Board of Education - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call to order this special meeting with study session on district facilities master plan. Before we start, can I have a roll call, please?

Trustee Boyd is absent tonight. Trustee Cahn? Here. Trustee Hopwood? Yeah. Vice President Inklis? Here. President Mahoney?

Here.

Superintendent Stone? Here.

We're about to recess to closed session where we'll discuss public employee discipline, dismissal slash release, conference with legal counsel about anticipated litigation, and public employee performance evaluation. Before we recess to closed session, do we have any public comment? Please go ahead.

I am Max Weintraub. My wife and I have raised our daughter in Albany since birth.

Our daughter is a good student in the district and abides by the rules.

Mr. Jared Law is our daughter's middle school history teacher. Jared Law has been prejudiced in targeting her with warnings and disciplinary threats. In October, Jared Law told our daughter in front of her classmates to turn over her cell phone since she had it out in class. Our daughter does not have a cell phone. Jared Law was wrong. He did not apologize to our daughter. We asked him to inform us immediately if he had an issue with our daughter. He did not do so. Instead, in December, after grading a major assignment, Jared Law informed us our daughter had not used class time properly for weeks. That created havoc while we tried to reconstruct what happened and how to address his concerns. In January, Jared Law approached our daughter outside of class to ask why she was sitting in an area open to students. We asked Jared Law to leave our daughter alone outside of class. In April, Jared Law told our daughter he would report her to the state as a security risk since she did not return her state test logon card. Her classmates who did not return their cards did not receive a similar threat. Jared Law was also wrong. The test guidelines state if student logon information is lost or misplaced, do not report it. Yet for the past month, Jared Law has refused to apologize to our daughter. Principal Mapes knew of these incidents as they occurred. My daughter is one of the two African American girls in Mr. Law's class. Her classmates have told her Jared Law holds her to a stricter standard and disciplines her more often for similar offenses. Our daughter agrees and feels targeted by Jared Law's prejudice against her. Due to Jared Law, our daughter is less interested in learning about history. That barrier we as parents will now need to break down. We encourage parents who have experienced prejudice in Jared Law's class to join us in contacting the State Commission on Teacher Credentialing. I'm tired of the prejudice of a small-minded bigot from Reading trying to shake my daughter's confidence. Damn you, Jared Law. Thank you.

Do we have any other comments? Seeing none, we'll recess to closed session. Thank you. We're reconvening to open session. First off, reporting on action taken in closed session, the board took no action in closed session today. Can I have another roll call?

Student Trustee Chodak?

Here.

Student Trustee Shepherd? Here. Trustee Boyd is absent this evening. Trustee Cahn? Here. Trustee Hopwood? Here. Vice President Inglis? Here. President Mahoney? Here. Superintendent Stone?

Here. Thanks.

Great. Now, for those of you who would like, we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Recording in progress.

Now I'll ask our student board members to read our foundational commitments, please.

AOSD vision, each and every student is empowered to realize their fullest potential, ready to lead, contribute and thrive in an ever-changing world through the support of our diverse, engaged and committed community.

The mission, Albany Unified School District provides an excellent public education that empowers every student to achieve their fullest potential. We honor the unique ways students learn and are committed to creating inclusive, supportive, and collaborative learning environments. By valuing individual strengths, celebrating differences, and fostering critical thinking, we ensure that every student is prepared to contribute to a just and joyful world and thrive as productive members of society.

Core values, one, we believe in equity and excellence. Every student deserves access to high quality, rigorous, and inclusive learning experiences that honor their potential and ensure they are prepared to thrive. Two, we believe in student-centered learning. Students flourish when they experience agency, belonging, and a wellness in a safe, supportive environment designed to meet their individual needs. Three, we believe in collaborative leadership. Shared leadership and transparent, accountable systems are crucial for building trust, driving improvement, and fostering a culture of learning. Four, we believe in honoring individual strengths. Each student brings unique gifts, identities, and ways of learning. Recognizing and valuing these differences is foundational to meaningful education. Five, we believe in the power of community partnership. When educators, students, families, and community partners work together, we create schools where everyone belongs and every student is empowered to lead and contribute and thrive.

For board norms and code of conduct, number one, focus on what's best for students, ensure a respectful environment. Number two, value diverse perspectives, act with dignity and professionalism. Number three, maintain distinction between board and staff roles. Number four, commit to continuous learning and professional development.

Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve the meeting agenda?

I move to approve the agenda. I second.

uh great uh all in favor aye aye opposed great the agenda is approved i now ask our student board members for our recognition our proclamation recognizing juniors lgbtqia plus pride month

Great. So, I'll unify the School District Board of Education, proclamation number, well, 2025-2026-09, recognizing June 26 as LGBTQIA plus Pride Month. And so, whereas the month of June is nationally recognized and celebrated as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, slash questioning, intersex, asexual, slash agender, and additional entities, LGBTQIA plus, Pride Month Incumeration of the June 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, which marked the beginning of the modern LGBTQIA civil rights movement and.

Whereas AUSD affirms the dignity and belonging of all students, staff, and families and remains committed to fostering safe and inclusive learning environments throughout the district and. whereas AUSD promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as core values reflected in its policies, educational practices, staff development, curriculum, and community engagement efforts, and as AUSD policies in California law prohibit discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, and

Whereas LGBTQIA+, youth continue to face disproportionately high rates of bullying, discrimination, isolation, mental health challenges, homelessness, and suicidal ideation, particularly transgender and non-binary youth, and.

Whereas research demonstrates that affirming school environments, trusted adults, and inclusive curriculum, and visible support systems significantly improve student well-being, academic engagement, and schools' connectedness for LGBTQIA+, youth, and.

Whereas education regarding LGBTQIA history, civil rights, lived experiences, and contributions promotes understanding, empathy, and respect across school communities and helps students feel seen and valued and.

Whereas pride celebrations and themes across the nation in 2026 emphasize courage, visibility, resilience, and belonging, reaffirming that every individual deserves dignity, safety, and the freedom to live authentically and. whereas LGBTQIA plus students, particularly transgender and non-binary youth, may experience discrimination, bullying, exclusion, and mental health challenges that can negatively impact student well-being, school connections, and access to education, and... As Albany Unified School District remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the rights, safety, and dignity of LGBTQIA plus students, staff, and families, and rejects discrimination, exclusion, and hate in all forms, and...

Whereas Pride Month provides an opportunity to honor the resilience, leadership, advocacy, and contributions of LGBTQIA plus individuals and communities while recommitting ourselves to the ongoing work of equity, belonging, and justice.

Now therefore it be proclaimed that the Albany Unified School District Board of Education recognizes June 2026 as LGBTQIA plus Pride Month and encourages all schools and departments to observe this occasion through inclusive age appropriate educational opportunities and activities that promote understanding, respect and belonging for all students.

Be it further proclaimed that the Albany Unified School District will continue to foster safe and welcoming learning environments for LGBTQIA plus students, staff, and families, recognize Pride Month through displays and other symbols of support consistent with district policies and school practices, and will fly a rainbow flag at each school within AUSD throughout June to signify solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer slash questioning, intersex, and agenders slash asexual plus community.

Thank you. Now we're gonna move over to our recognition of our outgoing student board member and thanking you for your service to Albany Unified School District. Superintendent Stone.

Thank you. So we are very appreciative of the work that both of you do have done and the dedication you've given to this board. And so as your last official board meeting this year, we want to recognize both of you. Before we do that, though, do you want to share any of your reflections from this school year?

