition it would also involve a major renovation addition of the butler again because the elementary schools are not impacted really by eight through twelve high school project the wellington would be fine the way it is and the windbreak would need a comprehensive renovation of about eleven to thirty million dollars they generally because the eighth grade would be leaving and going up to the high school would not need any money to be rightsized that would have the three grades remaining five six seven and we believe that we could utilize the current space in the manner that it is to support those students at the middle school so the major money spent here totaling between thirty nine in forty seven million dollars would be for the elementary level all on the assumption that no modulus are in the plan moving forward that's correct the second scenario for the eight through twelve would be instead of doing to protect major additions one of the burbank in one of the butler there would be one major addition at the wynn brook so what you see happening here is the yellow burbank is reduced just a comprehensive renovation but no addition which still cost ten to thirteen the bottlers only a major renovation with no addition at seventy eight the wellington again a zero but the wind brook now takes on the renovation plus a major addition the reason why they gave us this option was to show that if you wanted to only do one project they gave us that option to do so again no funds would be needed for the middle school and the total of that project roughly would be forty one to forty eight million dollars so the eight through twelve they provided us two options to recap major renovation in additions to burbank butler the next scenario was our seven through twelve configuration if we go seven through twelve despite the fact that we will be able to reduce the middle school by one grade by having the eighth grade in the seventh grade go up and potentially having the the fourth grade become the third grade full of students at the middle school the elementary would also have more room because they're losing a grade there would still be based on the square footage of those classrooms and based on the increased in roman and based on providing sufficient space for elementary students and e l o and special education of the different work that we do there would still be the need for some renovation work and this is a little bit of a surprise to some folks because if we're right sizing our buildings which is a very conservative view if we're right sizing our buildings  buildings actually shrunk a little bit so it requires us to reconfigure some of that space if we want to do the schools to the best of our ability into the expectations of the m s b a moving forward now does that mean that we would have to do that probably not because if we can maintain the way we are with five grades of the elementary level k one two three four i'm sure we can maintain with only four grades but that doesn't mean that we would be right sizing so again this number of presents if we were to fully right size each of the remaining buildings that it even if we went nine through a seven through twelve there could be some remaining costs so there's a couple of questions i think will come up later about that but that would be the price in that would be the the the hopeful plan moving forward if we were to rightsize under this scenario are there any questions about that sli the number associated with that option was eighteen to twenty five million dollars so the last slide shows if we were to go nine through twelve and we were to be able to find space and we were able to either as a town build a elementary school or try to partner with the m s b a over time after this current project is over build an elementary school what would that cost be  along with the cost that would need to happen at some of the elementary schools to renovate some space in the price tag on that is seventy two to eighty two million dollars that would make five k to fives and make our middle school six seven eight again there's a lot of assumptions there space and it's be a partnership whether we decide to wait for them as b a or purchase it and build it on our own nick cetera so i guess i want to end by saying the last slide shows the summary of the options in the costs associated with them in two to emphasize that the the options that we have putting forward in the prices that we are putting forward are rooted in the m s p a square footage in class size that we wanted to be able to use a standard that no one would be able to challenge in the sense that we're not just saying what we think that we would like to have we're actually basing it on a highly regarded agency for the state that does this work every day and what that does is it creates the ideal capacity of our school if we would be able to use us spaces reconfigure our spaces we know that while we're building a high school project that will be a costly sum of money for the taxpayers then it will be very hard for us to be able to ask the town on top of that for some of this money as well so at the next building committee meeting on the sixteenth of january that will take place at the wellington school the building committee  will let the community know what the cost is that they're determining now for each of the building solutions nine through twelve eight through twelve seven to twelve and we'll try to do an apples to apples comparison of what the new building program will cost and what the corresponding cost the district will be k to eight remembering that the m s b a work that's being considered is being reimbursed by the state in a certain level and we have a plan and a committee in place for but the other work that we're talking about right now is just a plan moving forward that we would hope to be able to fulfill that would involve a lot more work as a relates to planning designing and seeking of fines and also quite frankly prioritizing those needs next to the other capital needs of the town which are items like the police station the d p w and the library so we're we're trying to think globally as a whole community about the different parts of our community that need capital support in we want to make sure that we're fair and balanced as to how we present this information we're not saying out loud that we expect after we ok a building project of a through twelve or nine through twelve or seven through twelve that the next day we expect the town to vote us another eighty million dollars to support the other part of the district we realize that this is a long range plan but if you don't have a plan and you don't have something that you can walk down and have a road map to walk down the new you won't and where you want to be so this is an initial plan these are the initial cost they aired a very high level and we have agreed with us in may that as soon as the configuration is chosen that when the appropriate time comes we will ask them to come back in unpack the plan with more detail in with more thought in with more specificity so we could have a true plan for the community moving forward for whatever corresponding work remains for the district so i believe that is the last slide i appreciate your patience and sitting for this long a period of time and being spoken to if you have any questions about this part of the the presentation cost the different configuration options we will take those questions i've asked our elementary principals two of those to be here of their one of their thoughts on some of the configurations that are being considered we know that the last time that we met folks wanted that feedback from the people that do the