Today is October the 24th. This is the Fort River School Building Committee. We are in the police station community room and this is being broadcast by Amherst Media. So I will call us to order and we may have maybe moving things around the agenda a little bit to make sure that we can get done what we can do while we have forum. The first item is approving minutes from the previous meeting. I think we had a comment or question on them. Attachments. So there was a new plan presented at the last meeting. We need to get those on there. As well as we talked I had someone ask me specifically so I think it's worthy because they're you know we talked about but didn't really ever talk about the notes that Maria sent to the architect and it was you know that discussion didn't make it really into the minutes nor did the email. Okay including including the yes okay good so I don't know if should they also be attached to the but we never talked about them in the meeting so I don't know as we didn't get to it yeah yeah so there I think they're posted. Okay. They are in the documents from TSKPE together with the other documents from the last meeting they are posted there. Cool. Did that sound like it covers it then? Or refer to that. I mean this is kind of hanging out there without it like a reference or a footnote or any way to get from point A to point B. If there aren't any if no one has any what I propose is if no one has any changes to the minutes then I'll recommend that we or I'll say let's someone would offer to approve them with the kind of caveat that they need to have that attached to them more formally but that they're kind of approved as correct or something like that. I have a question about organization because then we're going to have the documents in two places we have one of one place in the website that we have all the documents produced by TSKPE that I could go in by day and then they're going to be repeated on the minutes so and those are more hidden because somebody might not know that they're in the minutes so. I like that they're posted in both places actually because if you're just trying to read through the minutes if you don't I don't know it's. They all open on different pages so. I'd rather hear on the side of more information than last year but I don't know. Marie did you have it or so does someone on the side of the table have a comment? Yeah so on page three at the top we talked about the library at Crockerfarm maybe smaller but it's not used for the same purposes and I think that I recall chiming in saying that there are public events there the other thing is on page four near the bottom it's just got the wrong date for the meeting it was October 17th on 24th. Yes so they need to be amended anyways and so if they're amended we can then append the corrected or the correct documents that went with them. One more sorry. Sorry the paragraph before that it says with page four bottom second paragraph in the bottom it says with the issue RQ it should be RFQ. There was a funny semi architectural term that was misused but I don't know I'm going to find it and it's not important. So it's not that we need to have them amended anyways so okay so we don't necessarily need to have a motion to approve them until they get amended. Next I have this public comment so we don't really have anybody from the public today live and in person. I'm going to move in voices up since that requires a vote. I think everyone should have one in front of them. This is for last the last name which is the 17th. Yes. Well that date correction was the time of the school committee that was October 17, 2017. That's right that's right. Any questions on the invoice and the motion to approve it? Move to approve the invoice dated 10, 10, 2018. We'll lower a bishop on the amount of $2.62 in 50 cents. Second. All in favor? Maybe we could talk briefly about the status of the survey and the geotech. I'm going to talk a little bit with you today. So the survey spoke with Berkshire design today. He says that they are about halfway done. We haven't had great follow-up with them in some confusion who was actually in charge. I'll be talking to them more often now and make sure they're not scheduled. They say that's fine. I don't know if we need to have the architects talk to them at this stage or if they're just interested in the output. I mean I think you all would be interested in the output. I don't know if you like any interaction with the survey. I mean what we typically see from them is sort of a progress print or something which we would review and see if there's any omissions that concern us. So at a point where they feel like they've got something substantive we would look at it before they complete all their work. Presumably halfway done is really referring to in the office time they presumably have finished their fieldwork a while ago. I got the impression that they had not fully finished their fieldwork actually. I know the wetlands have been flagged. Okay so maybe they haven't been back out to record digitally where those flags are. Yeah and this is where I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage because I don't necessarily know the technical parts here. Yeah okay. I don't know exactly what to ask. I mean I wouldn't know what to ask. I don't want to put something else on here. Yeah but if you feel like you need clarity you can feel free to debug me. And the geotech was out for... Yeah quotes are due tomorrow afternoon. Since it's a straightforward book process I'll proceed directly to making up a contract and I'll keep you guys informed but I don't think it really makes sense to review or approve it. I have to award the little bit that meets all the qualifications. Okay. There were quite a few questions. Jim if you're interested in answering them. Jesse at TSKB did offer some input on the specs so that's where we are. Is that those communications that I can get sent to the whole committee? Those communications? Yeah like the questions. The questions? Yeah. Oh no because most of them where you can find the answer in this section but if someone's curious about them I can share them. No it didn't substantially change the... No we didn't. No there was a formatting error that I had to fix but nothing on substance. Got it. Let me do a little time check. Anyone else can we move forward here? Jesse has all the lines? Not all. Okay. Well what would make sense from your perspective to start at this point? Yeah so Jesse is the most intimately familiar with the weeds of what's going on. But there are some things that we can probably productively discuss. So is Jesse on his way? He's on his way. Okay. He was coming from southern Connecticut and got hung up on an accident somewhere. So this is sort of a follow up to the conversations you had I believe at the last meeting discussing mechanical options in the context of sustainability and energy efficiency. Those kinds of things. Since that time two things have happened. One we had a conversation with Jim Person. He had seen the minutes and watched the video I guess and wanted to comment on some of the systems that were being entertained. And then also our consultants kind of went through and created this sort of matrix to help kind of understand some of the pluses and minuses of the various systems. So starting with Jim's comments he is particularly concerned with any system that requires maintenance within teaching spaces. He said it's just a colossal problem with the current unit events and things like that to get the hours that the service people are available to work coincide with the hours that the staff are teaching. It's very disruptive. The staff are not receptive to having workmen in their space. It's perfectly understandable and so as far as he's concerned those kinds of systems are not acceptable from his perspective. So if you flip over to the back what I would call the back you'll see the three systems at the top which are kind of blueed out. And those systems are the VRF systems because again just as a reminder the VRF system is a distributed system. Basically in each room there's a separate cassette let's call it that provides the heating and the cooling so it'll have a fan, it'll have a filter. Both of which are temperature controls all of which will require maintenance from time to time. And this system whether it's actually visible in the ceiling or above the ceiling is in each classroom, each space that requires heating cooling gets one of these units. So it is sort of the ultimate in terms of distribution and in terms of maintenance it would require people to either work after hours or weekends or be in there when the staff and the space is being used. So we are suggesting that those three systems not be pursued if you guys agree. It seems like it's an exercise that probably isn't, we can cost it but if it's a non-starter from Jim's point of view then it seems like an exercise that's probably not worth doing. As it'll probably just confuse the picture. I will say though that option one, the air cooled VRF is one of the least expensive options. So if that, you know maybe that would dissuade you from ruling it out. Now we did add one option and that would be option six which is just a VAV system which is sort of the most traditional system that's been around since some people were blowing air in buildings. It's kind of bulletproof and Jim kind of likes this system from his perspective and for a couple of reasons. The first is the maintenance is centralized. There'll be rooftop units that will serve particularly as the maintenance all occurs on the rooftop in the units. In the rooms and cells there might be distribution box which is basically just a damper but which typically has little or no maintenance. The filters are all up in the rooftop unit. The other thing he really likes about that system versus these other systems is that it just moves air around. In his concern with any of the other systems whether it be VRF or the water cooled systems is that you're moving either refrigerant or water around in pipes. Which depending on your perspective is good or bad. His perspective is bad because he doesn't have the people who can fix leaks in pipes. So it'll be great the first five, six, seven, eight years and then you know I'm going to start getting leaks here and there. I don't have the people that you know water comes in, they can stay in ceiling tiles if they don't deal with it right away we get mold. You know we're off and running and it's a whole big problem for his perspective. The advanced air is again there are no leaks other than air leaks. The efficiency may go down but you won't have that kind of a maintenance issue which currently he's concerned about. The downside to the VAV and one of the reasons it was sort of dismissed initially is in a renovation option or any option that involves some portion of the renovation. You are achieving all your heating, cooling and ventilation, ducts. Which means the ducts get quite large and as we all know the existing building has extremely limited height between the steel and the floor. So the ability to run duct work through the building is an extreme challenge so it was sort of dismissed as not really terribly viable. Now we kind of rethought that given Jim's concerns and his preferences. And so there are ways to work around that one of which is basically to create dog houses or penthouses on the roof that the duct work would run around up above. So we would kind of enclose it in a whole other little structure up there. And so that would allow us to get it around the building. So one of the things you're going to see as you look at initial costs this option 60 VAV. It's initial cost just for the duct work and is the least expensive. But we put a plus because a couple of things happen. One, the initial cost that is indicated here is just a mechanical system. So the cost of these dog houses and the roofing associated in any structural modifications necessary to support the rooftop unit is not built into that number. And these other systems would not have comparable architectural costs. So that's going to affect the first