Yes, we do. We'll go over there. I think this is on. Cool, thank you all. So it might feel too soon to some or not fast enough to others, but this will be the student trustees final board meeting of the year. As such, we're up to here to describe to the student, to the little board trustees, Superintendent Stone, members of the community, the work we've been doing to support student interests, develop student advocacy and contribute as the mission says for the school district took a more equitable and excellent future for math education and AUSD alongside our thoughts and recommendations from the year. And so as my nameplate might have hinted at, I'm Kansal Chodak, or Trustee Chodak, and I'll be starting our year in review off by highlighting the eventful and insightful discussions around our district's allergy and volunteer policies. pretentious for some. I'll admit when I was being bombarded by concerns from nervous students and members of staff within a month of the school year starting, all before having attended an orientation or even having been to a board meeting yet, I wasn't sure on the correct procedure for how to, you know, forward the student voice to the board and to the district. And so I'm very thankful to have my fellow student trustee, Trustee Shepherd, as we were able to work together to address the controversy. Our method is focused on learning about the policy's impacts directly from those impacted, including high school leadership, which is responsible for school events involving baked and bought goods, for example, and world language teachers who host celebrations with cultural baked and bought goods. So basically, by bridging our own thoughts with perspectives from those most passionate about the impacts of the policies, we created a cohesive stance to push to the board and district leaders. And so, but despite our initial confusion, I'm still grateful for the kind of intense introduction I had, as it quickly like brought me up to speed on the access student trustees have to groups across the district. However, I cannot deny that some of the confusion could have been avoided had there been better preparation for the role. And so in addition to earlier support from those here, I'm in favor of the creation of a document with advice from outgoing student trustees, supplementing the existing informal connections current student trustees have with past ones. And so on top of this documentation, outlining research methods and communication avenues would have been amazing to have at the start of the year. And we'll be on that shortly. But this year, we had the implementation of a student trustee email account for mass email outreach. But more accessible methods like social media events and more should be explored and marked down so that future student trustees don't have to feel like they're starting at zero.

Hi, I'm Mackenzie Shepherd, or Trustee Shepherd. While the district was focused on literacy rates this year and made great progress, the student trustees focused on math. Very early in the school year, we both had an understanding of and a passion for change in the math program between the middle school and high school. We both bonded over our math experiences and continually bounced ideas back and forth on how to advance the math program. We both attended math vision meetings had many conversations about the math programs with high school principal Darren McNally, as well as with board president Mahoney and superintendent Stone. We have also collaborated with high school students to gather feedback on their math experiences from different perspectives.

Since I'm leaving, I get to be frank, so. Both of us have strong opinions and plenty of experiences that tell us how our educational leaders can improve the math system across the district. And so rather than sugarcoating it, I'm just going to say that now at times, but sometimes we felt a little unheard and unable to meaningfully act on our and years of other students' concerns. However, some ways we worked to advance equity in the district was by joining the math vision team, where we helped the ideation behind a blueprint that reflects the needs of students, hosting an event at the high school to bring questions that expose what students really care about, and holding direct meetings with educational leaders in our district. Again, avoiding being around the bush, getting student concerns was kind of the easy part, and making actual change in the district was the hard part. I think it's extremely unfortunate that one of the topics that both student trustees this year can contribute so much to was not a district priority, but I think we can both agree that the results of the district efforts toward literacy and the elementary level have got great outcomes, and so I'd like to thank everyone involved in that, especially Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, Karen Treanor. I'd love to hear about math and math equity becoming bigger topics of discussion, especially action next year.

Moving into the next school year, I will continue the conversation that Trustee Chodak and I have been having throughout this year alongside our new student trustee. In the fall, the student trustees plan to have conversations with different site leaders and teachers about the transition from middle school math to high school math. I plan to continue communicating with Superintendent Stone, Board President Mahoney, and Principal McNally to find ways to improve the transition process so it's accessible and equitable for all students. Earlier in the school year, the student trustees attended CSBA, California School Boards Association Conference, where we collaborated with student trustees from across the state, discovering new approaches and angles to bring to Albany on how to increase student voice on a wider scale. This year, we held a town hall for high school students during advisory to share their experiences in the math program and gather feedback on how to improve or maintain the current system. The meeting was a success and opened the door for more town halls for students to come together and collaborate on discussions that differ from math.

So again, a key takeaway for everyone here was that it was much easier for us to gauge where people were at than to actually do something about it. And so this year we've constantly taken the initiative to place ourselves in places to get involved in decision making. But it should honestly be the default rather than something we have to fight for. Aligning with that theme and inspired by the California School Board Association Conference, which was wonderful, where we actually learned about how other student trustees operate. And we've outlined and discussed a restructuring and systemization of student voices within the district. And so it's unrealistic for student trustees, who are usually already doing a bunch of stuff and doing a lot of student trustee work, but then also are busy students and have extracurriculars and all that stuff, to have the bandwidth just solely collect student voices by themselves at the middle school and elementary school on top of the existing work we do at the high school. And so a robust system is necessary for the educational leaders across the district get meaningful input directly from students during the decision-making process itself. gain valuable feedback directly from them after, and most importantly, have the input be consistent and continuous. I'm excited to hear about how Trustee Shepherd, alongside our new student trustee, advances how students are involved and represented in AOSD in the next year. And so overall, I'm actually very grateful to have this honestly dream opportunity to work towards a better future for AOSD, my school district since preschool. While I do believe the district has areas to improve on in supporting student voices and providing an equitable math education, it's common knowledge that one of the things that Albany is most proud of is its excellent schools, and I believe that the current team leading it has the empathy, awareness, and motivation to create a district that my sister, currently an elementary student at Marin, can thrive in. We've been reading the district mission value statements and all that for every single board meeting and I hope that everyone here on both sides of the dais seriously considers how they can work together towards following them.

I'm very excited to continue serving on the board next year. It will be my final year as a student trustee and I'm looking forward to working through new challenges, grappling with new ideas, but continuing to advocate for students, especially historically marginalized students. I want to thank student trustee Chodak for being a great partner this year and for bringing a strong and new perspective to the board. I look forward to working alongside the new student trustee next year and continuing the relationships I built over the past two years on the board. And that concludes our student board report.

All right, if you can stay there, because then I can walk over. So first, I would like to appreciate Mackenzie Shepherd. As you shared, you are going to be on our board for another year, which I'm very excited about. And I just want to say, for both of you, your voice and your commitment and your advocacy for students and students' needs is invaluable. And you are deeply, deeply appreciated. and that goes to both of you. And sadly, Trustee Chodak, this is your last meeting. The good news is you get to go off to college and have a new adventure, so congratulations on that. I think we announced at a prior board meeting, but you're going to Lehigh, which is a huge, just amazing accomplishment, and we're really proud of you. So in addition to a certificate of recognition, which, Mackenzie, you are going to get as well, we are also going to give Trustee Chodak a very special award. Little trinket that you can bring to college if you so choose. And I'm going to bring these over to you right now and give you big hugs.

Okay.

Thank you all. Thanks for the applause. Now I'd like to introduce our next student board member who will be replacing me, Charlie. Welcome up. Yeah, so Charlie, I have been working with him this year as part of the Spiros Robotics program at Cornell. And he has been amazing. I can tell that he's going to do a much better job than I did at getting the student voices, especially at the lower levels, like the elementary voice and middle school voice, especially Can't say that part of the interview. But I will say that I can tell that he is very motivated and very sure about being serious about this job and taking it very to heart for what it means, essentially. Yeah, and so I know that he's competent. I know that he'll do well. And I'll give it to him to give his speech.

Well, it's good to see you all today. I want to start by thanking the committee by which I was elected, which is Trustee Chodak, Trustee Hopwood, President Mahoney, AHS Principal McNally, alongside student representatives Lucas Bai and Naomi Cook. I really appreciate the trust that they've placed in me in choosing me for this position, and I really hope to make good by their trust and really continue the great work that Chodak and Trustee Shepherd have done this year to promote student voices. I am someone who has lived in this district for my entire life. I've gone through Cornell and then the middle school and the high school. I see a lot of familiar faces here in the crowd today. And I am incredibly excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity to continue to promote student voices. I think students have such a unique perspective in a educational environment, and that perspective can sometimes go by the wayside. I think everyone here is incredibly unique in that we've created a environment and we've created a school district that really values student voice. And so I want to continue that great work and thank our current two student board trustees for the great work that they've already done. We have seen their impact on all of our campuses and I would like to continue that great work, really elevate student voices and push forward what I believe to be what students want to the board. So I want to thank the board, thank the outgoing student trustee, Mr. Chodak. You've done an amazing job this year, and I couldn't be happier and couldn't be more impressed by the work you've done and more scared by the shoes I have to fill, but I'm sure that alongside your assistance and the assistance of the very experienced Trustee Shepard that will make something great happen next year. Thank you all.

Great, thank you. Thank you to all our student board members, both current, outgoing, and incoming. I appreciate all of you, and the student input has been fantastic, and I look forward to continuing that on as we go on with board meetings next year. Okay, now we're gonna move on to our review and action items. First item is to approve a variable term waiver request. Are you on this one? She's not here. Was she on the thing? I do not see her.

I don't see her on the call.

I'm going to speak to this one. I believe we have a I will do my best.

I will do my best. Yes. So today we are asking for the board to approve the submission of a variable term waiver request for Antonia Pettia to continue serving as our culinary teacher. culinary teacher at Albany High School while completing her career technical education credential requirements.