work first in the buildings and so we asked them to be here tonight so we'll let them do a quick scenario and then after that will have folks answer ask and answer questions so i actually at the start of the elementary level of janet interested could just give us a couple of minutes of their thoughts issue to the community at the wellington school at six thirty or seven thirty pm bill this is a meeting at the ele so what what the research says that we've read in what the still leadership council has discussed is that in the research sides we present the night that the great configuration in the end does not determine the student outcomes directly that it's the practices the culture in the climate of each of those school buildings that has the most impact on the student achievement of our students so we believe and as a superintendent i believe seven through twelve will work eight through twelve will work nine to twelve will work three will work four five six could work five six seven could work i believe that the configurations that we have available to us will all produce quality experiences for our students and that the level of expectation that we have i just had a question about one of your assumptions you said you're looking at sort of an overall town average of three hundred sixty students per grade and i was wondering it seems like there are many grades now that are above that number and i was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how you came to that number sure we did a projection with the massachusetts school building authority which was part of our application the massachusetts school building authority did a five a ten in a fifteen year projection when we saw that we actually contracted our own demographer mckibbin associates and they did a five ten fifteen a twenty year projection and what we saw are is that over the past twenty has gone averaging about to sixty to seventy maybe peak to two thirty and going to forty and slowly has risen now to peaks of about three ninety i think we have in fourth grade three eighty eight in fifth grade  as that curve that new watermark comes they've projected that the average class will be about three sixty so that's comes from the professionals that we've worked with at the state level and at the private level yes two questions  question i have it seems to me like might be under consideration is the option to turn generally into a medical middle school and have five k through six schools i'm wondering if that's been discussed at all we so the question is if we consider a five k to six or five k to seven schools i know k to eight is a is a school configuration that some folks feel is a worthwhile look there's a couple of pros to that and there's a couple of cons the the pros would be that they'd be equal grades or number of students in each school in terms of how many grades are in every building that have a continuous experience in one building with one administration in that school one of the major cons in my opinion is that the school size is a very different so the butler in the burbank which really only would hold if they were quote right sized about three hundred to two hundred eighty students would really make it hard to have a a good cohort of k to eight students in it would you have one class per grade would you maybe have two classes per grade and would that be of an appropriate peer group for teachers and students to be able to have at the smaller schools the converse of that is that if you were to happen to be the family that went to the  then your kindergarden student would be one of almost a thousand students as opposed to one of say three hundred students because that's the size of the building so we feel that that's not an ideal circumstance that we would want to put our lower grade students in and not lodge of a school and so we after we discussed it we thought that it was appropriate to keep the main configuration option that we're considering k to three i have to say aloud i'm glad you brought  that doesn't mean the doors closing on this what we're talking about capacity of buildings if if we really had a good reason to believe that a different configuration model works as a relates the five remaining buildings would explore but we did explore that k option that's helpful the other question i had is certainly no after schools that capacity everywhere and i'm wondering if you've done any analysis looking at what the impact of some of these configurations would be on after school we're hoping and we have met with the out of school folks that we are we are able to give them their office and room back and we're hoping that the more space that we can create through this the leave it out yes we have taken them into the fold they're an important partner and i work and the goal is to bring the space back and make them whole the other question before our principals speak yes s b a options that we have in front of us for reimbursement and partnering with them have been presented on a couple of occasions in actually if you want to be want to get that full picture of what those options are in terms of how much of this building will remain to be renovated and how much will be new instrument of the new project i recommend that you come to the meeting this thursday and next tuesday when the building the belmont high school building committee will kind of put those options in front of folks they have very very clear pictures of what the building will look like how much will be saved how much will be run invaded and how much will be new and there's actually an option where all of the building is knocked down and there's a new building beside it so there's combinations of that and that's a building committee presentation that's been done and you can actually get it online at the belmont high school building committee website which you can get on the belmont public school's website are you can just google belmont belmont high school project dot org you welcome yes i just a quick question about the sequencing of the allocation of the money you mentioned that the power point that you just went through that money would be coming after the allocation of money for the high school itself and i just have some concerns as to whether there's going to be spending fatigue in the town you mentioned the other capital building projects so if we were to go ahead with the like a seven through twelve high school project and then let's say the town meeting or however it's allocated does not decide to allocate this additional rightsizing in renovating and  additions what's that going to look like for the k through six i don't know if you want to take that or that's just something that the principals might i think the principle is one of speaking to what their buildings are look like look like now what their needs are but it's a really good question the question becomes town meeting will not meet on this alternative spending subject i believe any time soon were the focus is the high school project funding the high school project whatever configuration is decided where the design selection is determined and that will go forward to the s b a and they'll be a price tag attached to that that that's how we'll consider hopefully this fall or maybe next spring the remaining cost will be i believe after a configuration is chosen it will be the school department strive to put together a plan and begin to work with the capital committee in the town and town meeting to find out how much we have to spend on it if anything we are in line that we have to wait as  relates to the library the police station and the d p w and how we queue up and how we prioritize versus that we're very aware that