Iyer Kolkata as a PhD student from Orin Banerjee's group and first I'd like to thank all the organizers for having me here. So I will just talk about energetic fluctuations of the fluctuations of energetics of a trap brownian particle in active like viscoelastic bath. So by now we all know that any microscopic processes in microscopic regime like the position fluctuation of brownian particle in time dependent trap or any kind of stochastic pump or even the walking of kindness in motor are very driven by thermal fluctuations and stuff like that and that's why every time if you realize the system you will get different different trajectory. Then if you do any trajectory dependent thermodynamics and try to quantify work and entropy and it like that every quantity will have a distribution and rather than a single value this will have a distribution and there are this fluctuation theorem which tells us about the probability of the positive fluctuations and the probability of the negative fluctuations and they say that the probability of the positive fluctuations are exponentially more. So and if you take the log of that you will get a basically a straight line curve depending on the curve and on this line there is this work fluctuation theorem which is like relates the positive work fluctuation to the negative work fluctuation and this fluctuation theorem is very well studied in many different scenarios starting starting from experiment in colloidal substance where a particle is trapped in optical twigel and moved by some kind of external random force and so that depending on the strength of the noise this relation is validated and after if the strength of the noise is very high this noise this this relation is violated. Then there are other theoretical results who talk about this the violation and where this thing happened and rather than the colloidal system many other situations like energy flux in wave turbulence or any electrical register think there also these kind of relations are studied and the violations are well studied also. Now we wanted to look into the work fluctuation as well as the fluctuation of any energetics in a system where the bath is fiscoelastic and why fiscoelastic because so the fiscoelastic material is like this bath is not only dissipated energy but it can some sense it can store energy that leads to the large relaxation time of the fluid and in recent times there are this interesting observation like this enhancement of tremor state transition and some theoretical estimates of that if the bath is considered like fiscoelastic theoretically the efficiency of a Carnot engine can or say efficiency of a heat engine can leads to a Carnot efficiency rather than there are many other thing if you have a fiscoelastic bath and you have active particles they do so circular motion and their rotational diffusion and increases more importantly there are several papers that shows that in different biological processes are felicitated due to fiscoelastic that but still now there are some questions that needs to be answered that like how this fiscoelasticity affecting the non-equilibrium condition or how it can optimize the output of such microscopic processes and even you can consider like inside the cell the medium is fiscoelastic and if you put a probe particle there that will feel the active fluctuation due to the active background inside the cell which you can abstract like a microscopic particle in a harmonic trap and which trap position is fluctuated to understand this type of process we realize experiment that using optical vision where we trap a microscopic particle in in say polyethylene oxide which is of his fiscoelastic material and which relaxation time is larger than any viscous material or something like so relaxation time cell here we use the material which relaxation time scale is like 0.018 a second and to mimic the activity in the background what we did we moved the mean position of the trap using a exponentially correlated noise through this acoustic modulator so that you can see as we increase the strength of the external noise the system goes to outer equilibrium and you can see this steady state current in the background okay and to understand this system analytically we write down this the generalized langevin equation with a memory kernel and the mean position of the trap is moved like a on-stain rule and back now okay and this memory kernel which has a delta correlated term plus a exponential correlated term this tau which related to the relaxation time scale of the fluid okay so due to this kind of thing this langevin equation is non-marcovia and to understand or to solve this thing analytically to understand the dynamics of this analytically what we do we introduce a auxiliary variable that so that this non-marcovian system can be written down in a higher order marcovian system so that we can get the steady state probability distribution of the particle in terms of mean and variance of the structures so first we look into the variance of the particle what we first notice that the variance of the particle changes linearly with the strength of the noise which is here A and also we look into that in from the mean square displacement and as we see that mean square displacement is increases for higher noise strength as expected it is increases on the higher noise strength then what we what we notice that for a certain fixed noise strength which is determined by this parameter theta that we saw that for a viscous case for a viscoelastic case the variance or you can say the effective temperature of the particle is increased than the viscous bar and this nature is here also in the in the steady state probability distribution too also we notice that this variance of the position fluctuation of the particle and does not change monotonically with the relaxation time of the fluid but it changes non-monotonic fashion and after some point it does saturate does not mean it if you increase the relaxation fluid the sigma the variance does not keep on increasing but it's saturated at some point next we look into the energetic first we look into the work done on the trapped particle and which is defined like that this is just a force times the displacement and force times velocity over dt so this is this and then we able to calculate the mean of the work done and we find out that the rate of mean work done is more in case of a viscoelastic bath than the viscous bath okay and here also with relaxation timescale of the fluid we get similar nature that we saw in case of a in case of a viscoelastic okay so then what we saw that the entropy production rate of the system is found to be exactly equal to the work done on mean work done on the work done of the trapped particle that's because if you look into the entropy production current there is only the time extensive part is the input work done that is the only extensive part so the mean of this thing is equal and we kind of expected that the mean rate of entropy production or as well as the work done is increases in case of viscoelastic bath because in viscoelastic bath there are the increase of interaction of the particle with the bath due to a different kind of polymer present in the viscoelastic bath and as we know from recent literature that we know the interaction increases the entropy production rate so that's why in viscoelastic bath entropy increase or the work done on the trapped particle is increased then we look into the fluctuations so to understand the fluctuation of the thing first we look at the single step work distribution so here we to theoretically understand that what we do we take care of the fact that this x0 which is the mean position of the particle and x dot are two Gaussian random variable which are cross correlated and we so then the single step work fluctuation can be explained can be expressed in terms of a skewed this 0th order basal function modified basal function where this beta w s and alpha w s term can be expressed in terms of the mean and variance of the particle and then what of the work so we saw that our theoretical prediction is matched well with the experimental data from where we calculated single time work done and also if we look at the work fluctuation theorem it also matches with the theoretical points then we look into the cumulative work distribution but for the cumulative thing the work series is already correlated right so we kind of approximated the correlations of that approximated the correlation in the mean and variance of the particle and we kind of approximated this this the fluctuation in terms of the modified basal function and such that it matches well with our experimental experimental experimentally measured input work done and what we notice that at long time the cumulative work done the in the viscoelastic cases for a certain strength of the knowledge the negative work done probability of getting negative work done is diminished compared to the viscous case okay I must say that to get this probability distribution of this work done there are more general method like the last deviation of probability or the path probability measure where also you can get this type of long time behavior in a more general way but we we just followed this to get the approximated result and it fits well with our effort with our experimental data and we also looked into the fluctuation theorem here and what we notice is there is that that the fluctuation theorem for a viscoelastic case is violated with a lower noise strength than the viscous case okay so for if we notice that this even the in a viscous case even even the fluctuation theorem is violated it's valid up to let's say theta equals to 0.62 with our data but if we notice it's actually violated for the viscoelastic for the very lower noise so as a whole what we notice that we saw the viscoelasticity of a medium increases the input work done on the trap particle and that way the negative work fluctuations are also diminished in case of a viscoelastic bump and and also there are the strong violations of the work fluctuation theorem in viscoelastic so I would like to thank the group and I'd like to thank my collaborator Professor Supriya Krishnamurthy and Srikant from Stanford so I would like to thank the my funding and thank you for this any question thank you very much do we have any quick questions I I have a question so if you talked about the entropy production going up in the viscoelastic case yes yes my my sort of intuition for when you get entropy production from a system that you're jiggling right effectively you're you're jiggling the system from the outside yes entry production is low if the response is really slow compared to your jiggling because the thing just doesn't move and then you don't get an entry production is low if the thing responds really quickly because then it's like you're doing quasi-static jiggling but we get high entropy production when the system is responding to your perturbation but not keeping up with it and it feels like the the having a long memory kernel or whatever it is is basically making that region where it responds but not quickly much bigger does that match with your intuition of why the thing is generating more entropy yes kind of but we think that so there is this thing so if I go back to that slide so if you notice so in a viscoelastic bar there are a different kind of polymers and stuff like that which increases the interaction of the the suppose the graph particle with the bar so this kind of interaction actually increases the entropy production date so increase in top interaction can increase the entropy production date so we are thinking by that way but I think your intuition is also correct so because of this memory kernel the interaction is actually increased okay thank you very much for your talk let us and it's nice to see a combination of theory and experiment there