costs. The other piece is that it is the least efficient. So if you look in operational cost, one is good in that category. Six is bad. You see it's the least efficient in terms of operational cost. And since in the options where we have additions, we have to get to net zero for the additional square footage. So the less efficient the system is, the more PVs say we need to buy. That's also not calculated into that first cost. So there's going to be some additional costs which at pricing exercise will help us understand what that means. So what we're suggesting maybe going forward is that maybe we do not pursue the VRF option. We pursue the water cooled options and add this VAV option as another alternative and see where those costs kind of flush out. And so the range of these options would be explored in the range of the costs in the initial kind of past of the cost estimation? Yeah, we would sort of apply these to each of the options. For example, the VAV cost in a new building will be the least expensive because we have the ability to accommodate the ducts in the new construction so we don't have to do any sort of measures. So there it will be the most cost effective. But in various renovation options it will have larger more incremental costs. Will theoretically still have that question mark about the amount of PV that you just offset it? Yes. So that could still be plus. Exactly. It will be something but we don't know how much that is yet. I have a question that I think probably we have to ask Jim. For example, the option one that initial cost is low, the operational cost is lower than the option six. Maintenance because on the four and five, Jim is concerned about water. Down the nine, five or six years, we may need maintenance with water. The maintenance on this one, is it yearly that you have to be doing changing filters and doing repairs? Is it a five or six, five year maintenance? For example, in the option one. The type of maintenance because he's concerned about getting somebody in. Is it that you have to go every year in that potentially you could do some preventive work during the summer, change of life interest for the students and not there? Or is it every three, four, five years? So then it starts becoming. Yeah, no, it's the biggest kind of routine maintenance will be filter changes and those should probably ideally should occur twice a year. Now, if they're regularly scheduled and regularly performed, typically we see districts they'll do them over say Christmas break and they'll do them over the summer. And those are their two big times. So in that case, you know, wouldn't be terribly disruptive assuming you can get that scheduled properly. The other maintenance would say the BRF systems is more just repairs to the system. And so one of the issues when you have a distributed system is you'll have one or two of these units in every single room in the building.  Well, even if only 2% of them break down, that means on any given time, I'm going to have maybe, you know, two or three units that need work and need service. So there, you know, so there could always be somebody kind of some room somewhere fixing one of these things. Probably not at day one, but we're trying to project a building that's going to be there for 25 to 50 years. So, you know, and, you know, after the first couple of years, you're going to start having those kinds of things occur on a fairly routine basis. They're easy fixes, they're not a big deal, but they're going to just be kind of this kind of ongoing issue, which again, I don't think from a cost perspective in terms of maintenance costs is a big factor. There is a disruption that occurs that you need to be aware of, I guess. So the maintenance category is cost, this sort of rubric doesn't take enough into account sort of disruption. Correct. Yeah, it's not really the disruption piece. Yeah, I did. So can you tell me what other projects have done, other school projects have done? And do they find, particularly option one, you know, air quality, cool VRF, you're not going to put refrigerant in the rooms, you're not going to be piping water. It's just my understanding is that this will be much like Mace Woods that the residential folks would be familiar with. Well, yeah, I mean, I believe with any of the VRF systems, you're going to have to be piping refrigerant around. And there'll be small little condensers on the roof, very small. And that's going to be inherent, I think, in any of these. So going back, what have other schools done and what's been their experience with them? Sure. Well, we typically do VRF in renovations precisely because of its limited footprint or limited requirements for space. Like you said, the units that the condensers that go on the roof, very small. They're basically residential size like you have at your own home for refrigeration if you have central air conditioning. So the weight's not a problem. They're not very visible, so that's easy to accommodate. Friguration piping is tiny and they're quite efficient and the first costs are quite manageable. So they're not at all uncommon in renovation projects because they solve a lot of the problems that you just can't get around in some renovation projects. Now, in terms of the maintenance, we've only been doing VRF, I want to say, for the past in our office, maybe five to seven years. I think the first one we did was actually quite a large one. It was in Bloomfield County, at Bloomfield High School. So it's a huge project. But it was a 1960s building with 10 foot floor-to-floor two-story. And it had no ceiling, it was exposed structure, you know, it was all raised then. So there was just no ability to run anything through there, so it worked. And I did go back and talk to their facilities director a couple of years ago when we were getting ready to use it on another project. And he was quite satisfied. But it's a big district. They have staff who are quite capable of kind of taking care of these minor nuisance problems. And so they just were rolling with it. And it's a high school, so there's probably periods where the rooms are unoccupied. Oh, absolutely. Which is a little, you know, high school level. It's a little bit more of a challenge. Exactly. You're absolutely right. You know, your typical occupancy rate in high school is maybe 80% of the time that the rooms are occupied. Typically, every room is unoccupied, at least one or two periods a day. So you do have the ability to move people around if you have a room that's not working, or they can schedule it and get in there when that room is empty. So that's the only one, right? Go on back and talk fast how it was working. And that's one that I've been in service for about four years when I talked to them. We have done them, I've done it probably about four other times since then in all similar kind of situations. But I have not had an opportunity, or I haven't got any feedback, I haven't heard any complaints. So that's somewhat positive, but I haven't actively gone back and said, so how's it working and what are the issues that you've been experiencing? Well, I just wanted to say, I mean, if I'm looking at this chart and I'm looking at the operational costs, I know that we're going for a net zero building. It seems to me as though the options that we should be considering are the ones that have the lowest operational costs. And at the first cost, while important, we're going to be paying for it one way or the other, either up front or along the years. So I'm okay moving on from talking about the VRFs personally. I don't know how we can move the conversation along, but it just doesn't seem like it's really worthwhile if the person who's in charge of maintenance is not interested in them and they've got at the high operational costs. Relatively. Relatively. Yeah, higher than some of the other options that are there. Yeah, except for number six. I guess the way I'd ask a similar but slightly different question. If we remain with just these three, are we covering enough range in the options for pricing to say that, you know, we looked at a spectrum of mechanical systems that would give us the opportunity to choose between things that either have lower first costs or things that are going to be easier to be more net zero? Is there a piece here that we won't get if we exclude it knowing that ultimately it's a feasibility study, technology changes, there might be a different perspective potentially down the line. I just want to make sure that we're not precluding something that's going to give us a skewed vision, I guess, of what's the range is. So I think the only thing you are not going to capture in terms of bracketing with different parameters is sort of a low cost, a really kind of low cost option for renovation. Low first cost. Yes, low first cost. And there's always some, there's no community that spends this kind of money that someone isn't asking me, is there a cheaper way to do it. So you will not have that option priced. Because of the kind of pluses that come with the option six, the VAB approach. Yes, exactly. Now it could be that they end up being very similar. So you may. Now we don't really, we don't necessarily, would you have been asking us to pare down the list of five if Jim hadn't kind of suggested that pre-pairing or would you have taken all five to the cost estimate? A little context. Sure. We probably would have gone with just the five that we had. We probably would not have been looking at the VAB system, which, you know, to be honest, we're doing less and less of that just because the energy codes are getting more and more demanding. Right. And operational costs are a huge issue in every district. I mean, it's always a big moment of attention every year. There's budgets, so you want to try those down. But I also will say that frequently the facilities directors that we deal with maybe are not as proactive in thinking about what are these systems going to be like 10 years out, 15 years out, and do I have the staff and how do I, which, you know, to juice credit, he's thinking that way, which is great because that's his job. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, my inclination, I'm not a voting member, but I just want to put out that maintaining option one, this gives us perhaps a more realistic cost estimate for renovation because of all the things you just said. And there's some downsides to that. And I think we just have to be really clear about those downsides. But I think if the point of this exercise is to gather as much information as we can, it's not that I love, I mean, Jim has talked to me, but I understand his point of view. And I don't necessarily disagree with the meta level of his concerns, but I feel like to not gather that information doesn't feel quite right to me, especially in what we're doing. So, I mean, I'd be inclined if it was, and it's clearly not up to me, but if it was up to me, just include that and be really clear as being presented. Sure. This system's efficient and might involve some maintenance and challenges. I don't think, I think that's all good information I have. And this is around gathering more information in the community. I think we've been a little remiss not to have that. So, I guess in contrast to it, Mike was just saying, since I am a voting member, as you're banging my drum. I agree with what you just said. I think we should, I mean, even with exactly what you just said and exactly what you said too, we're going to see the downsides down the road as we're looking at these, that's actually part of the point of the exercise is to see what the different trade-offs are and different choices and what the costs are associated with them and be able to get good information that we can use. So, I would, I don't think we need to move this as a motion, but since I also think we should probably move on to other topics, my recommendation would be we include one, four, five, and six, drop the water-cooled one simply because I really do agree with Jim's idea that having water flowing through pipes all out throughout the building sounds like something everyone's going to regret in 