Coraggio Consulting
City of Fairfax School Board Work Session, Monday, October 20, 2025

Date: Monday, October 20, 2025
Place: City Hall, City of Fairfax, Virginia
Length: 1h 21m (video)
Official meeting video (city, Granicus): https://fairfax.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4358
Agenda: https://fairfax.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4358
Minutes: https://fairfax.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4358&doc_id=e6b47244-af57-11f0-8df7-005056a89546

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:01] Okay. Good evening. Tonight is Monday, October 20th of 2025, and this is the work session of the City of Fairfax School Board. Presentation to the school board. Now the joint meeting presentation planning. Do we need this?

[00:00:19] No. Okay, so we'll start with it. Perfect. Okay, we're going to start with item one, which is the joint meeting presentation planning for the joint meeting with the Fairfax County School Board. I have some thoughts about the agenda item for our contribution.

[00:00:43] I would like to, in some way, shape, or form, talk about modernizing the SSA, board to board. Is that in the city presentation or in the SSA discussion? What are you talking about? On your second page, it's just kind of a...

[00:00:59] Oh, you did something. I just did like a... I don't know if we're doing a presentation. Okay. So that, you know, this is the same board as last year.

[00:01:16] The presentations, I don't think we all need to meet each other again. I think that's wasted time. We don't, it's not, you know, we would want to have enough time to talk about things that are consequential.

[00:01:33] So I can talk to you. So we set the total agenda for this meeting. No, we say this is what we would like on the agenda. county says is what they would like to discuss. We have done like presentations to sort of familiarize new board members with the city-county relationship, but the issue is that nobody has changed seats. It's the same people last year for both boards. So what are you shaking?

[00:02:10] We're new. But you guys were, didn't you guys come to the? They came to the dinner. I thought you It's a public meeting. Yeah, I didn't come to the public meeting. Oh, you didn't come to the meeting. Okay. I arrived later. But I think regardless, FCPS has seen, their school board has seen the presentation.

[00:02:29] Unless there's something you want to know about FCPS, I would prefer not to have. So still continue, do introductions, that's important. Yeah, introductions are always important. i wouldn't um but i don't i my feeling is i don't need them to spend 20 minutes talking about what they're yeah we we follow what they're doing i've been at every almost every school

[00:02:58] board meeting since july i i think that we don't really need to waste time um and so i i'm i can speak with sandy about you know if they're okay with just having an agenda for topics of discussion if everybody's okay with that if unless somebody really would like to do some sort of like here

[00:03:31] pictures of our schools and i mean i i agree with you and i think that the ssa discussion those board members probably don't know anything about it they know very little because they We haven't gotten into the weeds of some of the stuff yet.

[00:03:47] No, you're 100% correct, because our schools, for most of them, this is not their magisterial district. Other than Carl Frisch and Sandy Anderson and the at-large members, they don't really, we're not part of their district, their region.

[00:04:10] And we send them the SSA document ahead of time? Yes, we would absolutely have to send that and the tuition formula. um is that sound okay um we the generally can't remember how long was the meeting it was like an hour right yeah um let me find out from sandy also if there's any pressing on their side um that they wanted you know but this is i'm i'm looking at it this year this is a meeting that

[00:04:46] is about the relationship between the county and the city and how we are working together or not working together and I think that you know there there are some I think I don't think anybody would disagree that the contract needs to be modernized whether that's amendments a total rework I don't know but I'd like to have see what the sort of the temperature is you know like how we can approach

[00:05:25] this with them so it does not become you know a contentious situation because that's the last thing that I think any of us you know I know that there's a there is a degree of angst in the community about the cost of the contract and you know and not connecting dots about you know

[00:05:57] per pupil tuition rates across the region there are some there are some people who have some very strong opinions about what we're getting as part of the agreement in terms of instruction influence decision making i think all of that are things that we would probably need to now this would just be sort of the introduction like hey we're thinking about this and we're

[00:06:29] We're moving, you know, we're moving in this direction just so that they can sort of warm up to the idea, I would say. And they also will have, you know, we need to start working on this.