where we're one of several departments in the town that need to have that have capital needs so the i guess the short story is there's no guarantee that that money will come anytime soon but that that does not mean that we won't draft a plan of what it could look like and then begin that process yeah i'm just wondering what's it going to look like that money doesn't get allocated so the question we talked about today is if in fact the building project configuration choice was nine through twelve and you didn't get any funding superintended failing what would your school system look like it would be very hard to maintain the middle school and elementary level with none with no extra funding and i'm assuming that we approve the seven through twelve i'm going to get there so if we choose eight through twelve and we didn't get any extra funding what w system look like what would probably be able to make it at the middle school level because we lost the eighth grade but we would continue to be very hard pressed oversized over and rolled over challenged at the elementary level if in fact we were voting a seven through twelve option superintended fail could you open the doors at all levels of the district the answer would be yes would we would we be challenged a little bit but we could actually accommodate the students they wouldn't be rightsized but they would be able to accommodate the amount of students that we have coming into the district so i think when we think about whether the funding is coming or not you have to ask yourself those essential questions to address the media challenge that we're all facing as a community you all right any more questions one more question actually it's not going to affect my family but i do have a concern for the well being of the children and i'm sure you've done your studies on the social emotional wellbeing but my biggest concern is to having seventh and eighth graders alongside the high school kids i'm sure i'm assuming that they're going to be in separate buildings like in january when they separate them by floor but even on the same campuses and concerned so i just was hoping you could address that sure and when the principals began in michael dresser too but in the work that we've done with the visionary days that we've had we talked about one of the careful separations that we need to make in a building that has grades seven through twelve separate nurses offices separate entrances separate classroom design quite frankly because they element the middle school students would be in a team model and your high school students would be in a in a regular department base model so that actually function in one building but in separate zones of the building and they would use similar space but at different times so there is worry that hey it's one campus kids are walking to school and coming from school and seven the great is going to be next to what's called greater joy not coming and going time but we believe inside the building in the confines of how we've organized the building we are keeping that middle school grades of seven eight a seven eight nine as a as a middle school where we pay attention to the child in the teen model and that we address the needs pacifically in the building will be designed around those students ages and how we do teams where as a high school building will be different and separate so we believe that those careful separations will relieve that concern and that will benefit by a lot of fantastic connections that we're able to make with sh ed space for art music robotics and different types of teacher to teacher work that we can do across the grades so we think that is great connections we can have as long as we make sure that we have careful separations  yes excuse me i wanted to ask first of all in our neighborhood we see children who move in can not necessarily attend the neighborhood school at the elementary level with these different models that you're presenting will that need for a child to go from class one street over to burbank or or jason road over the butler no longer need to happen or would it only would you want to be able to fully accommodate children within the neighborhood districts if you do say the seven to twelve model i have any analyze the the data as to how much that would be reduced or remedied with the different configurations the only thing i can say off the top of my head as if we have k one two three that only leaves four grades that wouldn't be impacted because fourth grade would be universally addressed at the upper elementary in the cherry building this year was the most difficult with students being assigned to schools that are not the neighborhood schools that they go is about thirty eight in the past it's been under about fifteen so we are definitely seeing students not being in their home school as we attempt to maintain class size balance across the district in each grade so i don't have we haven't unpacked that subject in its entirety as of yet and the other thing i would like to follow on to the lady who just spoke so our children have grown and out of the system a daughter spent kindergarten at the pace of park church because of the wind work renovation and first grade at the high school and then when our kids were both in middle school the fire happened so they spent sixth and seventh one of them here as a guest and the other one was an eighth grader and then became host as and i grade or they all of those experiences everybody worried and worried and worried about what it would be like they all worked out just fine but the staff the staff and the parents everybody worked together the fire happened in early july we had seven weeks to get this school ready to accommodate three grades great six seven eight at the time and they put a modular behind the high school and sixth grade were explained weren't allowed in the building until the high school left nobody wanted six grade with the high school you know but the kids they all did it when the first grade were here it was the first second and third from when brick were here it was amazing that it's the parents and the staff the professionals who could make this work and whatever as you said whatever you pick it will work thank you very much i don't know if i fully formulated this but some of the questions that come up time in which is i'm wondering about the impacts to our community neighborhoods in the way we're thinking about these designs so as  you just talked about going to your neighborhood school you were talking about taking away a grade and how that might change the community that's in that neighborhood what it means for transportation i know will come up but it seems like all these decisions move towards more centralized schooling as opposed to neighborhood schooling and so perhaps there's some research out there about you know what is the impact to the famil when when we start reducing those neighborhood schools and consolidating more grades to the centralized schools because this is a radically different kind of configuration for all of the students and where they are and how to change the t mike my thoughts initially are that the four school districts that we have with in belmont would basically remain the same they just have one less grade so the butler communities the public community only potentially have for seven to twelve districts of fourth graders would now be part of the opera lament tree at the new school which would be generally the goal is always to keep students in their neighborhood schools and with additional capacity in each school he would like to think to chris koch point but we haven't explored it so i don't want to say it for sure that we