So I grew, in your new book, Karma, you explain that karma just means action, that there is no such thing as a system of rewards and punishments for your good deeds and your bad deeds after you die, that there is no such thing as a divine ledger in the sky where all of your accounts are being kept as to how angry God or the God's origin. Do you think that the reason, that the belief that karma is a system of rewards and punishments, a misunderstanding that's been going on for millennium, do you think that that continues to thrive? Because there's a gang of unemployed souls on the other side who just think it's a really fun role to play, you know, to be a divinely engaged royal accountants taking care of all those ledgers. Thanks. Namaskaram, George. I know you're talking about those privileged unemployed people. Unemployment is a curse at one stage of life, but once they get employed, everybody is looking how to get unemployed because everybody is looking forward for a vacation which is unemployment, a weekend which is unemployment because they are not interested in what they are doing. They are only interested in what they will get out of it. So thank God it's Friday, you know. So about karma, karma is not definitely about reward and punishment. So those who are in a better economic condition or social condition, they would like to believe they've done good karma elsewhere, so they're enjoying everything here now, no? Just understand karma is not necessarily about the past, it is about now. So once experience of life is entirely decided by one's karma, one's situation in which one exists may not be entirely determined by one's karma because situation is of the times of geography, like thousand years ago if we were here, we wouldn't be in this kind of situation. Does it mean to say we had bad karma then and now we have good karma? No. So let us not judge karma by one's situations, yes there also it is involved, but situation is more of a collective karma than of individual karma. Individual karma is definitely there, but collective karma is there because the time and the place where you are determines a lot of things.  Human experience happens from within, that means it's entirely our karma, we can make it the way we want. If we make our human experience very pleasant, in on all these four levels, in body we are healthy and exuberant, in mind we are peaceful and joyful, in emotion we are loving and compassionate, in our life energies we are blissful and edging on ecstasy. Now outside situations will not determine the nature of our experience. Outside situations we can strive to improve, we can strive to change, but as I said, in the outside situation there are many pieces, all those pieces don't belong to us. We also are one piece, depending upon one skill, intelligence, capability and willingness to strive, that peace can be enhanced, but it is never one hundred percent yours or mind outside situation. It is also the times in which we exist which determines what kind of situations we are in. But human experience is entirely our karma and we must take charge of that first. If we take charge of this, our ability to create external situations also the way we want it is greatly, greatly enhanced. So karma is not about punishment and reward. Karma is not a book written somewhere, some ledger that somebody is looking at and punishing you or rewarding you. This gift culture from heaven must go because for all the things that you do very easily, you can pass this off as God's will. Many terrible things men have done have always been passed off as divine will, all right? So it's very important that we move people from religious beliefs to a responsible existence here because this is a brief life. If we want to make something out of this, this must be our making. This is our karma. This is what karma means. When I say my life is my karma, it means that my life is my making. If I am doing well it's me, if I am not doing well it's me, if I have a fantastic experience here it's me, if I have a miserable experience it's me. This much straightness of life everybody must get that you are straight enough to admit that both your success and failure, your joy and misery, especially the inner things of joy and misery, peacefulness and turmoil, these things are one hundred percent you are making. This is what karma means. Karma is not a ledger up there, this body, this mind, this energy is our ledger. Here it is and it plays out in so many ways. If we perform this moment's karma consciously, whatever our past karma, there is a way to transcend that.


Do you want to wait a few more minutes, Kathy? Well, maybe we can start, and I'll just welcome everyone. And Brian can continue to admit people. Right. Good evening, everyone. As you can see, we are admitting people one by one. And we do have a chat room. And the chat room, you can send questions if you want to to the host, which is Donesco team. I'm Kathy Shane. I'm chair of the elementary school building committee. And we are the sponsors of tonight's forum. And this is the second forum of which there will be future forums. But this is basically giving you a status report of where we are right now in the school building project. And I am going to turn the entire meeting over to Margaret Wood, who is our owner's project manager from answer first, and then to Dona Donesco to present to you what we found and what the next steps are going to be on this incredibly exciting project. And I want to thank everyone who is here tonight, including I see our state rep. Mindy Dom is with us. And she has been with us faithfully. And Mindy, thank you very much. And we have several counselors with us. In addition to me, I'm on the council. So I think with that, I am going to welcome everyone and turn the meeting over to, I think, Margaret is our first speaker. Margaret. Can you unmute yourself, Margaret? No, Brian. All right, great. OK, there you go. There we go. OK, hello, everybody. Good evening. I'm going to just provide some timeline context before we launch into the main presentation. So we're participating. This project is participating in a process that is driven by achieving funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the MSBA, which you'll hear mentioned a number of times tonight. And they have certain steps that we need to go through. You could think of them as the bank. So they have requirements for our process. And here on the screen, if you can see it, this outlines the three major steps in the process. The one that we are just completing, which is just to the left of the We Are Here line, is what's called the preliminary design program. And Donna's really going to go into detail about what encapsulates the preliminary design program and what we have learned in that process. But it is setting the stage for the next step, which is called the preferred schematic report. Together, those two pieces are part of what the MSBA calls module three, which you'll see at the bottom. And the next stage, I think, is really the piece that we know everyone's really dying to dive into, which is trying to figure out what the preferred option is that is going to be the basis of the detailed design and the funding agreement. So the one thing I'll say about this diagram is we're about to launch into that second step, the preferred schematic report. We expect that process to end in June. We have to make a submission to the Massachusetts School Building Authority on June 27. So over the next three months, there are going to be a lot of meetings that are going to dive into these options that Donna is going to summarize tonight, or the alternatives, as the MSBA calls them. Then in the fall, the design team will be doing what's called the schematic design, which is you could think of as the first detailed design step. The purpose of it is to develop enough detail to establish a price, which can be the basis of a funding agreement for a project that will then go through at least another year of design, and most likely two-plus years of construction. So that's the context. I'm going to turn it back to Donna to really dive into and summarize what we've learned in the PDP process. Great. Thank you. My name's Donna Tinesco. Many of you look familiar, and there are some new folks. So welcome this evening. We have our design team with us. Just would like to quickly acknowledge Rick. Just everyone can just wave. Rick Rice, Tim Cooper, as I see them. Vivian Lowe, Colin Finch, and there's a man behind the curtain, Brian. So we'll just, he does exist. All right. So with that, that's the team that's been working closely with the school district, the town. And it's really been a very vibrant, wonderful, and engaging process to date. And we are sure that this will continue. And I mean that sincerely. The more interaction and hearing what your goals are for a project, the better the project will be. So we really truly appreciate all of your input. So as Margaret mentioned, this is really the culmination of the preliminary design program. We actually are very excited to say we have an approved educational program. We have understood all of the existing conditions. We've talked a lot about those earlier. So tonight we're just going to give you a quick update on those. We have established some basis of the design parameters. We understand it needs to be a net zero school. We understand a lot of the educational goals, the architectural goals. So those have been built into the costing exercise that we've done. And then really what we need to do is, when we have done, is to develop and evaluate alternatives. They're concepts. They're not designs. I just, it's really important to note, I know there are drawings, so there's, it's hard to believe that these are not designs, but they're not, they're really just concepts. And the purpose of the PDP is to identify viable options to develop further. Or to say it differently, these are test fits. And those that didn't need the educational or architectural or site requirements, we want to discard those so that we can focus on the viable options going forward. So Tim, I'll turn it over to you. Just talk about the existing, the traffic study. This is a brief overview of the first step of the traffic study that is being conducted with the project. The first step is to gather information on the sites, how traffic is currently working. And then as we go through the process, we're going to analyze how traffic changes based on the design will affect traffic close to the site and evaluate how traffic moves on the site with a larger enrollment. But at this point, we're just talking about what is there currently. So starting with the Fort River School, there are long driveways that allow vehicle queuing, both cars and buses that are in the process of picking up and dropping off to stack entirely outside. That is not to say