Bolton School Needs Assessment Committee
Date: Monday, January 9, 2006
MINUTES
[X] Addy Buffum
[X] Richard Fly
[X] Ted Kirchner
[ ] Tom Pokorney
[X] Leigh Shanny
[X] Karen Cavaioli
[X] Joel Bates
[X] Ken Tucker
[X] Bob Tower
[ ] Margaret Campbell
[X] Panny Gerken
[X] Chris Slade
Meeting Location: Florence Sawyer Conference Room Begin: 6:35 PM End: 08:05 PM
1. Minutes from the December 12th meeting were approved.
2. Richard Fly is now on the Bolton Advisory Committee so he will be taking Chris Slade’s position on BSNAC and we will be looking for another voting member.
3. Data from the Population Forecast Committee and Space Needs Committee need to be more connected before presentation to the committee. Right now they don’t fit. The Space Needs Committee will have one more meeting and Leigh will attend that meeting to help the data to coincide.
4. The three sub-committees reported on their status:
a. Population Forecast Committee: data is now combined on spreadsheets for comparisons. It now needs to be compiled with the Space Needs Committee data at the meeting mentioned above.
b. Space Needs Committee: still gathering data. The committee is not only looking at how many students each room can accommodate but also what is regulated by the state and the School Committee.
c. Regulatory Guidelines Committee: still gathering data. New guidelines were handed out for review from Panny. Regulations, however, are still up in the air because there are supposed to be new regulations coming up before July 1st. Perhaps information will be available at the end of the month.
5. To clarify the direction of BSNAC, each committee that was able to, reported on what they have so far, what direction they see their data going, and what they need from the others at this time:
a. Population Forecast Committee: at this time, it appears that there are three scenarios to be analyzed. There is a worse case scenario with full build out, a middle scenario looking at similar towns and economics, and then the best case scenario which is the amount of full build out recommended by the Planning Committee at this. Forecasts cannot be done by grade because it has too many variables. Forecasts are done by total population for K-8 for consistency throughout the last 20+ years (Preschool is a new addition and not included due to lack of historical data.) At this time, history seems to be the best forecaster at this time. One caveat to the data, however, is that the average purchase price of the home has gone up and the number of children coming from those
households correlates with that data. The subcommittee asked for other towns to use in its community. Suggestions were given: Sudbury, Carlisle, Wayland, Westford, Harvard, Boxboro, Southboro, Northboro, Hopkinton. Joel will email to Panny the list of towns that the NRSD uses in comparisons. What is needed now is information from the Space Needs committee about the trigger points for use of current space and use of existing space available in both buildings.
b. Space Needs Committee: with the new information presented by Leigh, Ken had more data to share with the committee in regards to space usage for Emerson and Florence Sawyer. The Space Needs Committee will now discuss this new data at their next sub-committee meeting.
6. The committees shared what their needs and expectations are for the next meeting. The Regulatory Committee hopes to share any new information that may be newly available and there were no more needs at this time. The Space Needs Committee will meet with Leigh of the Population Committee to talk about trigger points and nail down the recommended or ideal use of current rooms as well as the painful transition maximum capacity. They will also take a closer look at the support structures like cafeteria, gym, library, auditorium, etc. They don’t have any needs at this time. The Population Committee will gather some more information that is missing and substantiating some of the data given to the committee from NESDC.
7. The agenda for next meeting on January 23rd is to share the results of the models from each of the committees. This information will be reviewed to see if the goal for final presentations on March 3rd is feasible or whether more time is needed.
8. New meeting dates were scheduled for February 13th and February 27th. At this time, there are no other meetings scheduled but may be added after our January 23rd meeting.
NEXT MEETING: January 23rd at 6:30, Florence Sawyer Conference Room
Bolton School Needs Assessment Committee minutes taken by: Addy Buffum
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