would have more capacity to keep neighborhood students and neighborhood schools that seems to be a year a year wave of depending on what neighborhoods turn over with vacancies and new families moving in  i don't necessarily know if i would use the term radical in terms of the great configuration because we do have across the state visit a dutch bury you can visit needham you can visit a couple of schools in the on the north shore scituate all of which have seven through twelve five to twelve k one skate two separate sext a k one all of which are configurations that may be unconventional but have been put in place for probably the same reasons that we're entertaining these configuration options the pressures of enrollment space finances and then focusing on the best practices in the school so i think our neighborhoods are good with the k to threes i think the only  shift in neighborhoods schools would be if we actually were fortunate enough to find space and build of fifty elementary school would probably have to reconfigure the whole district but in the in the options that we showed tonight minus the new elementary school it's basically the neighborhood stay i hear you about just the one grade being reduced i see it is somewhat significant for the for the neighborhoods and potentially for those families who are now you know do you drive your kid is there busting available or you locking a nine year old  china but i do see having lost we've lost two elementary schools over time and we still see some of the stressors of those students having to to you know trek across town and whether they get bus service or not trek across busy intersections of their cars able to do on their own or need to be guided so i do see some of the stressors are still there and you know start radicals are too strong a word and intended to be that strong but i do kind of wonder back to this point of k through eight there being a real strong benefit to the educational program as you mention in the last meeting i hear you with the thousand students you know i would never imagine that being one singular school but maybe two schools within the same building and i wonder what the benefits to those neighborhoods might be despite the fact that they may be different tracks one track to track or three track so i wonder you maybe there is research out there in terms of how the community might benefit i did i definitely did this research that would relate to the fact that the longer you stay in a building especially at the early grades to more benefit it would be to the child in the family because you're making connections at the at the age that's most important k to one two three four five six so i definitely believe that that's that is a good scenario the the more grades that we can have at the the elementary level would be ideal and that's why we offered to put the extra school there because that would show everybody is k to five which is a relatively standard elementary configuration so so point well made that that that is a benefit for families to stay closer the neighborhood for longer not only physically but also attached to a school community any other questions before we ask our principals to give their response to the three questions that we gave them to the t am tricia clifford principal of the burbank school the first question is what are your space challenges now and at the burbank a space challenge for us has been that our computer lab has been is now in our library currently another issue that we have is we have difficulty finding spaces for small groups and so we often work with what we call r t i groups or response to intervention groups small groups and it's difficult to find spaces throughout the school to work with these  students also at burbank it's difficult to find spaces to meet so when parents come in for meetings the conference room is used by different groups and that can be difficult also space for instrumental music  instrumental music is on mondays at burbank and it's a challenge sometimes to find different spaces for the different groups to meet another piece is the before and after school program they are not in their office that they originally were  in also sharing spaces in the afternoon conference room and meeting spaces and we have a few classrooms that are smaller than the other classrooms and so i'm always cognizant of how many students are in those classrooms that aren't as large as some other classrooms  how would more space benefit teaching and learning at burbank like i said r t i spaces spaces for groups to meet special education groups different things that need to happen within the scope of that program a science room or an innovative room a room where hands on science or innovation could happen would wonderful and also a meeting space so a community room or a space where we could have faculty meeting that would be great too what's your opinion on that as far as grade level configuration a k through three school would be i think a great combination of like like mindedness as far as curriculum as far as the developmental ages of the students i think a k through three definitely k through two is also a great piece too as far as what you would be doing with english language arts and reading but k through three to me seems like a like a good combination previous to being in belmont i worked in a school system that had a three through five school and that was also a great combination because the the similarities of the students that what they're working on the developmental levels that they're at i think a k through three school would be be great high and janet carey the principal of the wynn brooks school similarly our biggest challenge is finding small spaces for support academic support the children require currently we have children in the hallway in the cafeteria with the kitchen much noise than the foot traffic are even in our staff break room on the conference room there and on every nook and cranny in the building but it's really not by any matter means ideal space for their learning the second issue is over time we've had to take closets and convert them into office space so needless to say there were no windows and they are cramped just to give an example my guidance counsellor her office used to be a closet so when she does her small  groups helping to teach children social skills she has to limit the size of the group because of the size of her office and that's just one example and some will position because we've converted the closets now we have stor storage issues as well so that is another concern also we've had to take our childcare program take their office space away and now their office spaces on the stage which then creates the problem we don't have a stage but more importantly there cramped and we aren't able to give them the resources they need unfortunately some families were turned away in september because of lack of space  those are the things that i would like to see rectified if we were to reconfigure the buildings the other thing i would love to see happen is to have that flexible use space perhaps an engineering laboratory the new science standards speak to and emphasize engineering and we have an excellent curriculum coordinator who is introducing a lot more engineering into our schools there were some enrichment programs there will only come to the school if they can set up in one place for the day when the children come to them because they're set up is so involved we can't provide that space so our richmond opportunities are limited by our space and i would hope that  reconfiguration could also address that i am comfortable with the lower elementary and upper elementary option my