that there's not some conflict at the entrances, especially at the north, where there is an intersection with Main Street, that there can be some backups. But in general, all of the queues are accommodated on site, which is a very good thing. Traffic is separated, which is nice, both parent and drop ball, and buses are at different points, but on site, the two traffic patterns sometimes conflict, which requires management, but it is appropriately staffed. And then the comment on signs on the site, the site is well signed, but it could be better. This mentions the manual on uniform traffic control devices, which are the standard for signs. So there are a lot of signs on site that just have text instead of the crosswalk symbols that everyone recognizes. It's just an added layer of safety that is instantly recognizable for people that may not be familiar with the site, even though most of the people who are picking up and dropping off are. So on the other potential site, the Wildwood site, there is still driveway, and the queues for drop ball often pick up are accommodated on site, but because there is only one entrance to the site, unlike Fort River, there's a little more crossing traffic, which causes backups on Strong Street. Again, at Wildwood, bus traffic and car traffic at the point of drop ball is ideal, but there are some crossing patterns on site that potentially can be mitigated or improved with a new design for the site. Here we go to Image, Fort River, that just shows bus traffic in yellow and car traffic in blue. You can see the crossing area at the southern end of the building where things become, I won't say difficult, I would say that our traffic engineers said that these two schools are some of the best run elementary drop-off situations that he's seen, but everything can be improved. So that traffic, that crossing traffic pattern there, drop-offs that happen opposite active parking are all things that could be minimized or eliminated in a design. And if we wanna move to the Wildwood site. So here we see the Wildwood site with a single entrance, which creates more crossing traffic patterns on site where the buses and parent drop-off, that's correct. And then with that single entrance with cars and buses making turns in both directions coming in out of the site, there is queuing that happens and traffic disruption on Strong Street. So that is the state of traffic pickup and drop-off now. And as we get into the designs of the site, we will be looking to improve those conditions with better traffic flow on the sites. Thank you, Tim. So as we started accumulating information, this really was an information gathering part of the project. We had several visioning sessions, both with the staff and with the community. And a lot of the same goals resonated both with the staff and the community. And just to highlight a couple, student-centered and experiential learning. And experiential learning just continues all the way down, collaborative and interdisciplinary, STEAM and project-based learning. All of these are experiential as well as outdoor learning experiences all the way down to innovation and engagement. And of course, dual language in the Kamenante's program is very important. And then teaching our students to be stewards of our climate will be really wonderful as they're now learning in real time what the climate, what we've done to the climate and how we can improve upon it. And then we talked about architectural goals. We have the educational goals and those are for teaching and learning. How do those translate to architectural goals and how can the building inform and shape the space so that you can meet those teaching goals or learning goals? So again, similar patterns here, innovative, inspiring and inclusive, collaborative spaces, outdoor learning with connections to the outdoors. And then again, sustainability, we know this will be a net zero building or school and then safety, security, environmental quality. And then always flexibility. Flexibility for the building will be with you for 50 plus years. So we want to think about how this building can remain flexible as educational programming changes throughout the years. But also forward thinking about we've just come off of the COVID virus and we wanna try to anticipate although no one ever could have anticipated that. But again, just keeping in mind the flexibility of the building which is gonna be so important. So the educational program, like I said, the school committee voted last night to support the educational plan and also the spaces that support the educational plan. The program identifies all of the programs offered district-wide. It identifies the programs to be offered within the new. We're saying it's quote unquote new renovation edition or new school. It then also helps inform the spatial relationships and adjacencies which are gonna be important as we start to lay out the building and how that will shape the building. And then of course the program defines the space needs and total square footage of the project. We have two enrollment options that we need to study for MSBA, MS School Building Authority. The first one because the SOI was based on the Fort River Elementary School. They want to see what the cost would be for a Fort River Elementary School only. So it's a grades K through five. It was K through six, but the district has voted to move the sixth grade to the middle school. So they've adjusted the enrollment to 165 students. And then the second option is a combined Fort River and Wildwood School for grades K through five with an enrollment of 575 students. So the very first step is we're trying to identify the space needs is we need to understand the class size policies. And the school committee has outlined class size policies as you can see up at the top for kindergarten through first grade, second and third and then fourth through sixth grade. So we take the total, the total enrollment that we've agreed to with MSBA, we divided over the sixth grades, we take the class size policy or the number of students in a classroom and then we divide that into the number of students in the grade, which will arrive at how many classes we need for each grade with the total number of classes for the entire school or classrooms, general classrooms. We bring this up for Fort River only. We recognize that the Fort River School of 165 students does not meet your educational goals and it really is not a viable option, but we will have to go through the exercise to demonstrate to MSBA that we have looked at it. It doesn't make sense from an educational or cost effective just doesn't make sense. So we are gonna go through that exercise, but I just want to point that out to you. But for the combined Fort River and Wildwood schools, again, taking 575 divided by all of the sixth grades with the average class size per classroom, turns out that we need five classrooms for grade for a total of 30 classrooms. And that will be the focus as we start talking about this. But the general classrooms really are only a part of the story and all of the space needs that we need to fully educate our students. And I know I see many familiar names, so I know you've heard this and even some folks have actively or have listened in on the school committee meetings. And so I apologize, some of this is redundant, but it's important to note the school committee approved and voted last night to accept a total program area of 70,500 feet net floor area. That's the spaces inside the building. And I just like to quickly highlight all of the program components. So the general classrooms are part of the core academic spaces, which is a total of 35,050 net floor areas. It includes five classrooms per grade. It supports the ELL program. There's a STEM or STEAM space and ball included in this as well as Title I and other support spaces. Special education is 12,100 net floor area. That includes all of the specialized programs, OTPT, speech and language, the learning centers, all of the support spaces including the mental health requirements for the students. For art music, we'll have a dedicated art room and a dedicated music room as well as practice rooms. If there's a need for some overflow, we've built in flexibility where the art, if the art requires a second classroom for a couple of periods, the STEAM room is available for that. For the music, we've identified that we can design the cafeteria that that could be used for music as well. For the health and PE, which is really the gym and the support spaces storage and the PE teacher's office, originally the conversation was 6,000 square feet and that is what is a typical elementary school gym. But in lots of conversations with the district school committee, people felt that 4,000 square feet is adequate for your educational program. Would it be nice? It would be nice to have a 6,000 square foot gym but we recognize the importance of keeping this total square footage of the building down as much as possible while providing the appropriate level of spaces for the education of the students. The 4,000 square foot gym will accommodate your educational needs and will even provide additional space to support other uses of it simultaneously. The media center or library is 3258 net floor area and the dining is comprised of a cafeteria. As I mentioned, it will be a cafeteria and then we'll have a stage and there are platforms so that you can have assemblies. It also includes a kitchen and teacher dining. The medical and admin spaces account for a little over 3,000 net floor area and then the custodial maintenance which we'll always say is never enough but we're following MSBA guidelines. So it's 2,175. So the total program area that was voted and supported last night is 70,500. That's just the program. So now we have to get around the building. We need circulation. We need corridors and hallways. We need bathrooms. We need mechanical spaces. We need other storage. These are non-program areas and spaces within the building. This even includes the thickness of the walls. So what we do is we take a multiplier of 1.5 on the total program area which will arrive at 105,750. Our commitment to you is we will not exceed that amount. That is MSBA's maximum amount that they will reimburse upon. So our commitment to you is that we will not exceed that. Our goal would make it more efficient but increasingly has become more and more needs such as gender and neutral bathrooms which take up more space. So we will continue to refine this but our commitment to you is we will not exceed this square footage. So as we take the program and we now start putting it together to understand what the spatial relationships are. What I'd like to note is we did this diagram before last night. We haven't had time to update it. So what you'll see is we actually still have two music rooms and now there will only be one. The gym is the size of 6,000 square feet and now it will be 4,000. So we'll refine this but really it's the concept and the visual and that's what we need to understand the spatial relationships. The core academic and special ed are in purple and then we have other academic spaces that can also be utilized for community use. So we want to just start thinking about what can be used for community use, what can be used and what areas will we do not want the community to have access to. So from here, it