Great. We heard that twice. Okay. Questions about that? Any comments from the public either in the room or on Zoom? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

I move to approve the variable term waiver. I second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Now we're going to move on to a couple of contract approvals. I think Director Schreiner, I believe you're up.

Hello, everybody. Good evening. I'm here to recommend the approval for a contract with a new partner for next year. Her name is Carrie Wilson. She is the former founder of Mills Teacher Scholars, who Albany has historically worked with in various capacity to improve teaching and learning and ensure that There are strong systems in place such as inquiry cycles that are driven by teachers and leaders to respond to data and inform instruction and so we're hoping to work with Cary next year to support our secondary schools as our principals know and as we've previewed a little bit in different team leadership spaces to support the development of instructional leadership with our teachers and our site leaders at both the middle school and the high school. This year the ILTs and the secondary schools have come together to sort of think about the coherence between middle school and high school and especially that really big jump between middle eighth grade to ninth grade. And so we're hoping that through collaboration with our ILTs as well as specifically collaboration with our math departments across secondary that this is gonna really build out that work so that there's a really clear instructional staircase that students experience as they move from sixth to 12th grade and really do some concrete problem solving that the team has surfaced between the jump to eighth to ninth grades that all kids are supported. And so we're looking forward to potentially working with Carrie to support that instructional leadership work in secondary.

Any questions from the board? Trustee Popwood?

Sounds like a great idea. I think just something that occurred to me as I was looking through the agenda and the different items we have coming up for approval for contracts is is there any way that we could fund a position in the district? We've got three items on our agenda. This one which is like you said, MathVision primarily with Kerry Wilson. We have another one coming up for support for Fishtank implementation and another with literacy coaching and information support. I know some of those are soft funded, but it just seems a shame that we can't pull from within the district to offer these kinds of supports for our teachers. Is that something that was explored?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's tricky because the funding that we have for this is our one-time, I can't remember if it's called literacy grant or learning grant funds, and so they're not guaranteed each year. And so that's tough when it comes to being fiscally responsible and creating positions around that. We'd love to get to a place where we have coaches and other supports that are embedded within our system and not needing to rely on these outside partnerships. I don't believe, and I would ask Superintendent Stone or CBO Wood if you guys want to add on, but I think given the current state of our budget and what is the reality of the funds that are not soft funded, we don't have the ability at this time unless we were to make other prioritization decisions in the future to be able to fund those in-house, though I certainly would prefer that too.

Clarifying.

Thanks for that question.

Any other questions? Any comments from the room or on Zoom? Okay, seeing none, do I have a motion?

Move to approve the contract with Carrie Wilson. I'll second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. And you're up for our next contract with Ferris Schools to support instructional leadership development and curriculum implementation with elementary schools.

Yeah, so over the past couple months, I think as some of you know who've been in our elementary ILT space, been working really closely with our K-5 pilot team and our elementary ILT members to hear really clearly from teachers what they need to feel supported with implementing the new ELA curriculum, Fish Tank. And the pieces that really came through are around consistent collaboration time, 86% of teachers asking for that, 66% of teachers asking for ongoing professional development related to the curriculum, and 60% asking for coaching and support. And so Fair Schools is a Bay Area based organization that has significant experience with the fish tank curriculum, which is actually pretty rare because the curriculum was created on the East Coast. It's pretty new that it's making its way out here to Berkeley and us in Piedmont. And they also have experience with the two phonics curricula that we're piloting, SIPS and UFLY, which is why this organization sort of rose to the top as one to partner with. And so we're going to be working with them in a few different capacity based on feedback from both our pilot committee and our elementary ILT, or we hope to be working with them. One is to bring together all of our elementary ILT leaders for two purposes next year. One, to develop some deeper teacher expertise around the curriculum and really serve as teacher leaders to support their grade level. And two, to really develop our teacher leaders and our site leaders to lead adult learning. So hold spaces for grade level collaboration time really regularly, hold spaces for preparing for teaching a new unit for analyzing data. So we're hoping to leverage this partnership to really develop those teacher leaders. And then we'll also be working with fair schools around direct professional development monthly with teachers. And they're also gonna be supporting on the ground at site. So this came through really strongly from teachers. They really want support, for example, observing model lessons, meeting with a team to co-plan and then have somebody teach while others observe, sort of like a lesson study model. So, yeah, that's how we're hoping to leverage this support next year.

Sounds kind of great, kind of amazing. You guys can come. It'll be fun. I would love to come. Be careful if you invite me.

I'll add you to the calendar invite.

Do we have any questions from the board? Any comments from the room or on Zoom? Okay, seeing none, do we have a motion?

I move to approve the contract with Fair Schools to support the ILD and curriculum implementation with elementary schools. I second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion passes.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you. Now we're moving on to the consent calendar. I know we have one item that I believe CBO Wu is going to amend in the personnel report. Before I have her do that, come on up. Do we have any other amendments or items on the consent calendar we want to discuss? Okay, great. Go ahead, sorry.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I wanted to actually amend and actually remove the position that is the manager of capital projects, facilities, and technology infrastructure role. The person has actually declined to accept it at this point.

Okay. On the consent calendar, do we have any comments from the room or questions online? Seeing none, can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar with the appropriate amendment?

I move to approve the consent calendar with the amendment as stated. I'll second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, CBO. I believe that moves us on to the main attraction. We're on to the study session element on the facilities master plan update. I think I'm handing it over to Superintendent Stone and H-kid.

So before we start this, we are actually going to take a short break because we're going to reconfigure the space for our board study session, and then we will resume.

Great. Whole new row of contestants here on the board meeting. Okay. Thank you. We're now going to start the study session, the main portion of today's meeting, really focused on the facilities master plan, knowing that we as a board have a boat coming up later this school year. So getting us as up to speed as we possibly can and deepen knowledge of that is going to be fantastic. So I'll turn it over to Superintendent Stone for introductions.

Thank you, President Mahoney. I'm really excited to welcome our partners from HCIT who have been deeply engaged in working with us to come up with a facilities master plan that again is, and I've said this in different communications, but the facilities master plan is something that we desperately needed in the district. Our old facilities master plan was very, very old. And we wanted to make sure that we had a new one that really reflected what we're trying to do in terms of our vision and our mission. And so the facilities master plan that we're talking about tonight is not a short-term plan. It is a long-term plan that will have implementation phases. But tonight what we're going to talk about is what the community input really came up with in terms of what that long-term plan should look like. So I'm actually going to pass it over to our CBO Wu to then kick it off and kick off the discussion.

Hello. Good evening, everyone. I'm super excited to actually welcome HKIT. This has been a whole year now. A whole year's worth of effort to really kind of, and I super appreciate the team of HKIT here who was able to actually reach out to all of the school sites and engage with, you know, parent, teachers, rest of the community members, students, and so forth to help us compile this longer-term 20, 30-year vision. So at this time, I could hand it over to...