experience teaching sixth grade makes me think that the sixth grade to stay a little younger when they're with elementary school students so for five and six i think is a reasonable option and certainly the children are very adaptable probably more so than we are but the staff is also so skilled at helping with those transitions helping make children feel comfortable i really think whatever option we go with they will rise to the occasion i am dan riches on the principal at the high school some of the highlights of the space issues that we have here at the high school for example our chorus room is housed in a former garage garage door is still operable and we fit fifty to sixty kids in the room depending on a roman our band room is too small we have a huge band program here at belmont high school and one that we're very proud of in marching band as well we managed to put them in the room as best as we can and students have been taught routines of set up and break down in order to make room for the next class to command so we make it work a but we train our kids the routines that break down and set up in order to make that work one of the most glaring issues is our library our library could house up to five hundred students at any given time during the day and what that really does it impedes the learning of students in the different learning that they're seeking out locations within the school to learn independently group quiet spaces with five hundred students in our library i think most people have seen the size of the library you can only imagine what that space is like  i commend my librarian for corralling during those periods when this five hundred students and maintaining order but if you are a student at belmont high school you go outside the library to find a quiet space and that quiet space is generally a bench that shoved in a corner and if you are student you know where those benches are so the library is the biggest factor the science rooms are dated they are labs but we hold classroom lecture and labs in the same location as any given time you will see the students flowing through the lab tables so they are clustered at the front where the teacher's desk is and then we had the lab tables and then we have to start space in us learning we ask our teachers to be creative in what they do we ask them to collaborate that we ask them to be flexible with kids get them moving learn from each other communicate and these spaces impede all of that learning and those expectations that we ask of our teachers when i interview teachers i make it very clear to them that i'm hiring an artist no matter what subject you're in who are hiring an artist you are to come into the subject area and you are to be creative with the sub with the content and within your class this really impedes learning especially in a class setting like this where we had a class in here today because we had four roof leaks going on and we had to relocate classes so if i'm asking for a teacher to meet our expectations of collaboration and get kids working together and work on the walls if you're sitting in rows like this it doesn't happen so it's difficult for our teachers to reach those expectations when they are in these settings colleagues who do have seven to twelve buildings how they make them work and i visited those schools to see exactly how they make them work and it was a non issue which i was shocked to see because i'd never experienced a seven through twelve building it's amazing how they collaborate between the two levels i was shocked to see how nurses officer back to back were separate from the lower grades to the upper grades and the nurses could share information back and forth when there's a family tragedy and it impacts all levels or family information i was shocked about the nurses sweep that they call it their separate but through the back they share information i will say i have grown to appreciate this seven through twelve configuration i'm impressed with each school that i visited i visited around eight or nine different schools some exclusively seven through twelve and some eight through twelve and again i go with a critical ally and i come out surprised at how they made it make it work and i don't know if the word make it work is appropriate it works i was here when the wellington came in the wellington students had lunch with our high school students at the same time in the cafeteria which i never thought would or but to my surprise the high school students did step up and they helped the lower grades their behavior was better they moved out of the way it was impressive and i was proud of my students so the truth is that i have grown to appreciate the combination of great configurations from the lower in the high school and the resources i shared back and forth with faculty and staff i could go about that so that's kind of where i've arrived at this point through this process and  might mcalister i am the principal the cherry middle school chinnery in terms of current space challenges we're about three hundred students above what the building was designed for so a little background knowledge i'm coming from provide classroom spaces but they don't provide other spaces that you need so for example we have every lunch we have three hundred sixty three hundred fifty to three hundred sixty students per day at lunch and if you never had a chance to eat with three hundred sixty children you're all welcome to come by but don't provide spots like like the gym you know we have a gym that's really a small gym is really meant for survey yoga studio it's really meant for sort of working out and we've used it for we've created this game we called neve volleyball and it's really kids on their knees playing volleyball because we just don't have a space that's big enough so on one hand that's kudos to teachers for getting really creative with the spaces they have another hand need volleyballs a sad game to watch so and i think similar to janet she spoke particularly we've really opened up a lot of non instructional spaces and created instructional spaces whether it's closets storage and we have a back of a staff development which is a beautiful room and we've put a classroom two offices back there now and their offices in name only because they don't actually have a wall  in the back of them were we eliminated conference rooms in favor of classrooms and things like that so and i think that really it's the big the big the most obvious one i see is just class sizes you know i have we move from from sixteen elementary grade four classrooms to fourteen fourteen fifth grade classrooms so the only way to do that is to add more students per class and it's not it's not above reason to have a fifth grade class of twenty seven students twenty students and  technology engineering class with thirty one students i have a health class with thirty students i would love to tell you that's like the one exception to the rule but it's really not so in terms of my space challenges that's how i see them in terms of what more space would allow us to do i think we do our best we talk a lot about making a big school smil feel small and despite our best efforts i think that generally does feel big and it does feel full and i think that it would really more than anything we just provide relief because i think it does feel full i think it would allow us to return our spaces to their original purposes we would get conference rooms back we would get closets back we would get all those spaces that we conferred we wouldn't have to have a teacher teaching on the on the stage that's not that i mean it's some level that's a creative place but another level that's definitely