really starts shaping the building. How is this going to lay out in a manner that's the most efficient to keep our gross square footage down but also to maximize the time on learning for the students. Placing spaces adjacent to each other either vertically or horizontally is going to be really important to maximize the time on learning for the students so they don't have to wander from one end of the building to the other just to get a space. The integration of special ed is critically important. So we'll be spending a lot of time making sure that those spaces are within their grade level peers and the appropriate locations for those spaces. So I don't know if anyone has any questions related to the square footage or anything but if anyone has any questions you can either raise your hand or the co-host can see some chat. I haven't seen anything yet but I thought I'd pause here to see if anyone has any questions. Okay. So with that, I will continue. So- Donna? Yes. Do you have one question? I do, okay. And the question is why do gender-neutral bathrooms take more space? Thank you. So gender typically with for boys and girls we have multi-stall bathrooms. So it's for oversight and it's also for safety and security of the students and it's the most efficient. Gender-neutral bathrooms require their own individual bathroom which we understand they may not identify with the girls or the boys. And so what we do now is we create gender-neutral bathrooms. So these students feel that comfortable utilizing bathroom. So we haven't had a full conversation about those and where those may be located but that has become a very common new add to the layout of the buildings and inclusion of the buildings. Were there any other questions, Brian? No, no, not at this time. Okay. And then I think the only other thing I want to point out is that the gender, the code, mass code requires boys and girls, men and women. And so these are in addition to the code requirements that we must meet. Oh, I went ahead of myself. So again, we have spent- Just one more question, Donna. Thank you. Sorry. I'm not seeing them. Does the program include lactation rooms or showers for teachers? It does not include showers for teachers. Thank you for asking. We understand the needs of female teachers and we'll be working with the district to determine how we can address that important requirement or need. These are great questions. We haven't heard these before. Oh, Mindy has her hand up. Brian, can you- Yes. And what Mindy was asking was to remain informed about the bathroom issue because she has legislation about this at the state house. Oh, love it. Thank you. Yes. Yes, this has been a challenging topic. So thank you. Whatever you can do to support it would be great. Okay. So are my eyes saying no more questions? Okay, Mindy, did you have one more question? Okay. Great. So as we started to say at the beginning, we've developed plans or alternatives that really are test fits. It really is just to determine that these alternatives meet or don't meet your educational needs and that they fit on the sites. And so while they look pretty, I'll give credit to my team, that they're not done. They're really just concepts and test fits. So what we have here is the Fort River School on the site. And we, this is a renovation addition and it will be approximately 108,000 square feet. We have not fully vetted all the spatial relationships and adjacencies. That's the next phase. But with our experience and background, we understood the need to keep grade level classrooms together, make sure the community spaces are together, et cetera. So we will explore this in more detail going forward, but this is a test fit to say, yes, this works, it seems to work on the site. So what I'd like to point out just a few things. So what's in white is the existing building and where it says renovated Fort River School, what we would do is demolish the interior of the building so that we can actually provide natural light and daylight and into all of the spaces that are in white. Right now you have the library right in the middle, the spaces just really are not conducive, nor do they provide natural light where they should. And then we would have a two-story addition. With that said, and similar to what's gonna, what you'll see at the Wildwood site because they're identical schools, we are providing the same number of parking adequate to support the staff that have been identified. We've been able to identify locations for play spaces. It's most likely gonna have two different types of play spaces for the younger grades and the older grades. They will be completely designed for universal access. So all students will be able to access them. They'll just have different structures for different grade levels. We have access all the way around the building for emergency vehicles. Well, again, as I mentioned, we have the parking and then we've identified a geothermal. So recognize there's gonna be a net zero building. We wanted to start with geothermal. We're continuing to explore is it gonna be geothermal, which is ground source heat or if it's gonna be air source heat. And we'll be working with the net zero committee and the building committee over the next couple of months to identify what makes the most sense for the community. But recognizing that geothermal takes up space, we wanted to make sure that that remained an option and going forward. So we've identified a geothermal field based on an assumed square footage which we're comfortable with at 108,000 square feet trying to target a 25 EUI for the building. That's the goal from a net zero perspective that this will have about 80 to 100 wells. We have yet to fully vet this, but that is an order of magnitude required. But you're seeing lots of dots here, but we just want, you know, those are going 500 feet in the ground and we'll have soil that will cover them so that it can be utilized for play fields, for parking, for any other kind of site amenities that we want. We remain the two access drives that are currently there and we'll continue to study that as we go forward. Our goal is to maximize the queuing on site and minimize the traffic and the queuing on the main roads. I also wanna point out that as you can see, the amount of construction that would occur here's the building, then we need the geothermal. We have all of the parking that would need to be replaced and we have the contractor that's going to require site access. He has lay down space. He's gonna need areas for his activities and work. So it is very safe to say that the entire site that's highlighted in light green, not in the trees, we are being respectful of the wetlands and our boundaries to the east, that all of this site is going to be disturbed during construction. It's the same on Wildwood, but clearly there's a lot less to be disturbed. But for the renovation and new construction on Fort River, we understand and want everyone to understand that the site's pretty much gonna be disturbed. So we need to replace it. So right now we are just stating that an assumption we've made, which has not been fully vetted with the community is that we are gonna replace the fields and calling the best that we can and as they fit on the site. This does impact site costs and I'm sure many of you have seen it, but it's to improve the fields. We understand they're not really usable for a good part of the year because they're wet. So what we wanna do is improve the fields so that they really are a true community asset and resource. We will put a layer of drainage underneath them, we'll raise them by a foot so that you can utilize the fields year round or without the snow on them, I suppose, three, nine months out of the year. So we haven't fully vetted that conversation but we wanted to be conservative in our costs and not come back to you later and say, oh, by the way. So those fields are included in the costs, site costs associated with Fort River. So then for a new school on Fort River, our goal was to maximize the green space, provide as much outdoor learning and play space and recreation space. So we've developed a three story option. We will continue to explore a three story and a two story option on the site to see what fits best educationally, what the costs are as well as how that impacts the site. Again, you'll see the dotted line to the north of the new school. That's the existing school. It will remain in operation while we're building the new school. And then once the new school is completed, the children move into it, we then will demolish the existing building and the foundations and then we'll need to fill, right? So again, you can see that most or all of the site will be disturbed during construction. We've also identified an area for the geothermal field. And again, the assumption is 80 to 100 wells at this point, but we'll continue to explore that. We'll also continue to explore other net zero options such as the air source. So taking the same approach to the Wildwood site. Again, very similar building. So we've just applied the same assumptions to the Wildwood school demolishing the interior to get daylighting into all of the core academic spaces and a two story addition. As you can see, the site is much smaller. So there are no real playfields on it. They perhaps utilize the middle schools fields to the south, but we're able to identify a geothermal field. So that checks that we can say that, yes, that's viable on this site, but we have more work to do on this site. There's a conversation about potentially utilizing the Hawthorne site and how we may be able to benefit from use of that. There's a conversation about perhaps utilizing the field at the middle school, recognizing that it's not under the full control of the town. So we'll have to kind of explore those options. And then we understand off the strong street that this is the cemetery. There's a little sliver that's owned by the cemetery. And we were going to explore to see what the benefit might be if we were able to utilize that. But this is, again, same kind of parameters to meet the educational needs. Same amount of parking. As you can see, we do want to explore another means of an egress on and off the site. We will look at the traffic and understand the implications of 575 students coming onto the site and where that impacts the neighboring main roads. We'll have the same number of parking. We'll have place structures for both the lower grades, the upper grades. We'll have access around the entire building for the emergency vehicles. And again, as you can see, the entire site will most definitely be disturbed. So we will need to replace it or improve it or fix it when we're done. We looked at a three-story building again at the Wildwood site. We've actually identified a couple of locations for the geothermal fields and will again continue to vet this and see what makes the most sense. But we also want to make sure that we have the parking as close to the school as possible. So we've identified geothermal, maybe to the west or to the left of the school and possibly on the middle school field down below. We also want to look at possibly how can we benefit from nestling the school into the hill? Maybe there's benefits from a cost perspective. But what we need to be mindful of is that whatever gets built into the hill are not program spaces that require natural