Heather. Great. Thank you. It's great to see you all here this evening. My name is Heather Emboden. I'm actually with Communities in Collaboration. I was brought in to be part of the HCIT team for this work because community engagement was so important for this project. Just to give you a little overview of what we're up to this evening is this is our opportunity to share with you the status of the plan, provide an opportunity for you all to ask us as many questions as you want and set the stage for an eventual vote on this master plan that will set us up for the implementation plan. So I'm going to do some context setting, a little overview of the process, which has already begun and then we'll talk about some big themes that have come up in community engagement and then Joey and Jeff will talk site by site about what we heard and the state of the master plans for each of the campuses. So I don't need to go over really what a master plan is because you just heard it from Superintendent Stone. It is a long-term plan that takes into account the both the people, the facilities and the programs at each campus, as well as the district as a whole and how all those pieces fit together. This is not an implementation plan. The implementation plan comes next. That is a prioritized plan for spending the funds that we have to hand at this time. And that will come after the master plan is approved. So I just want to name that this work that you're going to see tonight stands on and incorporates a lot of work that has led up to this, including some recent needs assessments and other planning that has been done. All of that good work has been incorporated into and has helped sort of abbreviate the work that has had to happen for this process now because all of this study has happened. We've brought together a master planning committee. Actually, you all brought together a master planning committee. last May. Many of the folks are here tonight, including your incoming student board trustee, who have helped guide the process all along the way. So you've probably seen some of these slides in your January presentation from Jeff, but just to remind that We have been all along in this listening and learning cycle, sharing ideas with community, getting input, updating, and iterating. And we are now at the yellow circle of planning. But there's been a lot of iteration, which you'll see reflected in the plans. The process overview, I don't need to go into detail on all of this, but just to say it's been really robust. Joey and Jeff have been visiting all the campuses, interviewed many, many folks in the district. The steering committee has been with us all along the way. And we have both done meetings at each campus, two with faculty at each campus, one or two with families and community members at each campus, as well as meeting with students at the middle school and the high school, which was fantastic. I love your students. This is a quick table overview of the folks we met with. We also have a website that many people took advantage of to share their ideas and to look at the information so that people can be familiar with it. And the information that you'll see tonight is also going to go up on the website so that folks can continue to participate that way. So just a little bit about your context here in Albany. You're fortunate, unlike many districts in the region and honestly around the country, your enrollment is stable, if not slightly rising, which is great. And also, your campuses are tight. You don't have a lot of room to grow, which is tricky when you have that stable or rising enrollment, right? And one of the things that we noticed as we're looking at all of the different sites and speaking to staff and folks there is that the campuses are really interconnected and you'll see that play out in how the plans have evolved because a move at one campus tends to impact another campus. So growth in TK programming has impacted the elementary schools. Tightness in district office space has meant that there are some offices that have moved to or taken up space on some of the campuses. And of course there's community resources like the theater at the high school that everybody takes advantage of. So changes at one campus really affect the whole district. So we have to think of the district as a whole. Last thing I'll say about your context is that you have measure L funds that the community passed recently and The priority needs are likely to exceed those funds that you have to hand. Recall that this is a 20 to 30 year plan. So you've got runway. But hopefully we can develop an implementation plan that takes care of the top needs. Thank you. Next one. Yay. So just quickly, one of the things that we did early on was speak to the steering committee as well as faculty and staff at sites about guiding principles to shape the work. We also, there was an online survey for community members as well. I won't go into detail on this, but just know that student and faculty success and wellbeing and safety really rose to the top for families and for staff as the most important things to bear in mind as we did this work. But these principles of a focus on early childhood education, wellbeing and safety, resiliency and stewardship of resources, student and faculty success and equity and inclusivity across the district. They're all important and you'll see them all show up in the plans. And those principles were developed with the input of the steering committee. So we've been thinking about how all of this fits together and really it came to us as a puzzle that you can't all the puzzle pieces have to fit together in this district. So just think about as you think as you're looking at the plans how we want to develop an investment plan that will nurture all the students right. So when we think about how transitional kindergarten programs are in some cases feeling cramped on the elementary campuses there's an opportunity to build an early childhood education center that really is not just alleviating some of the space constraints on the elementary schools but also really building just right space for the littles. And then that makes an opportunity for the elementary schools to have a little more breathing space for some of the specialized programs like science or art or music that maybe don't have dedicated space now. We also looked at the ways in which consolidating district offices would help make some breathing space at the middle school and the high school, investing in that the spaces there for the theater could really benefit the entire community. So we were thinking about this as a little puzzle or even sometimes I think about it as dominoes where you kind of hit one and all the other pieces fall over and you get this opportunity to create the graduate that you are all developing the graduate profile for. I'm going to hand it over to Joey. Hi, good evening.

So we're gonna start, and we're gonna go through campus by campus, but just a little background. So for each of the campuses, there's sort of several precursor slides until we get to sort of the meat of the master plan. And so I'm gonna go through kind of what sort of information is on these slides. I'm not gonna go through it. And then when we go to the other campuses, we're gonna flip through those rather quickly. They were in the study information that you received ahead of time. So this is the first slide for each of the campuses and we're starting with the Albany Children's Center. So this is based on our visits to the sites as well as information from the district and the needs assessment and other information gathered and it talks about the number of classrooms, the number of students, the potential number of students that could be enrolled at that site, how much investment has been made on DSA projects and some information about the energy use intensity. as well as what type of HVAC systems, as well as the age of the buildings. This one's we don't actually know the age, but on the other sites that will be there. Then for each of the sites, this is based on our visits to the sites as well as our interviews with the principals and the staff at the different sites. And we really hear talk about what are some of the strengths at each of the sites as well as the challenges that they have. And on the left there are items that we sort of identified preliminarily early on of things that should be replaced or upgraded on each of the sites. And then these are existing site plans. So here we went through and again with information from the site, updated the plans to show all of the programs and functions. So these will be in the master plan book. They have on the right hand side all of the very detailed information on square footage and what all the functions on each campus are for existing. And then there is also the options. So for several of these we went through several options working with again, the steering committee and the sites and a series of community engagement meetings when we're really updating as we went through. And then for each of these options, again, the program information is presented on the right hand side. And so this is where we'll sort of get into it a little bit more. So the key feedback for each of the sites. So here at Albany Children's Center, one of the big things is that there really hasn't been a lot of investment in the campus in several decades. There's a rising need across the district for appropriate learning environments for children of the youngest age, both at the pre-K level as well as TK. It is a challenge on this site to accommodate up to the eight TK classrooms that are really needed in addition to having pre-K on the site. We really want to provide a lot of that outdoor space that's necessary for your licenses for pre-K and really important for the TK students, so that was also a challenge with this site. and something that we heard back from the community was really important. And then the pickup and drop-off is probably one of the biggest challenges, is that how do we accommodate for a pickup and drop-off with the Albany Children's Center if we are looking, as you'll see on the plan, to integrate it into a fully early learning childhood center that has those TKs on it. So here is a blow up. We tried to make these as big as possible for the site. And this shows what this does is this shows demolishing really everything that's currently on the site and building seven new TK classrooms on the hillside site. Now, this pushes them further into the hillside than that building is now so that we can gain some of this outdoor play yard space and enlarge that. We're not fully in the hill, but we are pushing into it. We still will be able to have windows on these sides of the classrooms, as well as our two exits onto the play yard. So the idea is that, again, that existing building would come down, we can build new TKs, and then we can build new pre-K sites along the Jackson Street entrance. The main entry would remain from Jackson Street with an elevator and access from that side, but we have added several exits up to both Hillside and Cerrito to help with that pick up and drop off. So there could be different scenarios where different grade levels come in and then these exits could be closed off at the end of the sort of rush hour periods, if you will. This also includes kitchen space, as well as admin spaces, as well as a small MPR classroom to accommodate those TKers and those additional program spaces that they need.

I'll go back. Did I miss something?

of a procedural question should we pause at the end of each i would i mean i i think that might be that might be good just from a discussion perspective i don't know we have a formal procedure on this one but uh um i think it'd be good while it's fresh in everybody's mind just to have you know questions or comments or thoughts around the um uh the the current acc site i mean go for it just it's it's a study session just

So in the summary slide, you said eight TK classes. There's seven. Am I counting right? Yes. What does that mean? I mean, obviously, there's one missing. There is one missing.

But somewhere else. No, sorry. So there are currently seven TKs. The eight was to accommodate for growth, but it would, and we have studied it. It's possible, but it's very, very tight on the site to put the eight TKs. And so there's concern about adding that to the site or making that, it would take up some of that play yard space to make that work.

Do we have enough of the pre-K? Is the five sufficient for?

Yes, this is the number, yes.

I will say that based on where we are right now with our TK numbers next year, it is very, very likely that we will need eight as we move forward. And again, this is not next year. This is the future. So we do need a little bit more historical data because TK has grown tremendously over the last few years because we're fully implementing it now. But we've had this conversation with HKIT where I have said I am just not sure that that will be sufficient. But we do need a little bit more, I think, data to make a really informed decision on that.