[00:06:45] The election cycles really, I hate to say, they kind of screw us because we are every two years. So, but then there's on the op, you know, so we're always, it's always a new board somewhere. And the last two iterations of the county board have been a 70% plus turnover.

[00:07:06] So you're starting completely fresh. Is everybody okay with SSA being, is there anything, what are some other topics that you all would consider if that's not something that?

[00:07:24] I guess I have a follow-up question related to SSA first. Could we, if they're down with talking about that, could we go through points or specific things that we want to talk about with the SSA? Yeah, and I think that that would be something we would have to work on as a board prior, like in a work session possibly.

[00:07:45] Like what are the most glaring components, you know, of either the SSA or the tuition contract, which is part of the SSA, that we are seeking to, I don't want to say correct necessarily, but again, I'll just keep using the word modernized because this contract was signed in 1978.

[00:08:13] Things that we have now, we have a lot of components to our education system and facilities that were not in existence then, just thinking about technology. So, like back then, it was said that we had to physically attend board meetings because nothing was televised, right?

[00:08:36] Like, are we going to keep that? Which would go both ways for also our liaison. Yes. So, they're just things about in the contract. We didn't have academies back then.

[00:08:53] We didn't have as much the special education services. There was no AAP. There was... Do you think it makes sense to begin the discussion or is it more important to go through and really talk about the different parts, make sure they understand the SSA?

[00:09:09] Because are they going to have time, my guess is no, to go through and have any conversations? I don't want to blindside them. Well, they should review the documents before the meeting. Yes, but as a board, they wouldn't have had any chance to discuss anything. Oh, about the SSA? Probably not.

[00:09:28] I mean, I think that's more on us. So it's more of a, it's not particularly going to be a back and forth conversation. It'll be more of a here, here, yes, because let's be honest, why do they care? We're paying them, right? Nothing's changing.

[00:09:44] But there might be disagreements on them. Yeah. They would disagree with us if we want to change something that's going to be uncomfortable for them. Or, you know, maybe cost them, like, some money. So I do think that.

[00:10:01] We almost want to present it to them in some ways. I do think that we should say, here are the components of this agreement that no longer work for the city of Fairfax schools. But even as like a PowerPoint of like, let's look at this reading. So it is in some ways a presentation, it's just not a presentation of the city.

[00:10:20] It's not a city presentation, it's a presentation of the SSA. Like this is our agenda topic that we would like to discuss. And that would probably be, we'd have to, this is something obviously we wait for Carrie because we're going to need her in terms of the presentation and the communication piece.

[00:10:38] But I would start thinking about the SSA, the tuition contract. What are some, you know, like I said, what are some components of either of those that really jump out at you?

[00:10:59] Can we get J.C. to come? We could, but J.C. doesn't really. So his understanding is probably no different than ours at this point. Yeah, he doesn't know what's in. Part of the issue is the itemized tuition bill isn't really itemized.

[00:11:18] It's itemized. But when you say, here's our operational costs, well, okay, that's fantastic. That's an item on the tuition bill that we're responsible for a percentage of. But what are you attributing to that operational cost?

[00:11:36] because I venture to say we are paying for some operational costs somewhere that we don't utilize. So I think that JC and I talked extensively about the tuition bill, and it was originally when I asked him about the classroom rental that he went in and really read what that piece was.

[00:12:06] Everything else in the SSA is, I hate to say it, you know, you read it and what does it tell you? Not a whole lot. Because back then there really wasn't a whole lot to talk about other than your kids in a seat in our building and we have kids in a seat in your building and there are teachers and your kids ride buses and there are these buildings that that's about the extent of the SSA.

[00:12:39] So, you know, obviously we'll have to put this on a work session, and I think the best way to be productive in that work session is for everybody to look at the SSA, look at the tuition contract.

[00:12:55] I am more than happy to answer questions or sit down with anybody who wants to really understand what the tuition contract, you know, what it means.