light. But we've done it before and it really can really be an attribute to the solution. And we'll also take a look at how we can best use the site as it relates to outdoor learning. We've identified a small area here, but again, this is a test fit as well as play structures, gardens. And we want to make sure that we have full access around the building. Donna, if there was a question from Tony Keneham about where on the Wildwood site we might anticipate the contractor lay down area would be. Thank you, Tony. We will need to further explore that. But they may have to move several times. And so again, this is all very preliminary. I will say that is this an eight acre site, Tim? It's approximately eight acres, a little more. It's 14 total, probably 11 of it usable when you just count the slope to the right. So we have designed schools that are probably close to that enrollment for under two acres. So if there are ways to achieve that, we haven't gotten to that level yet. We do need to look at, and thank you, Tony, for raising that. We do need to make sure whether it's new construction and renovation in addition that it's critically important to maintain the safety and minimize the disruption to the staff and students and the occupants of the existing school while the construction's going on. So all of that will be studied in the upcoming months. Oh, I see one now. Nice, bonus. Tony, thank you, Tony. Does anyone have any questions before we get into the costing? Rudy. Brian, if you can unmute Rudy. How's that? Perfect. Okay, I trust you guys have seen Annie fails school because they did plunge part of the building into the slope. Like windowless areas that I assume were mechanical rooms and that sort of thing, seemed like was worth exploring. I wondered if there is the possibility if you do an ad reno of completing the new building first and then relocating classes on a temporary crammed basis into the new building and then doing the phasing. Is that just too tight on space? No, no, no, that's a great observation, Rudy. And yes, it will be a phased approach. We will be kind of exploring at a high level how best to achieve this over the next several months. Yes, we would first build the addition and move the students into the addition, right? And then kind of maybe the first, this part will be renovated and then you move those kids, these kids into this part. And so it's kind of gonna be like a game of chess a little bit, there may be some benefit. Let's see, we're planning on going into construction in 2024 and at that point maybe the sixth graders have been relocated to the middle school. So that might allow a couple of classrooms. So we've already started thinking about this. We do do complicated phased occupied renovation additions. Everyone is different and they all have their own sets of challenges. But we're very aware of the moving pieces that need to occur. We are saying right now that it is going to take longer because we can only do portions of it at a time because we don't have any other swing space for the students. And that would apply both to Fort River and Wildwood. But we are familiar with the failed school and Dinesco ourselves have done many buildings where we've taken advantage of the topography and when appropriate, if it makes the most sense in working with the public safety officials, if they're comfortable with not having a full access around the building, we absolutely have taken advantage of the topography as well. And there are some benefits, there are a lot of benefits to that. It just has to be the appropriate spaces like you said. Can I ask or make one more comment? Yeah, sure. Especially after our COVID lessons, I'm wondering if we can plan for more outdoor classes that have canopies over them and also power in the columns and lighting so that they could be used the bulk of the year maybe and give you sort of more flexible spaces, project areas and you wouldn't obviously have to heat them or ventilate them so there'd be an energy advantage and sort of be capturing some half cost space maybe. Yeah, no, that's great. And actually what we have been doing for, I guess I'll say several, maybe even longer is we actually even put wireless access points on the outside of the buildings now, right? So that the classroom goes wherever you are. We have to be careful about creating canopies and structures that are sufficient because there'll be permanent structures. So there may be some unintended costs associated with that but it may be absolutely worth it. So we will continue to explore that. We always understand that it's great to be in the sun and being outdoors but shade is also important. So we will absolutely take a look at that. I myself drive by all the schools in my town and I see those big white tents everywhere but you see that they come down, right? Because you can't have them up in the winter. So we would have to design something that's a permanent structure but yes, thank you. Thanks. I have a comment question in the chat from Pam Rooney. She's just saying she's not sure why the goal was to have parking as close as possible to the building in reference to the all new at Wildwood and saying could have a larger area not separated from parking of green space from the building. And I don't know if you want to handle this on the right. Go for it, yeah. As Don has said, these are preliminary and these are just the pieces in their order of magnitude size that we are moving around on the board to make sure that they fit the exact location shape function of the parking will be maximized to get obviously some spaces as close to the building. And we want it to be convenient for everybody but we also want green space to be as large and as close to the building as possible. And just to reiterate what is shown to the left of the building on this slide, the geothermal field will be completely usable as a play field with no apparent machinery anything related to geothermal apparent to a person using the space. We do have certain requirements from an accessibility perspective, obviously to provide certain spaces within 200 feet of the building. But your point is to, and we look at the site too and we're like, huh, how can we design this differently? Right, the challenge is we have the existing building that needs to remain in operation. So we need to start really looking at this and we totally agree with your comment. So we'll have to spend some time again balancing all of the needs of the school. So thank you for that observation. Do you guys see any more comments in the chat? I have anything else? So as you can see, we developed alternatives, test fits to see what's possible from a site and an educational program. Those four, we check those boxes. So now what we need to do is just take order of magnitude costs for cost comparisons. These are relative costs to determine if any alternatives are not viable. So again, very preliminary. We had to make certain assumptions and we'll continue to vet these with the building committee with the town, with the officials that the same square footage will for both renovation and addition alternatives at Wildwood and Fort River. The same building square footage for both new construction alternatives. And then we had to make conservative cost assumptions based on current market for public schools. So Dinesco has been doing this since 1978, not me personally, but Dinesco. And we know the school market but more importantly, our cost estimator, A.M. Fogarty has also been doing this for probably as long. And they're actually, I think Margaret mentioned that they're on every MSBA project, whether it's as the OPM because they'll have their own cost estimator or the designers team that they understand the public school market, right? It's publicly bid. We have to understand all of the state requirements for public bidding. But more importantly, there are fundamental basis of designs that go into every building. They need to be durable. They need to have a longevity of 50 plus years. We understand a lot of, and most schools even though they may look a little different really all have very similar features in them. So working with A.M. Fogarty with our understanding and knowledge as well as his understand we're preliminary design. Again, just relative costs. We were conservative with our numbers but we don't think we're way off the mark but we certainly don't wanna be in a position where we underestimate now and have to come back to you in three months to say, oh, we need a little more. And then especially when we enter into schematic design and arrive at a project funding agreement with MSBA and at that point need to ask the voters and community to support the project. We do not like to have a low cost at the very beginning and then it incrementally increases. We really have a great track record of presenting a cost now that really does not fluctuate much at all unless scope drastically changes through actually through the end of the project. But anyway, so these conservative costs are based on current market for public schools in Massachusetts. We also understand the net zero by law and we're thrilled to be part of this very important project. So right now we understand the goal of 25 EUI so that's energy use index and that will be a great target to achieve and how do you achieve that? Well, we have to assume it has to be obviously non fossil fuels. So it's either geothermal which is ground source heat or air source. And so ground the geothermal is a little more efficient but it also has a little more upfront costs but we're gonna continue to explore that. The upfront costs may be offset by the usage and or what your PVs will be able to generate. So we're gonna do a life cycle cost analysis to demonstrate what the actual payback is over time and what the benefits are of both the ground source and the air source to achieve your net zero. And then it also includes solar canopies over the parking lot and PV on the roof, solar on the roof. The other components as I mentioned at the beginning Fort River specific site impacts, one is just that it's significantly larger as we all saw. So that has just inherent costs associated with it. We've added a layer of soil to address the high water table. And then again, as I mentioned, the existing fields are to be replaced in kind with improved drainage. We do have a pretty good understanding of the sites and the site attributes. We haven't fully vetted the sites but we have a really good basis of understanding for the sites. So we had to look at the cost comparisons for all of the options. And I kind of apologize for the noise of the 165 student option, but it's required for MSBA. So we're just sharing with you what we'll be submitting as part of the PDP to MSBA. So I'll first start to say understanding that there are options to be evaluated and explore which is a phased occupied renovation and addition. There are two methods for construction. One is CM at risk or chapter 149A. And that allows us to engage and select a construction manager before we go out to bed. So they're part of our team. They'll work with us to help us with the best phasing, constructability, how we can ensure the safety and the least amount of disruption for staff. And we find them extremely beneficial and especially for renovation and addition options. So to compare apples to apples, what we've demonstrated