35 years. And then just move on. So, I just want to ask, if it's possible, you're talking about initial costs and operational costs, and I think it's helpful for people to understand, you know, at what point do you make up that difference? I mean, when people are deciding whether to put PB on their roof, they're just like, okay, I'm going to pay this much and that, but I know in five years I'll be okay. Is that kind of analysis going to be possible? Will you be able to weigh in on that aspect and say, I know if you drop a geothermal well, it's big, but this is how long it will take? Yeah, I had the same question with it. You had an energy engineer here last week. Will he be doing that analysis? Yeah, I don't think you could, really kind of go forward ultimately with a recommended system without some kind of analysis on the payback. You know, and that will be very telling. You know, some systems may be very efficient, but the first cost is such that the payback is just, doesn't make sense. Fifty years from then? Right. That's part of the saturation. And so, we're on a life of safe women. Right, so we can do that. And the first step is we do need to kind of get some first costs. And I would say that it's really, I think it's important that whatever that input, what that shows to return on investment or payback and all that, that that's put forward as to the elevators high level as our first costs are because I think usually when people are looking at these projects, we're going to be looking at the price tag of the building. And I don't want that to be hidden in any way. Sure. So I think it would be really important to just put it right up there. And, you know, when you're presenting the information. Particularly now, since part of the point of the exercise is to actually establish the budget. Frequently when, at least to connect it, when we come on board, the budget's already locked in. So I just had this kind of, we just had a similar charrette on sustainability on another project where the budget's set and it was about sustainability.  I said it's a wonderful thing, but the budget won't support it. But it paid for itself in, you know, 10 years and we got the ability for this. It makes great sense, but the budget won't support it and the numbers are locked in. Here, since you're, you know, you can do the analysis up front and it makes sense then you can put it in the budget and everyone will understand why you're paying a little bit more in a mechanical system because it'll pay for itself in eight years and it's all gravy. And people, oh, okay, I get that. So I think that will be helpful and we'll do that. Do we have more work? I guess there's two questions. One is do you, I kind of hear a consensus about where to go with this. I just want to make sure you understood, felt like you had some direction and make sure that I'm actually hearing consensus and that anybody else who had a contrary view about at least keeping number one up here. Yeah, it sounds like options two and three. The consensus is that at least for now we can drop those and we'll just go with one, four, five, and six that gives you a good bracket across options, efficiencies, and then we'll go from there. Quickly check the time. Me too. It's five, thirty-five. I think it would be probably great to move that right onto Jesse and not give him much time to breathe him and relax. Great. I have a couple of handouts. Maybe to start at this end. Can I help you with the justice? You don't have to. No, it's okay. Thank you. Well, you were helpful. You just passed that. Are these identical to what we received? Yes. Yeah. It's okay. It's okay. Can I have an extra for the library binder? Yeah, I'll do that. Maybe we do it next time. This is it. I'll do it here. Yeah. Okay. All right. Before we dive into the options. Yes. There's a couple things that happened that I'd like to be an update on. We had a meeting with the special education district staff, as well as a representative from CPAC, the special education parent advisory council. And it was constructive. We refined our understanding of your program needs for those spaces. We revised the room list. The room list, reflecting that. And the overall square footage of the building really didn't change. We had increased spaces in some areas. And we had decreased in others. And so that's kind of the overall. And so then we worked with that refined understanding. And we revised the options, which we can go through tonight because there's a lot here on the building lights and options. But I think our goal tonight, or our question to you, is our next step would be to go, and has this been discussed? No. Would be to go forward to our cost estimator with these options. And we're looking for your agreement in that, that it's time to get that kind of information into this analysis. So I would focus you on actually the first page, which is this matrix, which shows options A through F across the top. And then it shows you that we actually have some options within each major option. So that while A through F is, of course, six options, we actually have 11 options that we would price. And the reason we structured it that way is to kind of get at some of the things that are on the table, and maybe they're not officially on the table. We have a sense that we're finding our way with regard to some of these decisions. And would it make sense, I suppose, to get cost information that would support either path so that you don't have to commit tonight to saying where we are? So let's go through how this breaks down. I've arranged the options so that option A is now the new construction option. So you can see in the first column under A is 100% new construction, which also means it's 100% net zero the way that the town regulation works regarding net zero. And then all the way down to F, there's zero new construction. So there's a whole spectrum in these options where A is 100%, B is 50% new construction, C happened to be right around 30%, 29%, and then it becomes less through D and E. And then the first suboption you come across is there's an A.1, A.1 and B.1 and C.1. All the .1s have to do with they're identical to A, except we've removed the pre-K program so that we could get a number as to see how that would affect the overall project budget. I realize our mandate is to include the pre-K program, but I'm suggesting that it would be possible to estimate it that way. Yes. So I'm trying to think forward now. If you have these options now, is it your assumption that at the end of this project, we still have information for all these options? Or is at some point, do they get down selected from there? Well, we could carry these options through the end. And we could also down-select if you choose to down-select. Well, the reason I'm asking is that assuming there's both straightforward information, I guess for what I'm going to be phrasing it, as well as data points and things like that, as well as also some kind of analysis like you described, construction phasing. And so presumably, there'd be some sort of narrative description of what that would look like for the different options. Similarly, we were talking a moment ago about net zero and about the energy efficiency of different building options. Presumably, that would be carried forward and described in different ways for these different options. The reason I mean, and I'll go back to your point ones, since the charge was to include pre-K, but also it's not their decisions beyond this group as to whether or not we'd end up with pre-K, I actually think having options that both include it and don't include it is actually, if we can do that, why wouldn't we want to do that? Because then it gives the town more information about different options. That just sounds like a good thing. Yeah, so to your question about our narratives, we are in the process of developing narratives for mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and those will address net zero. We will also need to give the estimator a narrative on construction phasing for each option. So that's currently our plan. I think our thinking about the point ones is that we're mostly focused on the option that includes pre-K. But it's possible within these options, you can see how pre-K can be removed. As it happens, it doesn't affect the sizing of spaces in the K-6 program. So you can think of it as pull the way and that the rest of the program remains intact. So yes, we can get cost information removing pre-K, I think, without having to create a whole new set of studies. By the way, I know my understanding is there's been some debate, I think there's been some debate, about whether or not option F is something people want to carry forward. I'm not actually debating the question of whether we want to move forward with every single option. I'm just saying, I was trying to get understanding which I have now, whether there is going to be some sort of forced exercise in the future where you're going to say no, you can only have four. Tell me which four you want. And if the general answer is that at the very least, for example, we could have eight, then I would say awesome. Two, what's the first? Thank you. I'm going to leave in two minutes if it's OK. So I can follow up with the committee or with you all and just a couple pieces of feedback. So first, I really appreciate the change in where the specialized program space is located. So I just want to acknowledge that it was an outcome to send that feedback in places that make more sense for our programming. So I just want to thank you for that. Just a couple quick things. I know these are MSB guidelines, but on the cafeteria dining, it was two servings or settings. We typically do three that could have implications for size depending on the way you look at it, but about downsizing a little bit if that makes sense, because we have fewer. We've been through this before, so we have that part of it. I also wanted to raise that one thing I hadn't thought of until Monday night's school committee meeting was about ELL classrooms, but right now the ELL space is pretty reduced from the current setting. And if this is sort of 420 hinges on the school committee voting forward, a plan around making a dual language program, which actually will have a significant increase in English learner population at the school. It's just something to think about. I don't think it's a huge deal right now for me, but it's just some of the implications of school getting larger, but actually the specialized programs. I don't want to... Some of the programs within the school will actually have to adjust because the demographics of the school will change along with that. I was literally at the meeting Monday night thinking. Mike, can you give me a favor, or probably to the cafeteria favor. Can you translate that again into what you're talking about in terms of space? Sure. You're saying there's certain rooms that we don't have programmed here that we might need if we're sure of that? So I'm looking at the space summary. I'm gonna use the big one. You have to watch what you put those on. So in special education, although it's not special education, that's the other way that MSPA codes it. ELL classrooms are currently this 1,400 square feet at Fort River, 1,100 square feet chakra farm for ELL classrooms. And in this setting, there's 350 times two, so 700 feet for ELL spaces. And the population of the school may become such that we actually need to increase the spaces for ELL students because the population, not just the general population of the school, but actually the percent of the school that are English language learners is likely to go up if this program goes forward. It's not wildly, I don't know the level of granularity to the conversation in the real race, but it's a good one. What's the right grain size of p-town that'd be helpful for you? But that's just something that kind of, I didn't notice until I really thought through the application we're going through what would the enrollment would be of such a program. So I do have to run, I apologize, but it's something that certainly anyone could follow up with me on the committee or the architects. Can I ask you one, just one really quick question of where you disappeared.  