Neary School Building Committee - Communications Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

all right uh good morning and welcome to the nerie building committee communication subcommittee meeting it is Friday January 17th 2025 and it is um 9:03 a.m. all voting members are present the first uh agenda item for today is meeting minutes uh we do not have any uh available from our last meeting so those will be available for the next meeting so the next um update is the communication Plan update so uh what I wanted to do is provide an update of um known items that have happened since our last meeting um both I know we've been providing updates as part of the subcommittee but also as part of the um the broader near building committee when we met a couple weeks ago and um then we're what we're in the process of scheduling and doing and allow the uh subcommittee to react to um those actions and see what else um needs to be done so uh over the past few weeks we've had our first set of open Office hours um I will provide a summary of that shortly and then we also had our first um we had uh two sessions with the self- Bro Kinder Group which is uh primarily parents that uh do not have school age they have at least one non-school AG child is probably the best way to put it they may have um older siblings that are already in in the elementary schools so it was a very uh different discussion there than than open Office hours in terms of next steps um I think we agreed as a formal building committee to schedule um open Office hours every other week moving forward so I'm waiting for the room reservations to be confirmed and then we were going to publish all remaining seven I think the goal would be to have at least two nearer building well no more than two near building committee members uh

present uh for that and Greg is also going to have uh someone from the education side try to attend them you know as best as possible it could be a member of the school administration team it could be a principal it could be um potentially even a teacher so we kind of just again someone that can speak to the educational merits of of the project as as they come up because I think that um is an item that that continues to kind of get lost in some of the the broader conversation and I can tell you that the question questions are starting to come in more on those particular topics the um other item that we are in the process of scheduling is uh as you all know probably our most attended event was the principal's coffee hour uh that was kind of jointly held at Finn but hosted by all three principles and SOS um back in November so uh we are going to kind of continue to double down on that approach uh and not have it be uh place of their whatever they typically would do with you know any sort of educational programming or other items they'd like to highlight but in addition to uh to just make again make sure that the messaging is getting out to that uh population and then uh we have now uh filmed a series of videos both with sare access media as well as um you know some voice overlay with over Zoom for other parts of the presentations that we to start to publish um I think my um request in terms of where we publish it is I think we'll do small tidbits on Facebook and social media we'll have probably a weekly um newsletter that can go up through parents square and try to get our subscription uh up there but uh equally as important I think having the

near building website be uh up toate and contain these and have them easy to find um you know based on you know category headings of someone cares about the site where do they go someone cares about the cost where do they go someone cares about the educational plan where do they go so with that maybe Greg I'd have you weigh in a little bit in terms of uh what what additional steps are being taken you know in particular on the website given that that is kind of the source of Truth as we've um mentioned to the community today and your unmute there you go yeah so um in terms of the website so I I am going to ask Kathy carani to take more of a lead role and organizing keeping it up to date um so we are meeting as a central office leadership team on Tuesday afternoon um and that is one of the tasks um so I talked to Kathy already she's going to reach out to um Julie Marshall who is our kind of our web coordinator and get up to speed on the tool and also um talk to Mariana and then I'll also meet with her and organize the pages based on some of your feedback Jason hoping to have that done by Wednesday of next week in in Roger and Denise um one of the things we did is um we did ask a few school committee members to listen to the videos to offer kind of an you know outside in perspective and um I think we're incorporating some of that feedback into how the videos came out um it's not as easy to ask you to watch the videos and provide feedback because then we have to come to a public meeting so uh the one thing that I would say is as you watch the videos i' ask you to bring the feedback to our next meeting now that we have kind of a regular Cadence schedule and I will have a specific

agenda item there if you think there's something that we need to record more of um or re-record uh hopefully we're not going to have too many new facts other than cost at this point but we all know that this is an evolving project still okay uh any other thoughts of things we need to be doing or should be doing um I I would like well unless someone looks at this as a a foolish request can Greg I guess someone in your team put together uh the topic is educational benefits the educational benefits of of the new school um and I want I want to say a cliff note sheet or a or a 10 item bullet sheet um um that if somebody you know says well what about these educational benefits um that could hit them with eight or nine well yeah they're significant and there's there's there's one there's two there's three they're not going to hang around for 15 minutes okay but uh um the things that in your view are really really important and significant for the uh for the for the kids as well as for the teachers um is that a is that a ridiculous request or is that something that wouldn't be too tough to put together no we're working on um a draft document so we H we have a draft few of us worked on yesterday yester okay the goal my goal is to um create a little packet for the school committee um easy access to that F cues the videos and just a cheat sheet well I think if I had if I had the draft I could probably put together my own bullets from it so I I

could you know kind of alleviate that part of it but yeah and we are looking for feedback on the the you know the what we we're calling the top 10 benefits perfect so we can I don't know if Jason if you want to for time sake how to best get feedback on the document um maybe through um I'll ask Chelsea to review it and if you review it Jason okay and then I mean I and I am happy to call a quick subcommittee meeting too so that um cuz or you could review directly with Roger yeah as well um it I don't feel an a I mean I'm totally fine delegating from from this committee any sort of educational benefits for Roger to work directly with you unless Denise is I'm happy to do that I have no problem yeah so I think that's you do Greg so I think try yeah that's perfect so Roger you and I will connect what the timeline that we have the deadline is that we're trying to get this done before um parent teacher conferences which are which are winch okay uh so you're guessing that uh so we have some time I guess it's March okay so I want I want to schedule um another session at the senior center um and the two pieces of information and I think Mark was going to join me we haven't we haven't determined a at this point in time but uh Pam always wants a little lead time uh the the two pieces of information I want to make sure I'm armed with are as