here is that we're applying a CM at risk construction method across all of the options. So the first, if it's okay, if you have questions, I'll slow down, but the Fort Rivers say 165 students. MSBA is asking us to identify what the actual costs were just to repair the building, right? Fix the equipment, bring the building up to code. What would that cost? Just as a baseline. So when we run through it, we have direct costs of what we call subcontractor work. And then we have the CM or the general contractor has markups and those markups will include general conditions, general requirements. It includes escalation because we're not gonna be bidding this until 2024. It will be here soon enough. It also includes some designer contingencies and some CM contingencies. It includes some payment and performance bonds and some other things. But as you can see, it's not insignificant to the cost. So the total construction cost is I'm just gonna round up approximately $40 million. And then what we have identified for the repair only is we said, well, if it's just a repair, it will not be a net zero facility because we're just repairing it. So we did not apply PVs, geothermal or even a percentage for art. When we get into the renovation and addition for 165 students, it's going to be approximately 80,000 square feet. It might be slightly less based on last night's vote but it's order of magnitude truly. So again, there's gonna be a demolition because we wanna make sure that all of the students have daylighting and views. So we'll be having to take a portion of the core of the building. Hazardous materials is really asbestos containing materials, lead paint, things like that that need just to be demolished and treated and disposed of differently. That comes with a number and then your site work. So that's gonna be a renovation addition. We're treating this as if it's going to be a school that needs site improvement. So we've incorporated those costs. Again, by the time you add up the contractor markups, your total construction cost is approximately 53 million. And at this point, it's an investment you've made in the building. The building will remain with you for an extra 50 years. So now it's time to apply your initiatives such as the PVs, geothermal and your percent per art. And then we did the exact same thing for a new school for 165 students. So just that's for MSBA really to benchmark. Okay, what would it cost if this was only for the Fort River School and not combining the Fort River and Wildwood? And as you can see, there's really no benefit. You're expending an enormous amount of capital to benefit 165 students. So then we wanna look at the Fort River, the 575 student and the four options that we've just presented. Again, the same building for both the Fort River and the Wildwood sites at 108,000 for renovation. The addition, again, everything being equal. We have a cost for addition, a cost for the renovation. We have new constructions considered addition at this point. The demolition, there's portions of the building that we're gonna need to demolish to put the addition on. And then of course, the hazardous materials that I just spoke of the ACM, the asbestos containing materials and my paint and the like. And then as I mentioned, the site work at Fort River is larger than Wildwood. And for all of those reasons that I've stated, replacing and kind of the disturbed areas, improving upon the soil so that you may utilize these town resources more frequently. And then again, it has two drives, it's just a larger site. So by the time you put together the direct costs or the subcontractor costs with the contractor markups, it's approximately $72 million. We incorporate the PBs. The reason we have the PBs separate from the number under construction, it will be part of the project, but it's our recommendation at this point and maybe things will change in a year or two is to procure the PB separate from the CM project. And we say that because it's a specialty and the construction manager is gonna go and hire the same people and then put their markups on it. So what we're saying is, well, that's not really great use of town money that we can just have a separate contract with a company that does photovoltaics independent of the contractor or the construction manager, but it would be part of the project. It will come after we finish the site because we need to have them in the parking lot. So they normally come in after the site is complete, but it would be part of the project. Again, I've talked about the geothermal costs and then the percent for art. So a renovation addition of Fort River, again, very rough order magnitude of approximately $78 million for construction, for renovation addition, for new construction, pretty similar costs, 47 versus 50 million. Some differences here is that we'll be demolishing the entire building, not just portions of it. And the site is a little bit more because we'll need a little more site work done to support the foundations. So there's a slight increase in those costs. So you can see it's 72 million versus 74 more importantly, including the PVs and geothermal and percent for art, it's 78 million versus 80 million. And at Wildwood, again, applying the same basis of design for the building, the demolition remains the same, the buildings are identical. There's a little bit more for hazardous material disposal. There's more asbestos container material. I think it's in the flooring tiles. They're safe now, but when you remove them, you have to just treat them differently. So there's a little more costs there, but you can see that the site costs are less. And again, for the reasons I just said, why Fort River was more is it's a much smaller site. There's not a whole lot more replication of fields. So you don't have fields on the site. So that's why the site at Wildwood is less. Again, you add in the PVs, the geothermal and the percent for art, there's somewhere around 75 million compared to 76.7 million for a new construction. So that's the construction aspect of the project. So when you add them all up, this is the costs coming across for total construction. Then there's what's called project costs. And that is approximately 25% of the construction. It's a multiplier of 1.25 of the construction costs. What does that include? It includes the OPM designer fees, all of the town agency reviews, whether we have wetlands that we have to go before conservation commission, depending on the site, there may be some other town agencies that we have to go before. We have hazardous material abatement oversight that's an added cost that goes into the, what's called soft costs, utility fees. More importantly, where you're gonna see a lot of the money is under furniture and equipment and technology. If there's a way to reduce those costs, we haven't even started that and reuse some of your furniture and equipment, that would be great. But this is assuming that's part of the 25% or 1.25 markup, including technology moving there, believe it or not, even if it's just to the building, eight feet, 10 feet to the south, there's moving costs associated with that. And then there are contingencies, the owner's contingency, construction contingency. And there's actually quite a bit of money required for construction testing to make sure that it's a controlled site. So we have to make sure that the testing is done for structural, for soils, for geothermal, for demolition. So all of this all adds up to approximately 25% or a multiplier of 1.25% of the total of the construction costs. So when you look at the bottom line, our base repair, which actually could be applied, whether it's 165 students or 575 students is approximately 50 million. And then we look at the costs as it relates to the 575 student options of 97.7 to over 100 million for a new construction on Fort River. And Wildwood is 93.7 million for renovation addition and 95.9 or 96 million for new construction. But that's not the end of the story as it relates to options for construction. I had mentioned there's two delivery methods, one's the CM and we find that absolutely invaluable if it's going to be a renovation addition, especially in an occupied school. However, another way for construction is called design bid build, which is chapter 149 versus chapter 149A. And this is our traditional, we design it, we bid it, we get a hard bid and the contractor goes and builds it. And we've been doing this for years. This has been the method that Massachusetts used for many years for public construction projects. We believe that a design bid build is absolutely appropriate for new construction even if it's on an existing, on a site that has a school on it, we do it all the time. There's the same oversight from our firm, from Margaret's firm. And we know that it can be done safely and efficiently as it would be with the CM. There's inherent savings with a hard bid rather than a CM. And Margaret will be spending time over probably the next month or so with the building committee, really diving into the true differences. But working with AM Fogarty, our cost estimator, we believe that there is actually quite a bit of savings as it relates to new construction going with a design bid build option for construction method rather than a CM. So that is one component to consider when we're weighing all the options, a renovation in addition versus new construction. But this is certainly a way to reduce some of those costs if the education and the site, I'll also check the box, right? It's not always just about cost, but we know that's a huge component of the decision that we make in a couple, in three months, four months at the end of June. So I will pause there. And I will be surprised if no one has any comments about the cost. Rudy, I think Brian has to unmute you, Rudy, one sec. There you go, perfect. Somebody asked me, and I didn't know the answer to this, this seat, because I never was really involved in a CMR contract when I was doing this kind of thing. Does the CMR approach transfer some of the risk of cost overrun to the contractor? Or are we still on the hook for unexpected construction costs that come up? So, I'll maybe say a little bit. What's the risk? What's the risk in the CMR? Yeah, that's the question some of us ask on a daily basis. So in public construction, as opposed to perhaps developer construction in the public, in the private contract world, construction world, if there is something that is not on the drawings, whether it's CM or hard bid, that would be a change order, right? So it doesn't matter which way. So there really is no, the exposure to the town would be equal if there was something that was missed on the contract drawings. I don't know, Margaret, I'm just trying to simplify because I know we have a lot of, you wanna talk? Brian, can you unmute Margaret, please? Margaret, see if you can unmute yourself. You should be able to. There you go. Yeah, Rudy, it's a great question. And I wanna reiterate what Donna said, which is we're really gonna dig into this in the next phase of the project and have some public discussion about it. But I think the thing that raises people's interest is that the form of contract is called construction manager at risk for the CMAR. And there is some risk, I would say a better way of thinking about the kind of big picture difference between the two contracts is that in a CM