So I did a couple other pieces of feedback that, I mean, I'm conscious I missed a number of meetings, but that's the one, because there's a lot of moving pieces with the dual language program, I hadn't thought of, I was thinking of the 420 application and not necessarily, well actually, there's gonna be a functional change in the demographics of the students attending the school. So I hadn't thought through that element until we were kind of combining, talking about the dual language and then talking about feasibility, okay. So. Sorry, I have a comment about the dual language program. How do other schools do it? Because my understanding from the research for the dual language is that the purpose of the dual language is that it's much better but it's much more efficient for the English language learners and they don't need so much support because it's taking care of my dual language program. So I want to know how are the districts that have dual language and what is the implications of that because my understanding is it's the other way around. We don't need so much specialized teaching because it takes care within the classroom. It's pushed in. It's pushed in within the classroom and not outside. So a couple of things. One is that we have Spanish speaking ELL students comprised about 48% of our ELL population. So with the school getting 100 students larger than it currently is, just by default it's gonna be, there's gonna be more ELL students because the school's gonna be larger. And I think in terms of the second point you raised, I think you're right that there's more opportunities for inclusion services for English language learners. They still are state required to have ELL services and based on the range of factors, some of that's gonna be in the room and some of that's gonna be out of the room and that was true in Cambridge when I visited their school, which is in Massachusetts as well as in Virginia. But I don't know if you saw when you were in Holyoke another ELL population actually is lower than ours and the school you visited. And I read it visited as well. The ELL population is 10% and ours is disqualified as 16%. So it just, again these aren't huge, like wow you've multiplied by 10, but it's just something that I was thinking about as I thought about the school getting larger in the population. From perspective that addition, let's say we doubled the ELL rooms, we would have an additional 700 square feet. But then you mentioned the cafeteria could perhaps be three ways. That could take back the 700 square feet right there. So it's kind of like we're refining and refining this document and we may be moving beyond our study in terms of the refinement. And that's why I didn't wanna start to speak in a term for the walkout, but that's why I didn't wanna, I don't know the grain size that's helpful at this point and I thought I'd offer it. So I just wanna bring something up because we talked about this at our last meeting and a lot of us know what's gone on between them, but the people that are watching and that are following along don't know that we have resolution about the pre-K and whether that was within scope of this committee and it is. So that has been completely clarified that our committee is tasked with a pre-K to six school. Kind of for the record. Well, I mean, if you didn't know what's been going on. Yeah, I have a comment to follow up on the ELL. I was looking at the Wildwood Space Summary because I think Wildwood is much, much similar than Cochrane Firemen's Terps of Population and Space. And I cannot find an ELL on the space description of Wildwood. This was used for the previous project. I was looking there, there is nothing in there. If you look at the space, the summaries of Wildwood are very different from Cochrane Firemen. Very completely different from Weaver. And the target population right now, I think they have 430 students right now. Yeah, so they have 430 students right now in the same footprint as for Weaver. They still have a specialized education programs in there. They only have one of them. But if we look at sizes and rooms, I think we have to find that balance because we have this, the example of Wildwood that they have, I'm looking at this Space Emerald and they don't have any. And then we're talking about having five. So for the same number, for the same population. So I think we have to find the balance and not just think Cochrane Firemen is great, but also I think we should be looking at it. Well, I think we could have what we need to probably have an in-depth conversation about the programs to some degree. I also want to make sure that given our limited time, we are also addressing the things that you want us to address. So I don't necessarily want to cut off conversation, but at some point we're going to try to lose form. You want to keep us as focused as we can. Yeah, you're going to move forward, yeah. So I just want to mention, I know that I mentioned this before, I don't know how much we should be nitpicking this honestly because we're not the building committee or feasibility study, so I don't know how much detail we should actually go into nitpicking that because I am really concerned about this therapeutic space that I mentioned before that's kind of a level one, tier one intervention for all of our students to access that's not included in the Vox or Aims program. And that's, it's a highly, is it hard? There's another one from the first floor. Great, fantastic, I'm going to pick that up. So the only other thing I want to mention is I have concerns, I don't want to speak for Mike, but I know that that pre-K question is a big question because if we're going to develop a pre-K program, that means a significant increase in appropriation of budget. So I don't know if we can pull that off. Maybe we can if we can, but there's a cost factor not only in the building, but in staffing that pre-K program. I just think on that, I mean this is something that I wasn't at the last meeting and maybe I missed it every meeting. I have no idea if I missed one, but I know I would have been racially missed at the last meeting because I remembered the school committees vote and I remember the fact that we made that decision. And this is one of those challenges. I mean what, God knows how much money out of half million dollars out of the elementary budget this past spring, a million dollars out of the regional budget. We know we don't have the money right now for preschool at all. We don't have enough money to fund everything we want to fund as it is and we know that. The question ends up being particularly for feasibility, this is why I made the comment earlier that my bias is I would love it if we could have both preschool included and also a model where it's not included because just giving the committee, giving the town, giving everyone, all of our neighbors more information about what our options are, I think is healthy to do. And if we're ever gonna get there, knowing what it would look like to include preschool is something that I think is just useful information. I think it's right for you or the superintendent or anyone else, including the school committee and others to mention that we just simply don't have the money to do it right now so we don't have any idea how we'd fund it if we'd built it. But getting the information to figure out what it would look like I think is, I mean that's why the school committee did the vote we did a year ago is because we said this is really, this is a feasibility committee to get information and options to build stronger information based on consensus around the town. You said this a few months ago, Maria, but the entire point is not actually to delimit options in ways that make it seem like we're making choices and decisions that then have lots of radical implications for people down the road who are looking at this information. Ideally, it's a platform for building consensus around what's viable, what's possible and what's good information around doing it. So it's good to, I mean that's why the committee did it's vote. But that's also why, as I said, I love the idea of getting it with and without so that we have that information. Sorry, that's almost a little, just a little quick. I think she's even, even I'm just far off my feet. Well, very soon, very soon. We've got eight right now. We're going to be down to seven. Seven, it's okay, so we could, I'll hold on to Allison. This one. We've got to do this. Well, what's the time check on that? Seriously, so what do we have? There's a program happening at the school. Yeah. And Allison's going to be leaving four or two in about 20 minutes. I should be leaving now, but I'm going to, I'll wait until I like quarter up. She's going to burn a little bit will with other volunteers. And my family. And your family. So soon, now we need to really ask, right, what do you need from us? I mean, I think we're going to have to come back to some of these other things and they deserve a full conversation. We just, we're running out of time tonight. So I want to make sure we can do as much as Jesse. And so I'm not going to turn the floor back on you. Okay, thank you. Well, I'd like to know that you're okay with us estimating these options. If that requires a vote, I guess that's up through you to decide. But that would be our next step. You're not proceeding there. I'm not sure what else. So I would want to ask a little follow up to that. So we know that we're still looking at this program and there's things, and it gets back to that whole, I'll find a detail that we need to be in for these ability to study. But it also gets to, we got to stand up talking from the public about this and having a certain comfort level with it. And so if we have to adjust some of these things, obviously we're not going to try to do that. You know, we don't come back a day later and say, okay, tell the cost estimator to change this immediately. I mean, we want to make sure we do this rationally. But I'd also like to know that there's some ability to make some adjustments to this. If as a body we feel we need to, and it doesn't make the cost estimator, the cost estimation process less useful or less efficient or more, you know. Produce a result that's not valuable to us. Well, we need to hold it still for the next two weeks while this estimating happens. But we have a chance to go back another estimating check we had planned. So if there's a variation on the options, if we realized all we really wanted the small gene in every option for example, then I think we could accommodate those kinds of changes. What do you think? No, I agree. And the other thing is, it does seem like we're drilling down now so that the most recent change, maybe it's 700 square feet of, that's less than 1% of the building we're talking about. And that's less than the margin of error in an estimate. So it's good to keep drilling down on these things because somebody will stand up who happens to have a child in the program and want to know exactly how many and you have to be able to answer that with some kind of confidence so you have credibility. In terms of the estimate and the, basically the orders of magnitude that we're gonna be getting, right now it feels like we're fine. I mean these little adjustments are not gonna alter in any substantive way I think the numbers that we're gonna generate. And then we do have the opportunity as Jesse said to come back and say, we like what we do, but we're gonna make a little change to that gene and this one we decided we wanted to, we'll make those final adjustments and then you'll have something that I think is pretty accurate for what you need. Or is that an options question? The assessment is great. So I think we're close, but I think there are a number of spaces that could make a big difference. And when we're talking about cost estimation, let's say a thousand square feet, that's about, you know, if you take a kind of average ballpark you figure that's half a million dollars, right? So it's