as current a financial picture as I can have and also the kind of the top 10 educational benefits because I think that even though um yeah the seniors don't have kids in school nonetheless I think many of them appreciate um that that that educational benefits for kids in Southboro um are a positive thing for the town um so it's not all about the tax dollar anyway that's fine that's the method behind my madness Okay I think it's a very appropriate giving that you are the school committee representative uh Denise you know I totally agree I just want to be really careful how do I put this diplomatically because I believe in the education piece of this 100% but there are those out there that say our teachers do a good job we have you know we have good educational outcomes I think we also really need to push the deteriorating condition of that building because I think there are some out there that are going to really zero in on that versus we have a great system we have you know great teachers great programs and I I just don't want to you know walk away from that as heavily as I think we need to push because that is a big concern that's why we're doing this as well as the education but do you see what I'm trying to say it's not like I don't believe Greg in the education or Stephanie because I 100% do I just think there are those out there that you know is are going to find a reason um but pretty hard to find a reason not to not to vote for this when you think about the asbest the Ada all of the building structural building issues that's only my concern I just I want to be careful Roger uh I want Denise I want to follow

I want to follow on with that because um yeah yes I have heard whether it be I think whe in the you know in the uh Town town hall meeting room whether it be in the hallway what well it's teachers that teach not buildings and I think that there are some significant things that can be said about I mean I don't want to disagree with that I want to agree with that I want to say you're absolutely right and let me tell you how teachers can teach better right um with facility capabilities such as right I mean and and and and if you go talk to teachers they'll tell you that also so I I think I think rather than argue with the um because that's what they that's that's what sometimes comment is set up to do you know it's really Teach as to teach it's not the building so I want to go you're absolutely right and and and let me follow on with that so to the degree that um um not you know I mean it there may be there's educational benefits and then some aspects of that are enabling faculty to um you know to do to do a to do some things that they that they can't do right now all right that makes any sense at all it say GRE so the the one pager which is back back and front front and back sorry we're also um on the back doing uh current conditions and then a picture and then new condition so there's also some visuals that show the difference between the you know the current condition and the new condition so that will be part of that um but I agree with

I agree it's how can we demonstrate what you know the benefit to our faculty and staff as well and Greg I think um the other like with those pictures and we'll see whether we need captions or not I feel like part of it Roger is also about making do right like teachers are doing great things but if you kind of understood the ways that they're making do with what is it's a great comment so for example yes kids work in the hallway but they're often like sitting on the ground you know side by side as opposed to having a really set up place where a small group would meet in a learning Commons or you know instrument storage is on you know makeshift shelves in the hallway like just a lot of you know or our music rooms aren't accessible we make do by doing this and this so I think that's another kind of narrative that we can use Greg is your hand still up or all right um okay so um I we move on from communication Plan update but I think we have a lot of things in motion and would suggest that um we we will keep this on every agenda but suggest that if you have ideas um or specific items you'd like to Target we should continue to have this active in robust dialogue and assign homework as we go through each of these upcoming meetings um in terms of um release and review of FAQs I'm not aware of any new ones that we need to do today I have asked Greg though um and we're going to work through reordering how they appear on the website and try to tie them together a little better in terms of um either prioritization right so what what are the questions we get from every

single session we do um or and or uh try to organize them a little bit by timeline so if someone's just coming into the project um one of the things I've seen from from some recent Facebook posts in particular uh was people just saying how do I learn about the project and and thankfully um many people have just sent cop sent a link to our website which I think is the right answer but I I don't think that the way we've currently organized our FAQs which were fit for purpose when we originally posted them um make sense anymore so again that's part of the website update that that Craig had mentioned it's not a Content update it's just kind of an ordering update um I will tell you as part of the um open house sorry open Office hours and uh Kinder group sessions I think there will be probably a few new questions that we'll have to think about review at um in upcoming session as well any thing on FAQs all right uh in terms of public comment is there any public comment okay uh meeting schedule we are scheduled two weeks from today I expect that agenda will have um a summary of the open houses I keep saying open houses open Office hours that occurred to date by that point uh so that we can react and figure out if we want to do any FAQs with that and also an update on um some of the actions we've talked about today my intent is for meet frequently but have them be brief meetings and check-in type

meetings go ahead Roger I I hope this isn't out of order um when is the next uh NBC meeting uh in February the the next one that's been posted is for February 10th there will likely be a finan subcommittee meeting prior to that that we will post for the full committee to the extent that anyone wants to listen to the detailed Finance part before it gets summarized coming up so February 10th so I'm not planning on a sustainability subcommittee meeting that I'm aware of before then um but I have some minutes that I need to get the that the committee needs to approve can we can can can we post a sub a sustainability subcommittee meeting within the NBC just for that purpose quickly or or or do I have to post a separate meeting somehow or some other place I will coordinate with you offline and make sure the agenda allows you to get your minutes posted Perfect all right thank you so much all right um okay so with that being said is there any other business we lost Denise but we still have a quorum oh she's back any other business all right seeing no other business I'll make a motion to adjourn is there a second second roll call vote Roger yes Denise you're on mute oh she looks Frozen too you're off mute I want for speaker look it looks Frozen I'm going to say I uh for mine which will officially adjourn us and it was good to see everyone and have a great weekend have a good weekend everybody nice to see you