contract, you have a transparent contingency member which can be used for things that come up during construction. So it can be things that were missed either by the designer or by the contractor. But it's transparently managed. And so in a, and you also transparently see the profit that is being made. In a general contract, it is sort of, it's a lump sum contract. And so sometimes I think that the preferences for the two types of contracts are a little bit of a Rorschach task for your personality because if you're really interested in the transparency of construction contracts, you will be drawn to a CM contract. And if you're really interested, if you'd sort of prefer it be lump sum and let the contractor sort of make what they make, then the design build feels better. And Donna is correct that generally for new construction, design build builds is a better deal. You're sort of a, it tends to be a little more competitive market, but it's, that's a very high level, very un-nuo answer to your question. And we will talk more about it in the next phase. So I, there was one question and design, how are spaces for quiet and those for use for more energetic activity considered? How is a desk and other classroom layouts considered for optimal physical comfort of students? Thank you for asking that question. We will be spending quite a bit of time over both the next part of the preferred schematic report or the study phase, but more importantly during the schematic design phase and how we lay out the classrooms and what the features are, how they, how, how furniture may shape the classrooms and how we can optimize the physical comfort of the students. We've learned so much of the last few couple of years regarding COVID and the separation, but yet everyone still wants to be together. So it's called flexibility, but we need to spend time working with the school department on how best that may feel for Amherst. So I hope that answers your question. I know Chris Riddle had his hand up and then Bruce Coleman. Can you hear me? Yeah. Hi, Chris. I just three or four questions. Can you, okay, I believe you said this before the renovated, if we do add Renault that the renovated portions will be taken to the same UI, the same performance standards as the new construction. Did I hear that right? Correct. Is it possible? Is any, I imagine some people have thought about this to have, to put this Wildwood students somewhere in the middle school while we work on the building, as like maybe there's more capacity in the middle school, that could maybe take the whole school for a year. That's a question, not for you, Donna. I think that's for the school committee. Two more questions. We talked about moving the geothermal line item up against along with basic construction. It's confusing to see it sort of below the line like that because people will tend to think it's a renewable resource, but it isn't in terms of the zoning bylaw in terms of zero energy bylaw. Lastly, could we carry, could we budget the public playing fields, the outdoor playing fields that have to be rebuilt in Fort River and a separate line item that would tend to make the Fort River project look actually be equal to the Wildwood site? So can we, I think it's deceptive to see the, I'm sorry, the playing fields are really a separate town and budgeted item and can we carry it separately so it doesn't make everything look so expensive? That's all I have. Thank you. Mike, why don't you go ahead first? Yeah, so I'll respond to the question of the middle school with the sixth grade going to the middle school in a year and a half, there wouldn't be space for it to be more swing space because it's already increasing by roughly a quarter, a little more between a quarter and a third of the students that currently are there. So we lose that flexibility. And Donna and the team will respond about the fields. It's not my area of expertise, but I do know that we currently do struggle with wet fields at Fort River on a routine basis. And so where it goes and how it's paid for is as a good question for the town and for others to weigh in on, my only interest is that we have usable fields for students including in the spring and the fall with the rain and when the snow melting. So how that all plays out, not my area of expertise, my only interest is that students actively have fields that don't need to be high quality, high school fields, but they do need to be dry or dry enough for physical activity. But with that alternative, I see other people with their hands up, Kathy and Donna may want to jump in on this. Yeah, just again to respond to the fields, the contractor, CM, whatever the construction is pretty much going to disturb most of the site. So if you can see this, there's no way to not disturb the fields or not disturb most of the fields during construction. Here's the existing building, obviously we're gonna have to replace that. We're gonna have to obviously demolish and then fill it. And then the new school will be going where some of the fields are, right? And then we are going to require a contractor lay down space. And so we'll have to just figure out how to do that. But that conversation can occur and I see Kathy's hand. So she might have something else to offer, but right now we felt it was the responsible thing to do was to bring it up and identify it as a site attribute and a community resource and that we should at minimum just replace in kind, but we can continue to have that conversation. Kathy. Yeah, I just wanted to add to what Donna just said, Chris. The building committee is aware of this as part of the current costs. And I think one of the things you're seeing is they've priced it conservatively like this is the maximum. We could decide that we're just not gonna replace the fields. We have to do something on the repair and replace them or we could see whether the town wants to finance that separately. So one of the things we'll be asking is separate estimates on this. And I think we're at a preliminary stage and it's good to have this as a total, but yes, we will be getting how much of this is the fact that the building itself has to be protected. We don't want water running into the building. So some of it is raising the field to deal with wetlands. And remember this is Fort River where the water table is an issue and there's also wastewater management on it. So we're gonna get, we don't have that detail yet, but we will be getting it. And so these are not final numbers is the other thing that I really would urge people to think about. Right, Kathy, thank you. Just one clarification. It's not wastewater, it's stormwater. Yes, I meant stormwater. I meant stormwater. Because again, conservation areas and we have, I don't wanna say restrictions, but there are aspects of the site that we're gonna have to treat the stormwater runoff and responsible manner as well as be aware that it is a high water table. But we feel that that isn't a significant cost, but yes, there will be disturbance to the site. I think, Chris, I think we answered all of your questions and just to reiterate the renovation. Yeah. So the question about the geothermal line items should be above the line, rather than below the line as part of the construction project. Yes, thank you. And we received that feedback. So we'll at the next phase, as we go through the options for net zero, we'll make sure that we may have two construction options side by side with the different net zero options. Thank you. Thank you. Bruce Coleman? Yeah. Oh, I can't. You're there. Oh, am I? Am I? Oh, I am. Okay. I don't seem to be able to... No, I'm trying to push my little button. It's not working, but I will go. Two comments on the question. First, I do actually agree with Chris about the cost of the fields at Fort River as he's not questioning the cost, just the display of it. And I think if you're getting substantially more playing fields in one of the scenarios, as opposed to the other, it would be good to make the apples and apples comparison between the school schools by showing the difference of the expense is partly because there's more there and one of them than there is in the other. Second, and I'll probably have much more to say of this as time goes by vis-à-vis the CM at risk versus bid. I know in all of my practice years for 30 years starting in the early 90s, I always worked with CM at risk. It was partly because we were doing rather innovative and somewhat risky projects. And the idea of getting the constructor in the room early avoided this odious process of what is called value engineering, which is a ridiculous term in my view, it's just design. And design ought to be done when design is done, not after you've bid the process and then go over it again. So the CM at risk really safeguards against the likelihood of this awful business of value engineering, but more on that later, I think. But you'll hear me expand on that argument to the extent necessary as time goes by, I think. The question, I think I understand from previous meetings and so forth that another item that is typically in the 25% surcharge over the construction cost is commissioning. But I think I understand that there will be commissioning but we are not paying for it. And so that 25% is not covering commissioning but it doesn't mean it won't be done. I believe it's being paid for by the MSBA directly. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, we're here resonating. The one, they do all of the commissioning for the building, the envelope, the systems that is 100% paid for by MSBA. And the commissioning agent is on, they come on board during design development. So actually it's great to have them as part of the team during design as well. It's very gratifying to hear that. I wanted everybody else to keep it just for me. Keep it just for me, yeah. Thank you all. Thank you, Bruce. I can't unmute. You can't mute. Oh, hold on, I'm trying to. That's okay. I, Chris, and then I have a comment in the chat. Chris Riddle. There it goes. Oh dear, this is awful. I can't remember what it was. I'll go away. Okay, so when you think about Chris, just let us know. There was a question in the chat. Can you effectively change a high water table? Can you explain more? I could, but I have experts here. Rick or Tim? We will not be able to change the water table, but we will be able to raise the building above the water table, which it is now. The water table is slightly below the surface or we will be able to improve the soil so that it drains better. So, you know, to change the seasonal high water, average season, it is not the goal. The goal is to build the building in the way that we know how that the water cannot get through the subgrade that we put under it and exert hydrostatic pressure on the building. So one of the means is to put drainage around the building. Another is to create a porous layer of vanilla building or to bring the building up. And water level underground is not perfectly flat. It mounds where there's water flowing. It's higher. And all of these means that we describe and are in the basis of the general cost now, just control that and get the water away from the building. So I hope that answers the question. The short answer is we can't change it, but we can control how it interacts with the building. Chris, did you remember your question? I did. The CE by-law requires two