not a classroom and it would allow us to think i think allow us to think about new programming because currently what we think about is where we're going to fit our existing program and what you all want us to do and what we want to do what children does or you deserve as new opportunities and new programs and new ideas and new exciting things and right now we often think like that but it's hard to get people motivated for that when they think wages are going to be in a can i can favor will find a way to become for with any of the configuration seven to twelve eight through twelve nine through twelve i've focused a lot of my own thinking on seven through twelve because i think it's it's the one option that provides relief to the whole district so that's  and at the high school and i know up close what high population feels like at every level and the fact is that everyone needs relief every grade level needs relief and that's why i've focused a lot of my on seven through twelve i'm really excited about a four to six school  ask me really honestly i on that generally say that we would have to stop calling cherry middle school i think we'd have to start calling mentary but i had a friend and i was explaining to him about the concept of a four to six score maybe this is just what principals talk about but he said to me that's a dream and i was like only only principals would think a thousand fourth or sixth graders is a dream but but i did feel like that i mean there are so many things that we could do with four to six traits that to me it's incredibly exciting option i guess you know the thing that really strikes me is that we would be able to move if we went from four to six we would be able to move from one person team to a two person team and in fifth grade to a four person team in sixth grade and there is that logic used to have when you had us that you know fifty six to seventy eight when we talk about transitions i don't think it's about the number of transitions i think it's about how you manage a transitions and what you want to avoid is what we typically call the double whammy simply moving to a new school should be enough of a transition you shouldn't also forced students to then transition to a new instructional model and that's what we've that's what we do right now we leave a single teacher classroom in fourth grade and they show up in a two person classroom in fifth grade or a two teacher team in fifth grade and that's a double whammy and i think that it's not different leaving eighth grade to ninth grade where they lead from a teen model into a more departmental based model for three six school would allow us to create that transition but also a limit both of those double whammy is fourth would look like our third would look like fourth six would look like seventh and i think that to me it's not about i mean there's a lot of schools that are far more transitions and belmont has i mean i always forget the town whether it's ne a sixth grade only school so when i hear that i think that's crazy but then i actually go talk to people over there and they talk about how they do it it's not about the number of transitions is about how they manage their transitions and mostly what they do is they eliminate the double whammy when it comes to transitions so i think a fourth to sixth grade school allows us to regain that logical transition that allows us to eliminate the double whammy so that's my take on so i would like to thank our four principals and school leaders i think the from their conversations you can see that they do have real challenges every day that are that are real and happening with our with our children in the work that they do that they're really excited about potential change in the configurations in their work and they're prioritizing the cultural climate in their buildings to matter how many grades are what that configuration group looks like that we prioritize the culture of the climate in the student engagement in the relationships between children and adults that make them feel safe and produce a really encouraging in risk taking environment for us students to really thrive in based on you know building relationships with students in the best settings we can create for them so i like to thank my dan and janet and tricia for coming out i know that we have questions that may come from the school committee or any more questions that are coming from the audience this is again the second of three meetings we're having on this topic i would just highlight that this thursday at the at the wellington will go over traffic for folks who are concerned about traffic the belmont high school building committee will address that topic next tuesday the sixteenth of january at the wellington school dillard dress the site selection in the cost pieces to the new project and then we'll be back at the wellington on january twenty third with the high school building committee the school committee the board of selectmen and all those folks who would like to come will address the choice of the great configuration and also the choice of the design  at the site for the building committee so lots of good work has gone into this work so far as like to thank i see building committee members here for all their hard work like to thank our own staff and our students and parents have been so flexible it's interesting if you didn't come to the beginning of the meeting we talked about the program of studies for the high school was principal richards and we're designing creative new classrooms or courses around robotics in arden three d printing and  we're still doing all these creative things despite these challenging spaces so thanks to the teachers who do that hard work every day and thank you for the support you give us as parents but this is exciting time and these challenges that we worry a little bit about these careful separations that we're kind of concerned about well turned into unique and fantastic opportunities for our teachers and for our students and for this community as we work ourselves through this process so and we have an roman's of about three hundred sixty students in each one of those grades and so right now we're developing a three year plan the that ask ourselves a question what's the best staffing level in programatic level for each grade how many folks do we need how many classroom teachers how many many were language teachers no matter where they land in whatever configuration we ultimately choose we need to fund our schools at a certain level to ensure the continuation of the programming that we have and that would like to grow and the budget that will need to support that program and so we don't necessarily look at it from what are we going to shave off the fit we actually see thirteen grades that we we need to allocate funds for and personnel for to build our programs and we're over those combination of grades land remembered many many years ago that actually it was a seven through twelve school in northern virginia and and i completely forgot that it was time through twelve because it was so separated that it didn't it didn't dawn on me because i didn't attend the high school party and we did in the school part so i think if it's done well it's definitely feasible separate entrances separate time separate separate everything the two things i'm worried about however is actually the the breakdown of the lower grades and also you know the saying if you build it they will come i'm concerned about the number of three sixty being the water mark to me that seems small to conservative because you know  reputation as an international reputation we have a lot of international students and somehow belmont has