One of the things I like about this plan I mean not this not necessarily the specific details about this approach in general is um so I'm a big fan of the Children's Center and I feel like it's a little bit doesn't this I get all what the acronym stand for say

And then as we come back around, the existing library can be renovated into a flex space as it's more appropriate for that size. We have our after school two program spaces that can be renovated. And then we take the existing

Again, something that we heard a lot about was addressing the HVAC issues as an immediate need. That is something that actually Linda and facilities are already working on and is in progress, but we have addressed it in the master plan as a possibility if those are not addressed with this sort of current project that's going on. Also, a huge importance on this site is maintaining as much outdoor space as possible on this small campus. It was something that was really important to this community when they did the rebuild and continues to be in the future. They also have a lack of dedicated spaces for specialized programs such as science and music on this site, especially since the addition of TK. And then the idea of reconfiguring the entrance for improved security at this site was very important. We know that they have installed a camera system, but this goes a little bit further than that. So the master plan here, you can see the brown outline here. This is a little different than most and that is really because these two are the brand new buildings but addressing those HVAC issues that exist in those new buildings as well as an allowance for it in the existing main, let's call it the main admin building where you have admin as well as the MPR spaces. So onto some of the new work here. One of the things you can see is a new secure entry. So the idea is that in that lobby space we would add a vestibule type space that could be locked down after sort of opening and closing hours if you will. So all traffic would be forced to go into the admin to check in before getting into the rest of the main campus. This is an outdoor dining area, a covered space that has some issues with leaking and things like that. So the master plan is to repair that as well as add on to that covered outdoor dining space to increase the capacity of it. Over here we are showing a major modification of these two classrooms. Currently they are used for TK, kindergarten kind of goes back and forth but they do not have restrooms. So the idea is that as we move TK over to the new site that these could be renovated to become flexible spaces and we can also add restrooms onto them so that who's ever using those spaces does not have to go over to the main building to use restrooms. So that's the first floor. And then second floor shows the HVAC modifications. So again, this is a pretty new site, so not a lot of work here. And then, you know, something that did come up also was the idea of the MPR is also rather small on this site. Again, though, it did seem more important to the community to sort of retain that outdoor space. And as Jeff mentioned, we cannot go up with an MPR space because the little kids use it and it has to be on the ground floor. we run into that problem of adding space but not taking up any space. So we have left it sort of as is in this plan.

Thank you. Questions? Okay. Oceanview and other upper New York campuses.

Thank you. If we go ahead and scroll to our key takeaways. Excuse me while I get my papers in order. Joy was quicker than I was. One of the things, similarly to Marin, Ocean View has these beautiful new buildings. But one of the things we heard consistently was a concern about the amount of outdoor space. And so there's a desire within the campus footprint to maximize that play on outdoor space and particularly be mindful of supervision of those areas. And then the location of the afterschool program is not ideal with it being in the back of the campus. And that we wanted to, of course, when the project was done, the current NPR received some work, but is in need of some significant work, especially at the kitchen and serving areas, and as well our places to eat outdoors. And then we wanted to improve the arrangement of our student support spaces. IF WE GO AHEAD TO THE MASTER PLAN AND AGAIN WE'LL KIND OF WALK AROUND THIS A LITTLE BIT, WE'RE GOING TO START IN OUR BOTTOM LEFT CORNER AND WHAT'S PROPOSED IS TO REMOVE THE PORTABLES THAT SERVE OUR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM. THOSE WOULD GET LOCATED IN A NEW BUILDING WHICH INCLUDES AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM SPACES TO THE RIGHT THERE AND THEN WE CAN FREE UP THAT GOOD SIZED SPACE TO DO AN ADDITION TO THE NPR WHICH WILL PROVIDE KITCHEN AND SERVING AND RESTROOMS AND THEN HAVE SOME SHADE AND THEN HAVE OUTDOOR PLAY IN THAT AREA. AS MENTIONED, THE NPR ITSELF WOULD RECEIVE A SUBSTANTIAL MODERNIZATION AND THE EXISTING KITCHEN AREA CAN BE TURNED INTO RESTROOMS. And then adding shade and and where we can a little bit of play art expansion And then the bottom right corner again historians among us will know this was the middle school at one point and that was the old shop building this Kind of funky c-shaped building. They've tried their best to renovate and plates place spaces in it But in a lot of cases, they're not Arranged as we would And so long-term would be to replace that building with a student support building, which can include additional flex spaces for afterschool flex, that kind of thing. And then the bulk of the campus you'll see shown in gray was just indicative of it does not need work both at the first and second floor. and then last but not least one of the things that was discussed was that if we are going to capture that front parking lot space on Jackson to make it a part of the school we could take the place on the upper right corner there THAT IS NOW HAS A DEDICATED BASKETBALL COURT THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BECOME A BASKETBALL SLASH PARKING SORT OF LIKE THE REST OF THE YARD. AND THEN THERE IS A PLAY STRUCTURE THERE WHICH IS DIFFICULT FOR THE SCHOOL TO USE BECAUSE OF SUPERVISION ISSUES AND SHOULD THERE BE A NEED FOR ADDITIONAL PARKING BEYOND, WE COULD POTENTIALLY USE SOME OF THAT AREA FOR PARKING.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OCP PROPOSALS?

Where do kids do recess predominantly? Because it looks like there's just the three green play structures.

Really? Yeah.

So we have one yard that everybody has to have rotations around for recesses. And then there's a kinder yard. But realistically, we can only have about two, maybe three classes at a time. And we currently have four kinders and two TKs. So in terms of that, again, it's on a regular rotation. Okay.

And the two green boxes are the kinder?

Those would be just shade. I mean, they're play areas, and there's an eating area there that we've created because, again, we need space for the little TKs and kinders. But where it says new shade structure right there, that's currently a whole play structure for TKKs. So they have a little separate area, but first through fifth all participate in recess on the one yard that we have.

Trustee Cohn.

The only question I have is is there a reason why we're not extending the gate all the way on to that little side street that leads into the school district. School. Structure.

Sorry. You're talking about where it's shown in sort of the dark color.

The end.

Yeah, so we do need to get provision. So first and foremost, there's a bottom of the NPR that there's a little bit of an access road, which we've cut off. But we still need to get access for food deliveries back and forth to the kitchen. I guess.

My question, I guess, more so for Ana, is just do we see, because I know right now in the past there have been times where, like, parents will literally just drive all the way down onto that to get to the aftercare. I know this is kind of a new setup, but I wonder if that would still be an ongoing issue. It's just because parents don't pay attention and there have been, you know... SITUATIONS THAT WE WANT TO AVOID.

YEAH, IN AN IDEAL WORLD WE WOULD HAVE A GATE THAT LIKE TRASH OR, YOU KNOW, ANYONE COMING IN WOULD HAVE ACCESS TO ALONE AND IT WOULD STAY CLOSED DURING THE DAY. THAT WOULD BE IDEAL. And then one thing to note that I think we talked a little bit about is where it says green on the far left and there's that blue structure under the trees that's currently an outdoor eating space that we said we could kind of build all the way to the fence for outdoor green space or outdoor play space.

We can definitely put a gate on the service drive.

Okay, any other questions or comments? Okay, we are on to the middle school.

Okay, so the key themes for the middle school restroom upgrades, this was something we heard a lot about from faculty as well as from the students when we met with them. That was probably their number one feedback for us, including having all gender facilities. That was top of mind for the students. Improved access to the annex, the street crossing, as well as the building entry and how that sort of path works. As you know right now, there are some district offices there reconfiguring administrative spaces and access to campus, maintaining and improving areas for eating as well as recess and outdoor play for students, and then increasing and updating spaces for physical education and athletics. This site serves as the main athletic site. So you'll see that here. So we have a lot of sheets for this campus. So we'll go through them and then maybe we can talk about them at the end. So this is the first floor of the main portion of the campus. You can see for a lot of it we are showing minor modifications with areas of major modification within the existing building that includes restrooms, AS WELL AS THE ADMIN AND SUPPORT SPACES TO HAVE MAJOR MODIFICATION AS WELL AS THE CURRENT GIRLS AND BOYS LOCKER ROOMS OFF OF THE GYMNASIUM. THE IDEA THERE IS TO ADD A NEW addition to that building that would have a new all gender locker room as well as new flexible spaces and this would be accessible to both the gym as well as the outdoor play yard where PE also takes place. Then we also are showing on the sort of main classroom building and it's small addition So it has a new classroom on this level as well as the second floor and that was something that came out of our latest steering committee meetings was to really Accommodate and provide for this growth that we're seeing at the elementary schools how that might have that domino effect on the middle school so adding that additional space A big change here is the servery and kitchen area. So this is the sort of existing outline of the kitchen is here. And there's a sort of outdoor eating space here for the students. So something we heard a lot about is there's not enough eating space The kitchen is also very tiny. And this is, again, one of those sort of puzzle pieces that Heather talked about. You'll see when we get to the high school, some changes there are sort of having this domino effect that the central kitchen would now be located on this site. So the idea is that we would build a new central kitchen and new servery at the middle school, and then we would expand the outdoor dining space off of the – Enlarging the original into what was the kitchen? So this is where the new central kitchen would be located for the site and then you'll see here It'll show up in some of my other plans But this is showing some new team rooms on the Cougar field and some improved access and pathways to Cougar field from the site as well as from the sidewalk on Spokane actually adding sidewalk from Spokane so that that can be easily accommodated by the high schoolers and other students that use the site and And then going more into Cougar Field, you can see here, this is a new sort of exercise station. So something we heard from the PE teachers is they are running out of teaching areas. They have an extra section of PE. So adding an exercise station would really sort of help take some of that pressure off. and then adding some new team rooms to accommodate athletics from both the middle school and high school levels. We're showing minor modifications and ongoing maintenance to Cougar Field. And then at the softball fields, we're showing a major modernization there, and the idea is that Field two could be an all-weather turf. The varsity softball field could remain as grass or could also be an all-weather turf. The idea being that we heard that there is an issue with field space and by sort of having them have the same surface or being upgraded, the outfields could be used for practice fields during the non-softball times of the years and temporary fencing could be used during softball seasons. So now we go to the second floor of the main classroom building. And again, you'll see that addition of the new classroom at the second floor, as well as the minor modernization for the majority, as well as the major modernization of the restroom spaces. And then going over to the annex. The annex is a relatively new building, so not a lot of work there. in the existing spaces. We are showing to do major work to the exterior spaces to make that more appropriate for middle schoolers for their sort of outdoor and recess time. And then we're showing minor work in what is now used as district offices. So in this the admin spaces would be turned over to the middle school as well as there's a classroom that is being used as an office and so that would also be turned over back to the middle school. We know that there are issues with crossing the street here and so that is something that would be looked at and would have to be looked at very closely with the city of Albany in ways that we might accommodate that. And then no work to the second floor of the annex, again, very new building, nothing proposed up there. And that was all the sheet.