commissioning events. One just before opening and one a year later. Is that, have you, is that included in this estimate? The before it opens would be the MSBA commissioning agent. After it opens and a year later, I don't believe that has been incorporated, but thank you for pointing that out. We'll make sure that that fits within the soft costs. And Margaret, unless you think it is included, I don't believe MSBA will come back. They don't come back, but there can also be typically, for instance, the MSBA commissioning does not include window testing. What they have is a pretty standard package of stuff and it's good and it's free to the communities, but it's not unusual for there to be some additional scope purchased from the commissioning agent. So we will look, it's a great question, Chris. We'll look at the full scope with those who are sort of interested in it and make sure that it is as complete as it needs to be for this community. They will look into it. There may be what's called enhanced commissioning. So, but thank you for pointing that out. We'll make sure it's included, if not with MSBA that it's included as part of the soft costs. And we'll make sure we understand what it is that they're commissioning when they're out there for the follow up. I'm assuming part of it is to make sure that it's meeting the design intent after a year of being in service. I see Rudy. Yeah, just to further complicate that issue, there's also a requirement in our by-law to have a peer review of the energy modeling. So that's in section E of the by-law. It's just worth taking a quick spin through those and making sure those are factored into your costs and timeline. And then somebody asked me this question, it sounds like it could be complicated, but I thought it was an interesting question theoretically. If the geothermal field, if Wildwood is the site and the geothermal fields end up on the middle school ground, is there any possibility for economies of scale of allowing that geothermal field, like making a bigger one and having it take care of the middle school? Or is that just too hard to connect those systems and too much complication in the project then? Well, I'll say, first, that's a very creative approach, right? And I love that you're thinking about how to... Somebody else, it was somebody else's great idea. OK. All right, thank you to whomever. Just a little bit of complication on that really would be the middle school is not 100% owned by the... or part of Amherst, right? It's the regional school. So we would need to go through that process. And MSBA wouldn't pay for not that we will probably exceed their costs, their construction costs. But if you're doing something above and beyond, MSBA wouldn't participate in it. But I need to say that with a caveat that MSBA participates but doesn't necessarily reimburse for what the construction costs are to date. So, Marga, I don't know if you want to... There's a different way to say that. But having MSBA involved just complicates things, I guess might be the simple answer to that. Which, you know, I think Donna is kind of an extension of what you were explaining earlier about the way these numbers have been shown. The intention is not to show the geotechnical as sort of separate, some have separated from the project. It's to indicate that there are reasons that it may be contracted separately that have to do with where it is, have to do with the cap on the MSBA reimbursement and have to do with the sort of the best value way of procuring them. But it's still... But Rudy, as we look at not just this project, we should maybe at least give it a quick look to see how maybe providing geothermal wells for the middle school, what would that look like, right? Just a quick test bit. Thanks. I don't see any other hands. Is there anyone else in chat, team? I'm not getting all my chat notes. I have a question from Pam Rooney. Does the MSBA require a set aside of two to 3% of construction costs for future maintenance obligations? They do not. I've never heard that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is what where that may have come from is there is some additional reimbursement up to about 2% for having an excellent maintenance plan. So we don't yet know what that reimbursement will look like for Amherst, but I did ask recently what the average was and it's about 1.4, 1.5. So I think you can, given that your buildings have been well made, really well maintained, I think you can assume that there's about a one, maybe 1.4, 1.5% of additional reimbursement and that may be where that number is coming from if I have to guess. But it's not money set aside, it's sort of additional reimbursement and the reimbursement calculation. This is a quiet group tonight. Well, while maybe people are thinking, what we'll do is we'll just quickly talk about the next steps. We will be going before the school building committee on Friday to vote to approve the PDP. And again, just to reiterate what they're approving, it would be for us to continue to evaluate a renovation and addition or new construction at other Wildwood or at Wildwood and Fort River based on the educational program and plan and square footage that was approved last night. So they'll be voting on that and then we'll be wrapping it up, putting a bow on it, sending it to MSBA by March 15th. And then the next steps are to continue to evaluate the alternative solutions. So now our focus, now that we've established the program and everything, we understand the buildings, we understand the sites. Now over the next few months, we're gonna evaluate the alternative solutions is Wildwood or Fort River, a more preferable site. We're gonna look at both as it relates to traffic, site, how does the building sit on the site? How does the building respond to the best orientation of the building and where it fits on the site? We're gonna look at a renovation versus new construction, right? The benefits, the pros and cons of both as it relates to the educational program, as it relates to construction duration and disruption and as it relates to cost. And then we know it's gonna be a net zero building, but the question is how do we get there? We know we can get there. We just wanna fully vet it and make sure that we all can kind of come to consensus on what the best solution is for this project. So those, we're gonna be busy and you're gonna individually and collectively hear from us over the next three months. And then in June, we will be bringing back a, and prior to that, we'll be keeping you informed, we'll have further community forums, but in June, the town or building committee, community collectively, we would need to select a preferred solution to move forward. So Wildwood, Fort River, renovation, addition, new construction, right? So one of those solutions will rise to the top and that will be the preferred solution moving forward. They'll have a more informed cost estimate at that point. It will not be a final cost estimate. We still won't have all the information we need, but hopefully it will, all the information that we're doing over the next few months will help inform the cost and hopefully, or at least we'll fine tune it or feel good about, feel a little bit better about the costs. We will be submitting the preferred schematic report to MSBA, June 27th, that's a hard deadline. It is a requirement. MSBA then takes two months to look at our submission and then the MSBA Board of Directors will vote on it, August 31st to also agree and accept what the preferred solution is. And then we can get into schematic design. So June 27th is our next major milestone. And as we start moving forward with our true evaluation of these remaining four options, we'll be back with additional information as we start to uncover all of the options. Margaret or Kathy, I still don't, oh, Chris. Chris Riddle, did you disappear on me? I don't see any hands up. Oh, that's weird. I don't see any hands up. I'm sorry, that was an erroneous. Okay. It did not mean to interrupt you. No, no, that's fine. That's fine. I'm glad we're interacting. So if, so Donna, you're not seeing any more in chat room or questions. So then I... Tim, Brian, do you see anything now? No. Okay. Okay. So then maybe you can go to the next slide. I think you have one more. Okay. So Donna's turning it back to me. I opened it and I'll close it. As I said, I'm the chair of the building committee. We will be meeting and there are several building committee members who have been listening tonight. We will be meeting on Friday at 8 30 in the morning. We'll be reviewing a very large package, but there really is only one part of it will be focused on, which is to approve going forward with these four alternatives and to agree that we're not gonna go forward with 165 person school. So we'll be taking two motions on that. The rest of a very long package will be the hazmat report, the traffic study report, the building condition report. So it gets very thick because, and I believe Margaret said, she's even going back and getting all the minutes of every meeting meeting. And so we have, just so people know, we were comparing how often we've met, whether it's the school committee forms this, and we are many multiples times more than the last project, because there's been a real attempt to be transparent. And so as we go through to the next very intense phase for the building committee, which I find incredibly exciting because we're gonna be looking at not just test fits, but more what does fit and making choices. We will be coming back to the community before we make a decision. And so that it will be informed decision to get down to the preferred. The school committee meeting last night, one of the members said, we've just done our job, which was the education program, which will be in this large packet along with the space that they voted on. Now the action goes over to the building committee, but that doesn't mean we're doing it alone. We're really going to be doing it with getting input from people. And I'm delighted at the input we've been getting. One more thing is to remember the website that we put up. There's some initial frequently asked questions and answers. Since we've been getting more questions and have been supplying more answers, we're also gonna be updating that part of the website so that people can see, has anyone asked this? What kind of answer? Where are we in this process? So we're gonna be trying to keep that question and answer up and running. And we are posting the videos of the community forum for anyone who wants, who didn't get to come tonight, who wants to look at the discussion as well as the materials. So I am really excited and I'm stunned with the patience and the care that our design team and our OPM have put into this where they're always willing to respond to good questions. And we learn something every time. I learn something every time. So I wanna- And we learn something every time. So I do. So it's great. So I just wanna thank everybody. I know a lot of people in the audience have put in a lot of time too. And we both, we highly value it and we hope you stay involved. So I think we're done unless I see any other comments. So thank you very much. Thank you all very much. And we will be in touch and be reaching out to everyone.  I'm sure you all know where to go. Get involved. Yeah. Good night, everyone. Thank you.