not jump change, you know, a thousand beats a big difference. So, you know, we did, just for example, you know, we talked about the gem that MSBA says 600, we were really, we said we want it bigger than what we've got, but not 6,000. So, you know, we want to bring that down and then there's some other spaces that it's just, well, it's really multi-purposing. Can we get rid of some of, you know, some rooms there? So I'm just a little, I'm a little uncomfortable with our total being bit higher than I think we should be for square feet and that having implications. So I don't know if that's what you were talking about as well. I'd like to hear people's thoughts and comments on that because I would like to be able to give you a charge. And if that charge turns out to be, well, let us think a little bit more and hold off a week or something, you know, some amount of time, and it may be a better result. But if folks have consensus that they're generally comfortable, I'll figure it out. So Heather, do you have a hand up with that, Karina? Yeah, so two things. One about the kind of general square footage and how close we're getting and I know Maria, rightly so is wanting to make sure we're not over-designing, providing too much space in a building. But I do know that there are folks that are sort of uncomfortable with a lot of the push to use multi-use of spaces when people are asking us to use those spaces in a multi-way, don't really understand the programming that's happening in those spaces very well. And I know folks are getting uncomfortable with how much it's feeling like it's getting squeezed. And I know Arrhenius talked often about wanting to make sure we have a building that is very useful and will continue to move forward in the future. And if anything makes a building unuseful, it's just too small. The more we can, the only evidence we have for how we're gonna use a building in the future is how we're using it now. So getting it as close as we can to what we use now, and I think that's sort of at the higher end of what Maria is maybe not comfortable with, but we do know that, we do know Fort River is slightly oversized, is oversized, but people are getting pretty uncomfortable with it getting squeezed too much. And if we wanna make sure it's flexible in the future, we have to make sure that we have that space for those things to happen. And Fort River, the other thing that Fort River would have to understand is that it's oversized in a lot of the sort of core spaces or the classroom spaces, but things like the toilet rooms are grossly undersized. So when we're looking at how that building gets used, the overall square footage might be a lot closer in alignment with, and that's where the MSBA guidelines come in. And so I just, I'm really uncomfortable with squeezing this any further than what we have now. Can I support that in my own way, I suppose? We're at 84,000 as our target overall GSM. And the MSBA would be 69,000, but the MSBA would not have pre-K, and it would not know about your district-wide special ed program. So if we see if the pre-K is 6,000 gross and the district special ed money gross them are gonna be 5,000, that's 11,000 that accounts for why we're different from the MSBA guideline. So that would bring you down to 73,000 against 69,000. So then you're really right in the ballpark. I mean, whether or not you choose the bigger gym would make the difference as to whether you're following the MSBA. So that's my pitch as to why we're not that far off. There's two programs that are unpredicted in the MSBA guideline that we have in this building. So I'm really happy with that, Karen. Yeah, I found that thinking between. I think there are some rooms that I think Maria put the number now and I thought that like, I see the music rooms that they use for a day and a half. They're 500 square foot each, half a million dollars. Again, 1,000 square feet, two rooms, 1,000 square feet for a room that is used one day and a half a week. I don't feel comfortable, it's hard to justify a room like that being used one day and a half per week. I look at the space summary of the previous project that the rooms were 175 square foot, which is a big difference there. Do we need to be 500 square foot in music rooms or can they be smaller? Can we use them for multipurpose in the same way that Mike was saying we need more, yeah, that rooms. Can we say, okay, three and a half days of the week they're committed for your life, the rest is music? Because as square footage, if you say that's what's as a square foot, it's about half a million dollars. Then I get nervous about having something that is half a million dollars per day and a half. We would be using that amount of money for other things. So I would like to have a balance and start looking at the, because they add up. All these little things, maybe there's four hundred square foot here, it's 500 there. They add up to a big difference in the end. I go back to Whitewood, the numbers are so different. I know that the specialist program at Fort River are very different than Whitewood, but Whitewood, if you look at the special education, it's 3,700 square foot right now for special education. And in Fort River, it's 12,000 square foot. Well, that's not what's proposed. No, no, that's not what it's proposed. Kroger Farm has 5,000. What is proposed is 8,000, about 8,000. So it's a huge disparity between our schools. And it's a huge disparity in programs. Yeah, it depends on the environment. Better than other programs. Yeah. So first off, on special education, this is like a real flashpoint. You've had multiple meetings with special education staff. The programming that goes on at Fort River is very different than the programming that's going on at Wildwood or at Kroger Farm. The reason why more spaces, you already know this, you spend a lot of time with folks there. So the reason why there's more square footage allocated to special needs programming at Fort River is because what they're doing is different. It needs to be larger. It's the benchmarking against either MSBA or Wildwood isn't reasonable, but I have a broader point, which is it doesn't matter if I think it's reasonable or not. The product of this project is not going to be considered credible if we hack away at the sped space and offer something that the very first thing at CPAC, our sped staff, the principal and the superintendent say, is this isn't realistic, this isn't what we be using, this isn't what we need. So it makes the deliverable not credible. And so, and that's actually gonna be a broader point I'm gonna make about getting down into the weeds on hacking space one way or another. I honestly don't think it makes a difference whether the report that we generate out of this, the deliverables in the end, whether as long as the programming is consistent between the different options, so the renovation option, partial demo and construction and new construction, as long as the program is consistent across those options so that the comparisons you can make about the feasibility of these different options and different costs are apples to apples, then I don't think it makes a difference whether we cut, whether we add or cut space a thousand square feet one way or another. I mean, because the costs that we're talking about in terms of an extra million dollars or whatever it is is fictional. I mean, we're not building anything out of this directly. And at the point, even though this is gonna be very useful information for the public and for a future building committee, when that future building committee is looking at it, if they need to cut 500 square feet or a thousand, they will, because they have to make that trade off. So it doesn't really matter if we include it or not include it here, except for for one really important thing, which is at different time points in the future, this deliverable is gonna be sitting with different stakeholders and public audiences and they have to look at something and they have to see that the decisions that were made and not even literally what the decision is, like is it 6,000 square feet or not for the gymnasium. In a certain sense, it's arbitrary whether it's 6,000 or 5,000, except for the fact that when somebody looks at it, they're gonna say, well, how'd you make your decision anyway? And if the decision is, while I hacked off a thousand square feet because I wanted the project to look cheaper, that's not really a good reason. You know, I mean, I'm serious about this. It's not really a good reason when you're thinking about comparing different options. Saying, I mean, and I'm seeing this seriously, that saying that we currently program for a space that has, you know, 3745 square feet. Yes, MSBA says it's 6,000, but honestly, when we talk to Principal Chamberlain, she could lose, you know, larger than what's now made sense, but it didn't need to be 6,000. At least having that in the footnote somewhere that there's a credible rationale for the decision makes a lot of sense to me, but I'm just saying to me, the deliverable in my personal view, the work of this committee is to ensure that the work product that comes out of it can be viewed as being utterly transparent and credible, whether people like it or agree with it or not is irrelevant in a certain sense, but that the decisions that are made are utterly transparent, and completely explicable, and that people who look at it will say, oh, I get it, I get how they made that decision, I get why they made that decision, and more importantly than, they can look across the range of options and say between option A and option G, they can say, oh, I can see now why, you know, what the difference is between this option and I can learn now about the viability of different options. I mean, and not more importantly, my personal opinion very strongly, if we divert from that mission of ensuring we have a transparent, explicable, and defensible product that a third party could look at and say, oh, I get how we got here, and I get what it is, and it isn't a duly controversial elements, then if we get away from that, then I think we're in trouble, because in the end, the value of this work product is that people learn something from it, and it's viewed as being a completely, sort of a neutral document in terms of the quality information you can learn from it, which is why also, I think it's good we added in option one for air-cooled VRF, because if that's the most logical way to do a renovation option, then show that in the renovation option, so that you can, so that we're not gaming it against, unduly gaming the outcome against a renovation option, you can talk about the deficiencies of it in. Anyways, sorry, that's a long thing, but since I missed the last meeting and also to be blunt, I've heard too much buzzing around around what we're trying to accomplish here with this committee, too many outside stakeholders talking about what are they really doing and what are they really getting done, and also I've gotten banged at on the school committee around what we're actually doing here, and so part of what I'm trying to do is give you, part of what I'm saying is actually collective feedback from the school committee on one level, but it's also just a sense of, look, this has been good work and this committee's done good work up to this point, and I think it worked very well and I'm proud of what we're doing so far. Let's make sure we keep it on that level. Sorry, it really went off and I think you have to leave, so I've done that evil work for the quorum of our great biologist. So I do need to wrap up, well, I'm ready to go. I mean, I'm gonna need to wrap up soon, so what, I mean, do we need to, my understanding is that we can say, go ahead and price out these options and that that's, then do we need to vote on that? And I think it would probably be good because it represents a commitment to them that we should move forward, and I'm feeling a bit more comfortable that at least we have the ability to look at this again, because this isn't a one-time once-only shot because I think there are things that are gonna be discussed and I understand absolutely where you're coming from, Eric, but people are gonna look at it and we do need to be able to defend parts of it. But I think almost all of this is defensive. It is. I think it is defensive. I'm not saying it isn't defensive. It's discussions for months and every single thing in here, even the larger gem, there's a reason why it's in there and as I think it was, as Eric said, or Marie, I can't remember, at a certain point, we can say, well, no, we can't afford that big of a gem, so we're gonna have to cut it down. But that's not this point. That's not where we're at right now. We're at the point of what's possible. Yeah, and what is the cost? And I have to sheepishly admit that when I was looking at these bottom lines, I didn't really fully realize that the MSBA model doesn't have the pre-K and what was the other thing that Tori, it's not gonna account for the nature of the special ed in this district. And so it looks like a larger dichotomy than it is. There's still a difference there. There's still a delta, but it's not, it's not. 4,000 square feet. It's not 11, but, yeah. I mean, the difference for the special education program, for the district wide programs is pretty much accounted for in this. It's about 3K more, so that's not really the issue. It's a large, right? It's 4,500 versus 7,800, but you have three district, yeah. You have to multiply by 1.5. Right, right, but what I'm saying is that the approximate difference there is the difference of having three district wide programs in the building as well, right? In terms of the MSBA versus what we have. So that's pretty right. We are always going to be above because of the school district's policy on class size, and that is another 6,000 or so? Yeah, that's right. 