Great, middle school questions? Vice President Inglis?

So what what would go into that outdoor space at the annex? What does that mean? I know it's middle schoolers outdoor appropriate.

Yeah, I think that's something that we would get more into as we get into it. There are some of the main things. There are some drainage issues out there. So there is some sort of like regrading that we would have to do first to make sure that it drains properly. And then that would be something that we would work closely with. the site and even probably the students later to decide what would be appropriate for them. It wouldn't be play structures, probably. There would be shade structures, hangout spaces, something that they would enjoy or possibly teachers could use for outdoor learning.

Related question, besides it being used with teachers, and maybe this is for Mr. Mapes, but when is that space used during the school day? Because of just thinking, there's a big outdoor space at the Annex, and do kids, do they have recess out there?

for five minutes so they can eat something before they go to their next class. So they, anyone who's in the annex, when... Mike. Mike. Sorry, I thought I was last.

You are, so those following along at home.

we go so going back to that area so that area is used during our long break and just some even during the five minutes kids will kind of congregate it also can be used like again for outdoor learning from time to time teachers will have kids go out there and do work all right what was the question again was the other part of the question

No, that was the question.

Yeah. I mean, it would be nice. There's a large area of that that was meant to have plantings. And when we had the drought, it all kind of went away. And it's not really a place kids can just hang out on. So that was a space where they could have seating areas and feel more like a middle school. It's also majority of where our eighth graders are. So it's really the annex is almost all eighth grade on purpose.

Other questions? Trustee Cohn?

Not a question, but a comment. I guess, would we want to potentially explore shaded space? Because I know there's shaded space at the second floor, but not as much on the first floor. And I wonder if that's maybe a larger, later project, because it's not a necessity. But it just makes me wonder if that's something that's needed, you know?

Yeah, trees, shade. I mean, they're not over in that area a lot. But if we were going to use it as an outdoor learning space, then yes, we'd probably want some more shade out there for teaching and learning.

I guess part of the reason why I ask is because I know during rainy seasons, there's not too, too much covered areas for the middle schoolers in particular. And I know they go into the hallways or into classrooms, which is great and very much appreciated, but I also wonder is a long-term kind of thing to think about. I don't know, just thoughts. Not tied to anything, but yeah.

Yeah, and we open the gym. So the gym's open, the library's open, the atrium is open. But yes, I mean, always having, you know, we have covered the covered shelters outside in the courtyard that were added during the pandemic. So that actually really helps. And kids like to go out in the rain in middle school too and get wet. Yeah.

to have kids drenched in water.

No. Neither do most parents, but you know. Along those lines, just a more general question. As we look at these plans, help us think about what level of detail should we be concerned about, right? Some of these are great ideas, but I'm sure kind of putting a block saying we're going to do a lot of major investment here. I'm not going to worry about the configuration of classrooms or something inside that block, but like help me think about what altitude I should be at.

Yeah. I APPRECIATE THE QUESTION. WE'D LIKE TO THINK ABOUT THIS AS A 30,000 FOOT VIEW. SO THANK YOU FOR THE SEGUE THERE. THIS IS GENERAL IN NATURE. IN THE BROADEST SENSE WE LOOK AT OUR NEEDS AND WE IDENTIFY BUILDING HERE. WE HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT THE DESIGN OF THAT BUILDING AND THERE WILL BE MUCH MORE DETAILED PLANNING THAT WOULD COME WITH ANY PROJECT, ANY OF THESE PROJECTS.

We have a question on the Zoom. Go ahead. You had a question?

Is there more information on why the Cornell site is the site for the district office?

Well, we already talked about the Cornell site, but do we want to go back to address that a little bit? Talk about some of the options you looked at and why we ended up there. Thank you.

Sure. So I can't so much comment on history, but in the different versions, different meetings and conversations we had, there was positive support for the district office being located on Solano, as Solano is sort of the heart of the community and that presence felt like it was important. And so that district office building is there. adjacent and then as mentioned there's that space on the second floor which long ago did house the district office and feeling is that it's it's more appropriate for staff than it is for students and so we looked at ways of taking all of the space that Cornell uses in that second floor and putting it in a more appropriate located ground floor location and the new a new addition

Thank you. Trustee Shepherd.

I had a question about the entries. So for Cornell, there's like, I know it's like, on Cornell, there's like three secondary entries, but then, or four, or five, but then at Marin, there was none. So like, what counts as like a second entry?

You have a good eye. There are secondary entries at Marin on Curtis that we neglected to locate. There's that great stair that comes down off of Curtis. And then we know that, well, the driveway that comes in between the MPR and the new building, sometimes that gets used. And so appreciate the comment and we'll get that cleaned up.

So it just counts as like a gate?

Essentially a primary would function before, after school and during school and the secondary is only before or after.

Any other comments on the middle school? We will move on to the high school.

Okay, I beat Joey to the paper this time, so. We'll go ahead and start. Similar to the middle school, in a lot of the conversations we had, there was great importance placed on restroom upgrades, especially having gender neutral accommodations, particularly in the locker room areas. And then all the conversations, we heard about the importance of the performing arts space, the theater to the whole. community of Albany, in particular how it's used. And so we wanted to reimagine that space, but also increase the capacity. Improve our spaces for our music and arts, including having a dedicated space for dance. Those that know the dance program has a sort of a partitioned part of the cafeteria now. And then we wanted to increase space for our science program, increase options for students. Then we want to maintain and improve areas for eating and This says recess, but let's just say outdoor activity. And I'll just point that that picture is from our student feedback session that we had. And you can kind of see the areas that were of greatest importance to the students. And so now we'll just go ahead and walk through the master plan.

I just want to point out that on that, the one that's covered with dots completely is about dedicated dance space.