been known and i can imagine with an a better spalding a better facility that that addition internationally will actually rope beyond what's going on now so to me that number seems too small and my second concern is the k to three slash four to six and i really appreciate what you said about you know that being a great opportunity for four to six but you know now that i'm on the parents side and i'm i'm watching my second grade and we actually had a couple conversations about you know what may come and you know she to me she seems very emotionally justed but she said you know i would rather just stay in the same elementary school because to her you know she still goes visits her first grade teacher every day and gives her a hug and you know she likes to see the school nurse i mean there is an element of community that they can have through the years as they grow and you know honestly i can't think of an alternative solution other than maybe a new elementary school which does not seem like a feasibility but i did want to put that in of the perspective from a student's part of the perspective there's something very nice and intimate not making them hurried to a bigger environment i mean going from a place where it's small and warm and you know like when broke to a school where there's four times the size of the school it's no matter how well the transition is it is just a much bigger different environment thank you i didn't intend to come up again but i wanted to address a couple of comments of people made about the k through eight schools and that was discussed years ago when we were looking at building a new chattery there was a lot of discussion at the time about we don't need a new channel or a we should just build a fifth elementary school and have k through eight so i've kind of heard this drill before but the problem is it's one thing to have to spend the money on the building but then you also have to spend the money on the programming how do you have band if you have k through eight how do you have good science programs foreign language you have teachers travelling it is much more costly so it's just you know it isn't just the money again it's the whole programming and particularly when i think about beyond and an orchestra and so on and so forth those are such strong points you would not have to go to a saturday morning music or an after school model to have band if you had five k through eight schools just wouldn't work the other thing is that also when the channel he was being built at the time the high school class was one seventy and the train was the two hundred thirty s and the two hundred fifty s that were coming up the three sixty's and i do agree  have a concern that the three sixty might not be enough because if you build it they will come thank you i john i'm going to sound like a broken record to both the you in bell and anybody who was in in the december november meeting that we had i want to get back to revenue generation and i want to throw this out there because we have community members here and i don't i don't think that this has been discussed any other format that i'm aware of anyway but there is an opportunity for this high school to become a revenue generator for the town and for the school system that could technically pay for the maintenance of our schools and i say that as a mother of a third grader who's in dance and competes and the places that we go are very comparable to belmont if we have enough parking if we have a big enough auditory m and cafeteria to accommodate all of these students we should be able to lease that spaced out during the weekends and offset some of the costs you know of the town i'm going to beat that drum forever the other thing is i want to make sure that the plan for the school and for the rest of the schools that we the budget our maintenance there there have been far too many stories of bob i'm looking at you i think you got caught on a spring  in on these on this very chair there are things that need to be done need to be fixed all the time i took the tour of the high school and i was shocked that nothing was fixed i mean it's just it's too much to fix i'm not casting blame but maintaining the facility is very very important and crucial in finally opposite of gee i feel strongly that as a parent of a third grader who is eight going on nine or twenty eight depending on who you ask i've learned that between the ages of seven and twelve kids are tweens and if you haven't experienced a tween in your life you're welcome to come to my house these kids need to be i think john you said it in middle schoolers need to be on their own island and i truly believe that if we can get the nine through twelve sass into one little school i think that it would really benefit at least parents and hopefully them thank you you thank i know i'm a mother of a first grader when broken a preschooler so both of my kids well enough affected and i just wanted to say that i'm the railed by the idea of a seven through twelve not just i guess it will be ok i think that there's a which is i think a lot of people and a lot of people i've talked to many of whom have kids so can't attend meetings like this feel the same way i think  the enrollment challenges are a huge issue and well we can talk about the idea of a fifth alimentary school that maybe will happen i think we can comfortably say that won't happen before twenty thirty two you know and so you're you have i think that's an important point when people talk about the financials with all the other capital projects in town there's no chance that you know this school will happen in the twenty twenties so there's no chance for that i also think i went to a five and then a six to eight and six grade with seventh and eighth graders it's a shock to the system and i know we're worried about keeping our seventh and eighth graders away from high schoolers but seventh and eighth graders know an awful lot and i remember when we moved to belmont just being shocked that our fifth and sixth graders were with seventh and eighth graders so i love the idea of rebranding china not feel like you're taking that you know young age and putting them in an older setting but instead that you're actually taking our fifth and sixth graders who are in a currently older setting and leaving them in elementary school a few more years so i just wanted to voice my support and say thank you for all the hard work that's been done thank you very much between the teachers and the students nothing else so if you choose good good teachers who can bond well with the students you got it ok thank you thank you and the other questions i keep wondering about the issue of the start of the school day which is discussed very much you know and the impact on teenagers health and wonder how that would have has that been considered in connection with configuration or what kind of impact might it have the discussions that we're having about start times is that is does a very strong drive to shift to target start times at the high school that now that we're done with when we get done with this when this configuration will happen we can start to have a real conversation about whether we want to start times later for high school students and whether or not that would mean seventh and eighth grade students or eighth grade students if they were actually in that building i think that this is a strong sentiment that high school students for a lot of different reasons could use a later start time i think that there's a lot of middlesex league schools and that's the the league that we belong to burlington watertown  just changed over to later start times that that is something that we have