5,000, 6,000. I'm talking about around the edges, and I'm talking about there are some rooms, I mean, you can have some cumulative effect which can make the difference of a couple K square feet. That's, this is what I'm talking about. I'm not talking, you know, and it's not really even above the core academic issues because that's a school district policy. If you're not going to change the school district policy on class size and you're not going to lose that 6,000, but that has to be perfectly well explained as when we present this, because people are going to ask, like, why is it different from MSBA? We're going to have to say, well, it's different because we have 18 rooms instead of 13. Walking the story. So you had a comment, and I'm kind of then want to, if we can, just return quickly before you have to leave to the question of whether we can all support moving this to the next stage, knowing that we can have a little bit of a tweak. I guess I, what I'm hearing from Maria is maybe that you're not comfortable moving forward with this because I don't know if I did not say that. Okay. That's what I wanted to. I just, I'm also hearing you say that you feel like some of the rooms, especially in Special Ed and ELL, I don't, I actually never said that at all. Okay, can you be more specific then about which rooms you're talking about? Do we want, I mean, if we can talk about this, but I think that was not what I was saying. I think I'm sensing consensus to let them move forward. I think we can keep talking about pieces of it, like. I haven't had a lot of comments about the designs, but. But I'd rather grab the quorum and Jonathan, I think what you're trying to do is move forward very, very wise. There seems to be, right? Get your voter consensus while you can. Well, I can, yes. So if we move forward, we can't do it. That's right. So I would like us to vote. I don't know enough about parliamentary provisions. No, that we truly need to do it, but I would like us to vote to, or at least someone to offer a motion to vote to move this forward so they can take this to cost estimating. Eric. So I think we can move the committee of proof allowing the TESKP to move forward with cost estimation of the options as presented at the meeting of October 24th, 2018. Second or second? All in favor? So if we have time. Can I make a couple of comments? Yes. I regretting the two level, the additions of the new school with two levels. My concern is accessibility to the second floor for people with reduced mobility. I think I brought it up in the past. They said we discussed with the special education group. And the preference was to have those programs with the academic classrooms. Students in those programs are in the classroom. And so they need to be approximate. They felt like they'd be okay on the second floor. They have daughters in one of those programs. So maybe I could help explain a little bit about how these programs work and why it's necessary for them to be adjacent. I'm not saying that I was thinking maybe of having some kind of, instead of one side of having a stairs have a ramp. So that you can evacuate and people, it's not just special education. Maybe somebody broke the leg and they cannot go. There will be an elevator. Yeah, but it's... Yeah, I think I looked at the thing. It has to depend on getting in and out from using the elevator. Or having to move the whole classroom downstairs because somebody broke the leg and is on the stairs for extended periods of time. That kind of thing. So if you have a ramp, at least in one of the sides. Yeah. We've done that. And then it goes back to the drawing. The stairs here, they don't go anywhere. Oh, I see. It's a little shift in the stair. This one doesn't have an insight to the view. Or insight to the view. So just for the record, we have lost form. So we're gonna close our public meeting. But in closing, I will say that I think we need to be able to come back and have another meeting where we actually get the opportunity to really look through these things in detail. I think we all saw probably things as you did. So we'll rewrite our narratives before tomorrow. But we had no agenda for the next meeting. So perhaps that would be a good agenda. There was gonna be the revised schedule, right? We do have to eventually talk about our revised schedule because I suspect we're, I feel like we're a little behind, but maybe we're not. But we can talk about that for the next talk. What is the next meeting? Yes. Do you know when is the next meeting? November 7th. That's a good question. That was at 7, 7, 7, 7. And that will be at 6.15. And while, I mean, we're kind of adjourned by default since we lost form. But this is scheduling. He had difficulty getting here for later times, but he's had a shift in his schedule such that it is now actually easier for him to be here later. So I know I, yes. How does that happen? I don't know. I'm not going there. It's the hurting of cats. So this is all to say that we did, you know, I know I just sent around the thing that says can we all to maybe keep you five o'clock at 6.15. So I think that might be just back to 6.15 starting with two weeks from today. And then we get into a kerbuffle because we're near Thanksgiving. So it won't be two weeks from there. But I think the time is going to be 6.15. It seems that that will be the case. And then we can have Dr. Morris here until at least 7.15 when he has to go elsewhere. But we can do what we need to do while we've got him. So is that okay with at least the people in the room? So I have a question. Just for the scheduling, we used to have 6.15, so Christine could maybe. Oh, yeah. So we could be 6.30 or something. Or six. I would move it maybe to six. So then Morris is more time. That's a great point. I forgot about that. Yeah. So how about six? Because I think that's officially what I wanted to get. It's nice and also. Anyway, I don't have any thoughts in that. It's less. 6.17. It's a nice round. If this would change from an logic, it would be 6.17. All right, so six o'clock on November 7th. That's fine. We'll follow this up with an email. And then I guess we're just going to have to figure what do we do with the odd week because of Thanksgiving. Yeah. Thank you. You got this? Yes, please. Oh, Mr. Jordan. Thank you.


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy. The displayed news articles along with the page numbers is displayed here for your reference. The PDF link of the handed notes and the time stamping of the news articles is provided in the description box as well as in the comment section. Now let us start our today's news analysis. This news article is about the direct tax we would say which was bill 2020 which was passed in Rajasabha recently. See the bill is already passed in Lok Sabha and is waiting for the ascent of the president. In this context we will explain this bill with the help of the question given here. See the title of the bill is direct tax we would say which was bill 2020 and the phrase we would say which was means no dispute but trust. The scheme was announced during the union budget 2020 to provide dispute resolution in respect of pending income tax litigation. The objective of the scheme is to reduce pending income tax litigation and to generate timely revenue for the government. The scheme will also benefit taxpayers by providing them peace of mind and then certainty. As a result of this it leads to savings on account of time and resources that would otherwise be spent on the long drawn litigation process. Now we will see what is the amount payable for dispute resolution. The amount payable by the appellant is based on whether the dispute relates to payment of tax or payment of interest, penalty or fees. In addition to this the appellant is required to pay an additional amount if such payment is made after 31st March 2020. If you look at this table it clearly explains the amount payable for resolution of disputes relating to payment of tax, relating to payment of fees, interest or penalty based on the date of payment. Now we see that who can join this scheme. See the taxpayers whose cases are pending at any level such as at Supreme Court or at the High Court level or at the income tax appellate tribunals can benefit from this scheme. Therefore to join this scheme that is for dispute resolution the appellant is required to furnish an undertaking waiving his rights to seek any remedy or claim in relation to the dispute under any law including the income tax act of 1961. So once a dispute is resolved under this scheme the designated authority cannot levy interest or penalty in relation to that dispute. So we can say that no appellate forum can make a decision in relation to the matter of dispute once it is resolved. And also such matters cannot be reopened in any proceedings under any law including the income tax act of 1961. Under this scheme you should also know that the proposed mechanism will not cover certain disputes such as where the prosecution has been already initiated before the declaration is filed which involve persons who have been convicted or are being prosecuted for offenses under certain laws such as the Indian Penal Code or for enforcement of civil liabilities or involving undisclosed foreign income or assets. These are the important details that you have to focus from this news article. With this knowledge let's take up the question given for this question they have given two statements and you have to choose correct statements. If you look at the first statement it was mentioned that it was first proposed in the union budget 2020 mainly to resolve the pending litigations related to indirect tax such as service tax. This statement is incorrect because this scheme is meant for dispute resolution in respect of pending income tax litigation. In this context you should also know that in the 2019 budget the central government announced Sapka Vishwa's legacy dispute resolution scheme which aims at resolving the pending disputes relating to indirect taxes such as service tax and central excise cases. Therefore you should not confuse between these two schemes that is we would say Vishwa's scheme is for direct taxes whereas Sapka Vishwa's legacy dispute resolution scheme is for indirect taxes. If you look at the second statement it says under the scheme the appellant has to pay only the amount of disputed tax with a complete waiver