Yeah. dedicated dance space So talk a little bit about this and then we'll talk about an area that has really seen some iterative development And then we'll see what it is like now The Albany high school we think about it as a relatively new building But it is coming up on a point where it needs a refresh and so that main gym and classroom building get that minor modernization including HJC work and then what we're showing as getting the major modernizations are our restroom spaces and then as well looking for opportunities to utilize some of our lobby space to address all gender locker room space of course that wouldn't be open to the IBB closed off and relocating concession additionally our administrative area is in need of a reconfiguration so we can have DIRECT ENTRY INTO THE ADMINISTRATION AREA DURING THE SCHOOL DAY AS OPPOSED TO GOING INTO THE HALLWAYS AND LOBBIES AND THOSE KINDS OF THINGS. AND THEN WHAT'S PROPOSED IS TO, AS WE MENTIONED, RELOCATE THE DISTRICT STAFF OUT OF WHAT WE'RE CALLING BUILDING F, WHICH I BELIEVE YOU ALL CALL SOMETHING DIFFERENT, BUT IN THE MIDDLE THERE, WHAT WE'RE CALLING BUILDING F, ONE OF THE CLASSROOMS IS USED BY ADULT TRANSITION AND ONE OF THE CLASSROOMS IS USED BY I.T. DEPARTMENT. And so if those go, we're able to repurpose and reconfigure and provide a dedicated dance space. One of the things that came up over and over is that dance wants to be near the PE area. And then wanted to talk a little bit about our bottom right corner here, which is, I think, one of the more involved portions of the project. And again, we went through a number of iterations. We started looking at renovating these buildings and sort of what are the pros and cons there, what did it address, what did it not address. We looked at removing one of the buildings and keeping the other and building new. And sort of where we've gotten is what's shown here, which I think is really exciting for the community, but also for this high school campus. First and foremost, those that know that what we call the central kitchen is the place where meals are provided or prepared that are then provided to our other campuses. And that is located on the high school campus, kind of in the cafeteria area. And sort of as a pre-step, that would be moved off of this campus and to the middle school, and that frees up space to expand and enlarge our Performing Arts Center, our theater, to have a space that seats about 450 people, and then to have a stage that can seat a orchestra, as well as having a back and side stage areas, green rooms, those kinds of things. By doing building this all new you can see that we move a cafeteria serving and at this point warming kitchen adjacent our quad and one of the things that was exciting was the possibility of that being more internal. so that that can sort of spill out and people can get there. The other thing we know is that there is a band choir space in the building, but it is not configured in the way that we'd like it to be. And by again, by building new, we're able to probably size and configure those spaces. And then you can see restrooms there to support that first floor. So we go to the next page. We've separated the Aquatic Center. We know that's located on the campus, but that needs the kinds of improvements you would see for a facility of its age. I think it's coming up on 15 years. And so that's showing modernization. Then we go to the second floor on our main building. As we go our main building again see the minor modernization as well as our restroom space is getting the major modernization and we see a second floor of our new building where we can locate our electives And so these aren't named because that could certainly be something that's planned down the road. But some of the elective type spaces could include photography, 2D art, 3D art, culinary, those kinds of things. And again, if this project goes forward, you could do that kind of detailed planning. And then we can pick up an additional classroom space there as well. And then depending on, if we go, oh, somebody's sharing it. Thank you all.

That's awesome.

Yay. If we go up one more to our optional third floor. Thanks so much for doing that. Pay no attention to the person behind the curtain. We are in need of another science room and so we can take one of the spaces there which I believe is now used for photography and turn that into proper science lab that can move into the new building. And what we're showing is the option of a third floor which provides for growth at the high school campus. will allow us to pick up in this case an additional seven classrooms some of which could be elective some of which could be our standard classroom sizes those that may remember at one point and looked at doing a three-story building at the location of what we call building f what we found it was more economical and cost effective to have the idea and the option of a third floor on this new building that would allow Again, when you get to that detailed planning stage, sort of right-size the number of classrooms you need for the campus, right-size how many you want as standard classroom versus elective classrooms. Okay.

Any questions about the high school? Question from soon-to-be student board member Charlie.

So less of a question, more of a comment, but when we were, I was a part of the master planning committee for some background, if anyone didn't catch Heather's comment, and I appreciate being mentioned, thank you. When we were looking at what we wanted to plan for the high school, Something that really came to mind for me from a personal standpoint is feeling like we had a really lack of investment in the arts. We have really great STEM programming. Mr. Castle has his giant room with all this technical stuff. And I take classes in there, and it's this really exciting space. But I also am involved personally in a lot of the different arts that use the C building. And something that we've really felt is that we're constantly running into compromise. And so, you know, came to us, the steering committee, with a bunch of different options on how to reconfigure the C building. And I think Mr. Mahoney said it best when he said, all of these feel like we would be investing money and we would be wasting that money. because a lot of the different ways that they wanted to reconfigure the current building just simply wouldn't, we would run into the same compromises that we're running into now, especially with the theater space because we can't even fit a full grade in there. And so a lot of the different activities that we do require fitting a full grade in there, and we just simply can't do that. And so even though it's this huge project and it's a lot of work, I would really push forward my voice to say, hey, this is what the high school needs to show that we are taking the arts seriously and we truly believe in a lot of the student expression that happens in this space. And then the other note would be what a great resource for the community as well to have this theater That's a place where a lot of people can come together because it's not just used by the high school It's used by people from the middle school. It's used by a lot of programs including clubs after school And so not only would this affect the high school, but this would also be affecting a lot of other students as well Thank you Other comments or questions trustee hop or drop I

I just have a general question. Obviously, we can't project our enrollment particularly accurately, but how much extra sort of seats would we have, so to speak, in the district with all of these if we were able to, obviously, I saw at the end that an admittable number of 300 and something million dollars to do all of this, but let's just say we have all that money.

So we did list that on the detailed master plan slide there which has the data and there is an increase in number of classrooms and it is

we go from 57 to 66 if i yes that's correct darren will tell me if i got the dude you meant do you mean overall or just at the high school no i meant overall and the district i think maybe a good exercise to go through like we just added some we added some space at the acc we're adding space here i think that's i i suspect we don't know that answer but it'd be a great

Because currently we have, what, 3,750 approximately in the district. I'm just curious how many in total.

That's a great question. Other great questions or less good questions?

I'll take whatever you might have, just for the high school.

I'll just say for the coming year, we're looking at 1180 for the high school. We don't have enough classrooms for that 1180. If you look at as each full time teacher has their own classroom. So at this point, the high school can be considered over over impacted. And if that's working backwards from just the rule of thumb of one classroom per class, full time classroom teacher. And we're we're well past that at this point. So, and that's with, we'll end up having an average grade level, ends up being about 315 with that number, just as a rough rule of thumb.

So I'm just curious, yeah, how much extra, how many extra seats you would get with any of these improvements ultimately?

You just brought the number.

Yeah, we went from, it's like, how do we zoom in? I think it was, we went from 57 to 66, so nine and.

Nine additional classrooms is what.

Classrooms, right, so. Okay, so we're taking 30 kids per classroom. Would that be reasonable? You said nine classrooms times the 270 spots. Well, say 250 just to be conservative. I'm just curious.

Yeah, and that's a pretty good rule of thumb. When you get into high school, you start counting, you know... We run into issues around purpose-built classrooms. So science classrooms have certain needs. Art classrooms have certain needs. And actually, our biggest issue right now is that we don't have enough science classrooms. We don't have enough classrooms with plumbing is our most critical need at the moment.

Thank you.

And one of the things when you, again, if you get to detailed planning, you can adjust how many of those are larger rooms that could accommodate say an elective or science versus how many of those are what we would consider a general education classroom. And so those numbers are based on sort of the numbers of big and general ed classrooms that are shown. You can flex kind of either way.

I just, my concern I guess is that historically in Albany we've built facilities that turn out very quickly to be too small for the need. So the middle school for example was built for 600 students, quickly accommodated 900. So I guess that's my concern.

I think this goes to some of the work that we're trying to do now with looking at historical data and looking at what we think the future data might be around demographics and just adjusting. So yeah, to that point, there's no crystal ball and we can also look at what have been the shifts and changes over the years so that we are being smart about accommodating whatever we might need to accommodate in the future.

Other questions or comments? Go ahead, Trustee Chodak.

I'm just curious, does the central kitchen being moved to the middle school affect how food offerings are managed? I'm just genuinely curious, because I felt like the food got better as you go from elementary to high school. Is the middle school better now or something? I'm just curious.

It's a really good question and certainly not one we take lightly and certainly one we could dive into a detailed planning stage I think the thing I want to mention is that To do this project You would have to move the central kitchen off the site while that construction occurs and I think one of the things that we took into consideration when planning was that a wouldn't necessarily be, in a world of limited resources, would you want to do that twice? Would you want to move it to the middle school so you can build this building and then move it back? And then we also ran into the space constraint of the central kitchen is just a lot bigger. Now, this is still a really good size kitchen here. And certainly, you can do, This wouldn't necessarily have to be a heat and serve this is this is allows for the size of this allows for still to have Some on-site prep with potentially having some things that are coming from a central kitchen to here And so it's I just want to stress This is bigger than a heat and serve kind of kitchen and so you could still have some choice And we have the same number of serving stations as you do now It's all that things I trust you Shepard

With the central kitchen moving, I know there's like the community can come and get food. Is that like specific to the central kitchen? Because then if that was like then moved to the middle school.