strong feelings about on the school committee and that will be putting a group of folks together to discuss the challenges are obviously that we're in the milling of middle of a building program so it would be nice to make that knowing what will be looking like in five years in terms of who will be at the high school and whether or not would have to have separate start times for seven eight or eight or nine or or let them all start later but that's part of this conversation as well cherry from converted to a k to six like other people have mentioned having an additional elementary school i feel like it's falling through the cracks what would it take for china to be that other elementary school and if you want t seven through twelve option then what about five k through six well we asked i'm not surprised that out and the reason why i asked so not to price was to keep or find a scope of work can buy with the fact that i i did not believe that a school of that size would be suitable for r r k n r one students and i didn't feel it was a feasible option so we can ask we can ask the price said i i did not put that in the scope of their work i mean i think would be helpful i've heard a number of people express concerns about the number of transitions for young children i mean i like the idea of everyone seems to be in favor of a higher elementary school whatever but what about k through six i don't know that was sort of suffering from very similar challenges to what burbank is suffering back when i was in school i can tell you i went through many different configurations each of my siblings probably went through different ones and i guess the main point i want to make is that it just works that earlier and you can it work and so i guess i would argue that i'm a little more agnostic to which model gets pursued but more about how it's actually execute i think there the point i really want to make is that i based on the things that i'm hearing is to really like to encourage the building committee to really be thinking about flex you spaces because also i think there's going to be a lot of fluctuation it sounds like historically in roman sic cetera and so the more you build these buildings in the context of having flexibility in terms of how they're used i think is go to return more value on the investment that the town has to make so that's that's one comment i'd like to make the second is somewhat tied to that i've heard a lot of talk about programming which i would agree is incredibly important and probably just as important as the space itself i'd like to make a pitch that we also think about in particular how our kids eat at school and and the cafeteria spaces that are provided for kids this is as i've heard from talking to many parents at every single one of the schools is  considerable challenge and so i think that's one of the thing that hopefully folks will take into consideration and i guess the last thing i think i heard this point but i want to echo this i think the challenge is to parents moving kids back and forth between different areas of the town in the school systems is can be challenging for those who are not in their neighborhood schools or as they get to the schools that are more combine and so since there's some town folks here hopefully folks will be pairing this with a thoughtful some thoughts around traffic mitigation strategies that that goes along with whatever school configuration gets put in place because i think that's going to be another really important piece to this otherwise you're going to  name's jeff liberty i have two children in belmont public schools i also am a professional educator and i helped to found a six through twelve school and the reason why this particular conversation was really interesting to me as an educator is because i keep hearing the concern that middle schoolers and high schoolers can't somehow cohabitate and i think what's underneath that for most people who have children who are younger adolescents in this town it's not hard for me to imagine that there will be modeling there will be reach back opportunities will be all amazing things and less of concerns about predatory behavior which i think is really the basis of people's fears about having different great to figure actions together and i'm saying that putting my own sort of literal skin in the game my own kids are going to come up through whatever school configuration comes through this and i'm happy to talk with anybody who wants to know a little bit more thank you i think we've talked about what the future and what's going to be the school system but as we build these schools for high school first and then there's no ball effect what's going to happen in the district while all these projects are going on so how are you going to tell everybody they this no more new student second come in until it's all done and i think that put also in the high school i'm assuming it's going to be phasing  project right so what's going to happen while that's being built how are you going to shift around the different grades and how is that going to impact the whole system while the building projects are going on it's a great question and a great segue into my  final thoughts about reminders the building committee and the design professionals at the building committee has hired when they're creating the options that they've been showing folks over the last couple of months the phasing piece of that is going to be very important so depending on how much you renovate and how much you build new will really determine how much you can keep students in this building while you build and then move students around accordingly in a safe and appropriate manner and give them quality space while the construction is going on obviously everybody in the buildings that time but what we'll see how the enrollment goes but the transitional pieces to the construction will be based on what option that the building committee chooses and how the design professionals can execute that the building of that project sort of aged up before their time so they're left for five six would really function as a middle school as opposed to an upper elementary school or that maybe the six seven eight nine would get accelerated somehow to be more closely like a high school so i think i don't really have a question but just to say that i think there's concern around that they are treated older than they really are in the  process i'm glad you bring that up because i think that what we heard tonight for the people in the audience and hopefully for the folks that are watching is that you know you hear mike mcallister talk about how that four five six group could really be a unique gauge group in keeping them young by a one teacher classroom tha appeared classroom in fifth grade and then that limited middle school model for sixth grade and really creating that smaller environment in different environments of engagement for each of those grades and in our our leadership group talked about seven through twelve in really like the seven through nine because it kept our ninth graders out of the mix of that ten through twelve which again keeps that ninth grade group quote younger in that team model of being really looked at is  that does the opposite of it really brings the students into or more age appropriate model that doesn't have them grow up a little faster than would like them to so it's a good question to ask and it's a good it's a good conversation to have with folks a lot to look at it in different ways so that's how i view it as an educator in my experience as well so it's nine o'clock good stuff happening in the town of belmont thank you very much for your time thank you