of interest and penalty if the payments are made before 1st June 2020. See this statement is also incorrect because the cutoff date given for this scheme is 31st March 2020. Therefore option D neither one nor two is the right answer for this question. With this information let us proceed to the next news article analysis. Let's take up this question which is based on the news article reporting the rise and fall of Indian rupee in relation to the US dollar. Yesterday we have explained about RBA's plan for forexpap operation and RBA said that banks will buy US dollars from RBA and simultaneously Reserve Bank of India agree to sell the same amount of US dollars at the end of this fapping period. Therefore this fapping operation of selling US dollar by RBA would leads to availability of US dollars in the Indian market which is expected to check the fall or the depreciation of Indian rupee. See the response from Reserve Bank of India has assumed significance because we know that world countries including India are facing severe crisis due to COVID-19. One of such impacts is the outflow or pulling out of foreign portfolio investments from India. As a result of outflow of foreign portfolio investments it has resulted in the depreciation of Indian rupee against the US dollar. Therefore to understand better you should know the difference between appreciation and the depreciation of Indian rupee. See the currency appreciation is an increase in the value of one currency in relation to another currency whereas currency depreciation is the decrease in value of one currency in relation to another currency. In our case the depreciation of Indian rupee means the decrease of value of Indian rupee against US dollar. If you look at the news article it mentions the RBA plan for Forex WAP operation. As a result of this Forex WAP operation by RBI the RBA would infuse more dollar into the market. This will reduce the problem of outflow for FPI. However at the same time Reserve Bank of India has to ensure adequate flow of rupee in the Indian market. So to address this issue Reserve Bank of India has assured that adequate liquidity support to the market. For this purpose Reserve Bank of India can use several tools for example it can reduce the repo rate. It means that it can reduce the rate of interest at which RBA gives loans to the banks by accepting the securities. This makes more money is available to the market at a lesser rate of interest. In this contest let us understand another important tool that is long term repo operations which has been in the news recently. See the concept of long term repo operations explained in our third March 2020 the Hindu news analysis video. If you look at the difference between repo rate and long term repo operations the fundamental difference is with reference to time period. See the long term repo operations is a tool used by the Reserve Bank of India to ensure that commercial banks are getting cash or money at the repo rate for long term needs. See this operation is very simple that is Reserve Bank of India will buy government securities from the banks and winter provide them money for long term needs for example for one year or for three years. Now with this information let us take up the question in this question they have given two statements and you have to choose correct statement. Statement one says an increase in foreign portfolio investments to India may result in depreciation of rupee. See this statement is incorrect because increase in foreign portfolio investments indicate additional amount of US dollar is coming into the Indian market. Whereas outflow of foreign portfolio investments indicate dollar is going out of Indian market. If the dollar is coming into the Indian market it may lead to appreciation or increase of the value of Indian currency. Whereas if US dollar is going out of Indian market it leads to the depreciation or the fall of Indian currency against US dollar. Therefore the first statement is incorrect. If you look at the second statement it mentions that the long term repo operations of RBI may absorb the liquidity in the market. See this statement is also incorrect because in long term repo operations Reserve Bank of India will buy government securities from the banks and in turn provide them money for long term needs that is for example for one year or for three years. Therefore more money is infused into the Indian market. So for this question you have to choose correct statements since both the given statements are incorrect so option D is right answer for this question. Now let us proceed to the next news article analysis. Now let us look at an editorial regarding India's higher education institutions. The author has highlighted the factors responsible for the sustained success of foreign universities in QS rankings and he has also given some important suggestions for the improvement of Indian universities in this QS rankings. So let us see in brief about QS rankings first and then the important suggestions given by the author in this editorial. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. The QS rankings is provided by Kwakwa Relief Simons which is a company specialized in higher education services. That is why it is named as QS rankings. The QS World University rankings evaluate the performance of the universities every year using six different metrics such as academic reputation, employee reputation, then faculty or student ratio, then citations per faculty, then international faculty ratio and then international student ratio. So these are six different parameters on which the QS rankings are given. Apart from this, there is QS World University rankings by subject-wise which identifies the world's strongest universities every year in 48 individual subject areas. In QS subject-wise rankings 2020, India has performed better where 26 institutions are in the top 100 in their respective disciplines. But if you take overall QS World University rankings, not even a single Indian university is ranked in the top 150 rankings. See the western universities lead with top ranks. Therefore, the author tells that India can learn lessons from these western institutions. And many of the top ranking institutions are from countries like the United States of America or from the United Kingdom. Here one point which is to be noted is that the top 10 universities or either private universities or the public universities having significant autonomy from governmental control. Now let us look at the some of the common factors behind the success of top western universities. And the first factor is the autonomy. They independently operate from bureaucratic, corporate and importantly from political interference. Therefore, they have been major centers of innovation in teaching and research. Then the next important factor is the top universities are ideologically neutral or pluralistic. That is, there is a coexistence of different ideologies like right, left and center among their faculty and students. And there is no official position on any issue. Therefore, professors and students are free to choose whatever opinion they prefer. Next, if you see the top universities perform excellently well in attracting and retaining talent. They hire professors very selectively that is based on outstanding abilities. In addition to this, even the students are admitted based on their merit. Then the next aspect is that the top universities train their students with critical thinking, debating and writing abilities. Also, they encourage students to look at issues with multiple aspects like social aspects, cultural aspects, then economic aspects and so forth and so on. This is where the universities stand out because the graduates have higher skills and knowledge which gives them reputation in the job market. Then the next aspect is that the world's best universities are known for involving their own alumni in governance and reforms of their own universities. In addition to these aspects, these universities manage their finances very well and they raise funding from their alumni if it is required. So they have surplus money to fund for research and required academic activities. So we can say that these are some of the common factors behind the success of foreign universities. See, the majority of the top western universities were funded centuries ago and it has taken years for them to evolve into what they are today. But if you see that there are also Chinese universities which have reached the top rankings within two decades with the help of huge state funding. Therefore, the author of this editorial tells that India can learn lessons from the western model but not from the Chinese model because he is of the opinion that the Chinese model is not feasible practically. Now we will see the suggestions suggested by the author for Indian universities. He mentions that the main problem is funding in India. Therefore the author suggests that India should reach out for private funding because the government is short of funds. Then the author suggests that politicization of universities should be avoided. And also there should not be excessive interference and over-regulation in the functioning of the universities. And Indian universities should be encouraged to adapt some of the best practices from the foreign universities. In this context, the author has appreciated the government's decision to identify institutions of eminence because the main aim of this program is to provide maximum autonomy from bureaucracy in order to climb up the world rankings. See, in our third August 2019 analysis, we have extensively discussed about institutions of eminence program. Therefore, you can refer this video for your understanding. To conclude this editorial, the author tells that with a long-term vision, it is possible for India's institutions to achieve top rankings. To conclude this editorial, we have seen the factors responsible for success of foreign universities and the important suggestions given by the author for improvement of Indian universities in QS rankings. With this, we have come to the end of analysis of this editorial. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of this session. Now, let us move on to the analysis of the next news article. This news article talks about the need for action at the local level in order to reduce the air pollution under the National Clean Air Program. In this context, today we shall be seeing the status of air pollution in our country and then one of the important initiatives of the government that is the National Clean Air Program to curb the air pollution. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. See, air pollution is one of the biggest global environmental challenges of our present times. It is one of the alarming challenges of urbanization. This is because cities occupy just 3% of land but contribute more than 60% of GDP and also responsible for 80% of carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, the cities which are the engines of growth and development but now becoming more and more unsustainable. Now, we will see the present status of air pollution in our country based on World Air Quality Report released by IQ Air. Now that IQ Air is a Swiss and US based company releases World Air Quality Report. In this report, India is ranked as the 5th most polluted country out of 98 countries in the 2019 ranking. See, the air quality report says that India is the 5th most polluted country and its capital that is Delhi is the most polluted capital in the world. Even the Indian cities such as Gajiaabad in the state of Uttar Pradesh, then Delhi, then Noida have particulate meter 2.5 levels 10 times more than the prescribed limits of WHO. See, the World Air Health Organization prescribed the level of particulate meter 2.5 as 10 micrograms per cubic meter. Know that the long term exposure to particulate pollution or particulate meter can result in significant health problems such as increased respiratory symptoms, then decreased lung functioning, asthma, then premature deaths with heart or lung diseases or even with lung cancer. So, reducing pollutants in the air is one of the most important for human health and also for the environment. In this context, let us discuss one of the important initiatives by the Government of India to mitigate the meanness of air pollution. Therefore, the Government of India has launched the National Clean Air Program with a commitment to tackle air pollution in the year 2019. The National Clean Air Program aims to reduce particulate meter 2.5 and particulate meter 10 in around 102 cities and to reduce by 20 to 30% by 2024 as compared to 2017 levels. See, it has been a year since the central government launched the National Clean Air Program but the experts feel that the progress of the program has been very slow in terms of controlling air pollution. Therefore, addressing the concern, the Union Environment Minister said that every city has different pollutants and the source of the pollutants are also different for every city. Therefore, city level plans are needed to deal these problems at the local level. So, the city-specific action plans include measures for strengthening the air quality monitoring network, then reducing vehicular or industrial emissions, then creating green buffer zones along the roads, then use of mechanical state sweepers and increasing public awareness, etc. So, once city plans are prepared, these plans are approved for the implementation at the ground level for all the 102 non-attainment cities. These non-attainment cities are those which are found to be consistently violating the national ambient air quality standards i.e. NAACS standard during the period from 2011 to 2015. The minister also said that around 70% of seaways goes untreated and thus making the country's water bodies very polluted. In this context, it is worth to mention that the inspection by the Central Pollution Control Board during the period that is from 2016 to 2020 have found that nearly 340 industries out of 700 industries have violated the environmental norms and thus severely polluting the environment. Now, what should be focused or what should be done? See the international experiences and studies indicate that significant outcomes in terms of air pollution initiatives are only visible in the long-term period. Therefore, to mitigate the problems of air pollution, the ongoing national clean air program shall be implemented in latent spirit with the effective cooperation right from the ground level to the national level. With this, we have come to the end of analysis of this news article. The display practice question will be discussed at the end of this session. Now, let us proceed to the next news article analysis. This news article is about the rocket attack and the American response in Iraq which has escalated the tensions between the two nations. Yesterday, that is on 13th March 2020, America has carried out an air strike which has targeted pro-Iranian military factions in Iraq. This air strike has killed one civilian and five security personnel in Iraq. America said that the strikes were against the Iran-sponsored Qatar Hezbollah militia group locations in Iraq. And it was a retaliation for rocket attack which killed two American and one British soldiers on 11th March 2020. In this context, know that Qatar Hezbollah i.e. Brigades of the Party of God is a powerful Iraqi Shia militia or insurgent group which was founded in 2007. It is claimed to be receiving financial and military support from Iran but operating in Iraqi soil. Since 2009, the US has designated Qatar Hezbollah as a terrorist organization accusing them of threatening the peace and stability in the West Asian region. In this context, you should know that Iraq has long struggled history to balance its ties with the United States as well as with Iran who have been adversaries for nearly four decades. However, the recent tensions between the United States of America and Iran further escalated when Iran's top military commander General Qasim Soleimani who was killed by a US drone strike in Iraq in the month of January 2020. With this information, let's take up this map-based question. In this question, they have given two statements and you have to choose correct statements. Statement one says Iraq is a landlocked country in West Asia. And the second statement says Iraq shares borders with Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This question is a map-based question. If you look at the map, you may feel that Iraq may be a landlocked country but in reality Iraq is not a landlocked country because Iraq is having direct access to Persian Gulf. So the first statement is incorrect statement. If you look at the map, we can see that Iraq shares border with about six countries. These are right from Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And Iraq is not sharing border with Lebanon. So the given second statement is also incorrect statement. So for this question, option D that is neither one nor two is the right answer. In this context, know that the present day Iraq partially encompasses the ancient Mesopotamian civilization which thrived between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and these rivers flow into the Persian Gulf through Iraq. With this information, let's proceed to the next news article analysis. This news article is about the widespread rain, hail storm and strong winds which has affected the wheat crop cultivation in the state of Manjab. The news article reported that lodging has taken place in around 1 lakh hectares in the state of Manjab which could reduce the average crop yield by about 6 to 7%. So the term lodging in farming usually means the bending over of the stems near ground level of grain crops as the stems weaken to the point where they can no longer support the weight of the grain therefore causing it to fall over. So this makes them very difficult to harvest and can reduce yield significantly. Know that lodging in cereal crops such as wheat, paddy is often a result of the combined effects of inadequate standing power of the crops and other conditions or impacts such as excessive raining, high wind speed, hail storms or excessive soil moisture or in some cases because of poor soil density or weak topography etc. This is about the lodging in farming which means the bending over of the stems near ground level of grain crops. See the news article mentions that Fazelika and Patiala districts of Punjab reported maximum bending. Now let's take up the question based on the news article. In this question they have given 4 statements like soils with clay loam or loam texture, then heavy soils with poor drainage, then light soils with adequate nutrient content and water holding capacity and they are asking that which type of soil texture or soil best suitable for wheat cultivation. In this context you should know about wheat cultivation which is a ruby crop and in India wheat is generally grown in winter season and wheat can be grown in a variety of soils that is soils with clay loam or loam texture or soils with good structure and moderate water holding capacity are ideal for wheat cultivation. So soils with clay loam or loam texture suitable for wheat cultivation. If you look at the second statement it mentions that very porous and excessively drained soils. See very porous and excessively drained soils are not suitable for wheat cultivation. Therefore the second statement is incorrect because high porous soils with excessive drainage or draining makes the soil are left with low moisture content. Therefore as a result of excessive drainage and high porosity makes the soil not suitable for wheat cultivation. If you look at the third and fourth statement it is mentioned heavy and lighter soils. See soil texture refers to the proportion of sand, silt and clay sized particles that make the mineral fraction of the soil. Here know that light soil refers to soil characterized by high in sand relative to clay while heavy soils are made up of largely with clay. So we can say that heavy soils are tightly packed soils whereas light soils are loosely packed soils with high porosity. So in case of heavy soils porosity is less and in case of lighter soils porosity is high. Therefore heavy soil with good drainage is suitable for wheat cultivation under dry conditions and these soils can absorb and can retain rainwater. Whereas heavy soils with poor structure and poor drainage are not suitable as wheat crop is sensed due to water logging. So the statement 3 is incorrect. Also know that wheat can be successfully grown on lighter soils provided that their water and nutrient holding capacities are improved. Therefore the fourth statement is correct statement. For this question you have to choose correct soil textures that is one and four only is right option for this question. In this context you also know that the major wheat growing states in India are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and also a state of Gujarat. Let's take up other practice question session from our news analysis. This question is based on national clean air program. They have given two statements and you have to choose correct statement. Statement one says it aims to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP level by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 level. Then the second statement says under this program city specific action plans are being formulated for about 102 non-attainment cities which are identified for implementing mitigation actions to curb air pollution. In this context you should know about national clean air program which was launched in 2019 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. And this program aims to reduce particulate meter 2.5 and particulate meter 10 in about 102 cities by about 20 to 30% by 2024 as compared to 2017 levels. So the given first statement is incorrect statement. Know that to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by about 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 level is the INDC target of India under Paris Agreement. If you look at the second statement it mentions that city specific action plans to curb air pollution in around 102 non-attainment cities. This statement is correct statement with reference to national clean air program. Here non-attainment cities are those cities which are found to be consistently violating the national ambient air quality standards during the period 2011 to 2015. For this question you have to choose correct statement therefore option B to only is the right answer for this question. Now let's take up practice main question in GS2 paper. The question is India's higher education sector has witnessed a tremendous growth in the number of university level institutions and colleges since independence. But India needs a world class higher education system free of excessive interference. In the light of the above statement suggest suitable measures to improve the higher education system in India. This is a 10 marks question and you can write in 150 words. See this is a practice main question and you can post your written answers in the comment section. And your posted answers will be evaluated and suitable feedback will be given in the suitable time frame. With this we have come to the end of analysis of today's news analysis. If you like the video please do like, comment, share and subscribe Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for more updates. Thank you.


Some additional teaching ideas for the going to future tense include weather predictions. We could give a student some information about a particular country and their weather. Based upon that information for that country, our students will predict the weather in the future week or in the future month. Again, these predictions are based upon evidence given. We can also plan a party because the going to future tense is used for future plans that have already been set forth. So we could plan a party or a holiday. We could say, I'm going to have a Halloween party and I'm going to come as this person or that person. And we're going to bring this food or that food and we're going to do this at the party or that at the party, so on and so forth.