Good question. No, so that's the, there's not food actually being prepped during the food bank time. They're just using the cafeteria for the distribution. So that could still continue at the high school.

Got a question on Zoom. Go ahead. I have a question about the high school. Go ahead.

Hi, this is Sabina Feinberg, executive chef. And I just wanted to say thank you for that question from the student. Whatever happens, we will do our best to keep the same level of food at the high school if we end up moving the Central Kitchen to the middle school. So don't worry, but thank you for that question. And yes, the food pantry would also, we would be able to fit it in somewhere I'm sure, but it doesn't have anything to do with the central kitchen itself, really.

Yeah, thank you. I'm quite fond of the salad bar.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for the question. Someone was actually eating at the high school cafeteria at my age. The food there is actually really good, so I can understand your concern. Okay, other questions about the high school?

I also want to just give a shout out to our executive director of food services because it is very rare that you hear students say that they like the food in a school district and that is something that I hear often and I have also eaten there and I love the baked potato bar, so good job.

You had a question?

Yeah, thank you. This is probably more district-wide question building on Trustee Hopwood's question. I'm curious, in addition to the number of added seats under this plan, obviously for us Cornell parents, we're like, don't take our space, right? But we're also offloading TK kids to other sites. I'm actually kind of curious, ratios of kids to space, and has that drastically changed at any site And if so, did it go up or down? Because it's not as clear to me if Cornell per kid is actually losing space or gaining space. And also, I feel like Albany Children's Center is probably losing space per kid. Just putting that in more context to understand what do these changes mean at each site and collectively, I think would be helpful. It's for me to understand what these changes mean.

Thank you. You guys want to respond?

I can add that there was a net gain of two flex spaces plus the stage at Cornell, but we appreciate the question of looking at it as a district as a whole.

to that that you know in the in the guiding principles there was the two that rose to the top were about student and faculty success but also about well-being which included the outdoor spaces and those as you have seen throughout these presentation are really intention because of the the size of the campuses which is is fixed so you know would everybody like loads more space, sure, but there's been some trade-offs made at most of the campuses to try to make sure that that tension was managed as best as possible, so appreciate that.

Go ahead, Trustee Shepard.

For the cafeteria, I was wondering if there's any way that there could be more seating on the second floor or more space for the cafeteria on a second floor. Because I've heard a lot recently from my peers that they wish that there were more places to sit at the high school that were in the hallways. So I think if there are two levels to the cafeteria somehow, that would accommodate that. And then also for the dance, Do you think it would cause any issues for a dance class to be next to two or one classroom and then surrounded by classrooms?

On the first point, yes. We could certainly, in lieu of having a double height cafeteria, you could have a second floor where there's seating. On the second really good question, and to accommodate dance in that space, you can do acoustic separation and such between that classroom on the end and the dance space itself.

And we're also showing the locker room between the sort of main dance space. So the locker room would create a little bit more of a buffer also, so you wouldn't have that music and the dancing right next to the classroom. But yeah, great point.

Great. Should we move on to the next slide?

OK. We keep on going. Okay. So one of the things we wanted to share is that we have done some cost estimating. And I want to just make a couple of notes here. This is organized by school. But one of the things you'll see kind of in the middle of the table is what's construction cost. And so that is in current dollars in 2026. And then you'll see something called escalation. And so what we've done is approximated if project design were to start in the fall about when would that construction occur and so we've included sort of an escalation factor because cost will rise over time and the other thing that we've looked at and you can see if you get into the detail is that some of these projects would need to be built in numerous phases so you need to do a before you can do B before you can do C and so that stretches out the construction time which makes more escalation and And so we've taken a pass at phasing on the campuses so it can be realistic about, again, if you were to start on one of these projects in the fall, by the time you got to construction and if you went through all of that, this is what it would be. And then what is in their soft costs is that is a 35% number that's added to construction costs that accounts for things like fees, inspectors, engineering, your contingencies, furniture, sort of all these different things. And then that gets us to our total project cost. The other thing I'll note is, for example, some of these campuses would rely on what we call interim housing. And so in order to do the project, and in those cases, there is within that number and allowance for interim housing for those particular projects. And so we look at as a whole and as we mentioned, this is a long term vision. This is a 20 to 30 year type vision and these are the costs that we see to sort of realize that vision over time.

Go ahead.

Is the housing accommodation the reason that the cost per square foot is so different in all of those?

A really good question. In some ways, OK, we have averaged that over the whole space. And so the differences, for example, when you look at the middle school and the high school is they have so much more space. And so when the costs get averaged over the whole space, that's what it comes to. And the bulk of the work at the middle school, for example, is renovation. And renovation has a different dollar point. um the flip side uh ocean view has that um that new building in the corner and i'm catching that 22 number 22945 i got to make sure that actually encompasses all the existing because that i think that is actually off a little bit But then when we look at Cornell Albany Children's Center, we know that there's a lot more new construction as opposed to renovation. And so generally speaking, your renovation costs are going to be lower than if you were building new. And I will double check the square footage on Ocean View.

Other questions?

Great.

move on to the summary slide next steps heather this is my turn so um next steps are uh so as we said this these have been iterative these master plans um now that you've seen them will also be distributed by the by the website and um the principal so that the community can see how they're Feedback has influenced these plans. Depending on your feedback and your feelings about the readiness, we will bring this back to you for approval of the master plan or voting on the master plan, hopefully in the near future. And then once that master plan is approved, then the implementation plan will be drawn up and that will be brought to you. The intention is in the fall.

thing i'll add is is with the passage of proposition two there are some new requirements that were put on the state facilities program that is a program which provides funding matching funds that kind of thing for projects for renovation new construction that kind of thing and one of the new requirements is that a district have a board approved master plan and that that be updated every five years. Not only is it a best practice but it will become a requirement to participate in the funding.

Did you have a comment?

Sorry, quick question. I know that we're saying this is like a long 20, 30-year plan. When are we hoping that we'll begin? Are we like, is this five years out? Is this two years?

I suspect that's, I mean, I don't want to answer, but I suspect that's the implementation plan conversation that'll happen in the fall. So right now, my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, we're saying, hey, in 30 years, we think this is roughly what it'll be, revisiting every five years so we can continue to tap into that money. That's what we're gonna try and approve first. Once we've approved that, then we go to implementation, which will figure out timings and order, et cetera. And also, spoiler alert, sorry, that number was 400 million and we do not have that.

And will the community be a part of the implementation as well? We'll be able to...

It'll be a board... I mean, for sure, it'll be a board conversation. So, yeah, for sure. And I think it's just a really nice job of incorporating community feedback, and I assume that'll continue to go forward. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

If I can add to that, I think what I really appreciated about tonight is just seeing how one thing plays into another, plays into another, plays into another. So as we think about that implementation plan, we do have to think about this piece over here knocks down that domino over there, and then that. It all connects. I also just want to highlight and mention, because I think this can get a little confusing, muddy when we're talking about facilities master planning and deferred maintenance planning. And there were a few things that were mentioned tonight that could go into a deferred maintenance plan, which is not like 20, 30 years down the road. It's like... Like HVAC, for instance. Yeah, some of those things. So we're also in the process right now of reviewing all of the maintenance that we need to do at all of our sites and then putting a plan in place for that process, which comes out of a different bucket of money also. So I just wanted to highlight that.

I'd like to just talk a little bit about process for the fall, because as you say, the implementation plan does invite another round of conversation with the community. And the intention for that is to have a district-wide conversation, because as we've seen today, we really need to think of all of these not as individual projects, but as a district as a whole. So that conversation will be to talk about rather than as we did this round, go site by site, because the pieces do all really depend on one another.

Thank you, thank you. I want to thank everybody who's been involved in this just from the get-go. Like I think this has been, you know, we've gotten feedback from teachers, from site administrators, from parents, from students. I think it's been a really open process too to get the feedback and what have you. And I applaud you guys for taking thousands of pieces of feedback and try and synthesize it into an initial stab at a plan so i really appreciate it i want to thank you for for doing that and uh and for your patience uh as we all ask our questions to try and kind of figure out what the best plan for it is so thank you for that and i think that's all for this the study session great um Now I'm taking it back to our regularly scheduled meeting. Our last item is, do we have any future board meeting topics for agenda planning, knowing we've got two left for this year? Seeing none, we do not need to recess to close session, so let's move to adjourn the meeting.

Move to adjourn. I'll second the motion.

All in favor?

Aye.

We're adjourned, thank you.