[00:13:12] And I do have the tuition contracts from 19, the tuition bills, sorry, not contract. But the bill is from the first, which was 1980, after they signed the contract in 78, the first official tuition bill that we got was in 1980.

[00:13:36] And I have almost, I think I have almost all of them. And I'm happy to go over the classroom rental component and explain there's a double dipping. I have some memos from back then, late 70s to 1984, regarding some parts of the SSA that were identified as problematic back then.

[00:14:06] So, and I think it's okay to, to, to, to bring it up to say, look, you know, I think once they, for them, this isn't something that's on their mind. It doesn't affect them the way it affects us, right? Like we are less than 2% of their overall student population. The majority, you know, 80% of those, 70% of those board members have nothing to do with the city of Fairfax schools in general.

[00:14:38] they might have one kid who attends the academy part-time if that so but i do think that if we present it in a way like hey this is you know what was signed in 1978 it is now 2025 and here are some you know concerning elements of this agreement and the contract i even think the population sorry to interrupt no no you're not interrupting the um the just even the changes of the county itself and its student population has grown exponentially compared to our city itself i mean

[00:15:17] and that well you know that ratio is not reflected in the calculation so it's funny i will tell you when we signed the contract there was 170,000 students in fairfax county and we had 4,550 something students which is significantly more than we have now and they had 20,000 less so we actually represented a larger portion of the county when we signed the contract. That being said, it wasn't a majority or even a significant percentage. But there was a lot of history behind

[00:15:52] that timing or during that time. It was the county that terminated the contract. There was quite an argument that went on between the city and the county at that time. And they pulled the the schools contract in retaliation of the city um you know city became an independent city and then decided to have their own fire and police which you you have to go back and read all that it pissed off the county they were not happy about that so they said we're pulling the

[00:16:31] schools contract if you don't want our fire and our police you can run your own schools too and it was this whole thing and you know the city was in my opinion it seems like they were groveling like we we need the school's contract so I think in a lot of ways they agreed to some things that I don't think they would agree to now um so and back then I'm not sure I'd have to look at the

[00:17:03] 62 contract I don't know if if they had to provide how long they had to provide services beyond the termination, that was worked into the 78 contract that even if, you know, say the city decided to terminate it, we still had to maintain the contract for three years beyond, like it was like a three year, we're giving you notice.

[00:17:29] So we'll have to, there is some history also involved that explains why I think back then some of the, I mean, if you look at the news articles, Janice Miller wrote it against the school contract in 1978 so um she did not think it was a good deal it wasn't a good deal

[00:17:58] many people jack rust didn't think it was a good deal so um and i think if you really yeah dan would you be asking them to take a joint look at it yes i think that they i think they should 100 percent look at the school services agreement look at our tuition what we get like hey this is the contract that's in the ssa and this is what you give us would you be okay paying this with just

[00:18:36] this information you know i i think it i don't i think we you know the city has been very um now granted we have gotten great you know i would say my kids went through k through 12 i graduated from South Lakes High School, we've had great services.

[00:19:02] And I don't think we've paid too much. If you look what we're paying per pupil compared to, I mean, sure, are we paying more than Manassas Park and Prince William County? Yes, but do you want to be a part of a system that is Manassas Park or Prince William County?

[00:19:21] To be fair, I mean, Prince William, I think, is subsidized with data centers too. Well, now. Yeah, now. Yeah, same with Loudoun. I do have a logistic question. Do we need to have, or are they going to want to have, like, we're not making any decisions, but do we need to have any legal counsel involved?

[00:19:40] Because it's a contract. I think we might want to check on that. We don't. Because we're not opening the contract then. You can have any sort of conversation. Nobody's voting on anything. We're not proposing anything. We're just saying, look, we think it's important that you all understand what we are dealing.

[00:20:04] And here, this is where our challenges are and where we feel that a conversation needs to be had regarding this agreement and this contract. If they say, yeah, go ahead and open it, we're not going to talk about it, go ahead and open it, then you kind of know where it's going, right?

[00:20:28] So then that's a decision to be made then. Do you want to risk it or do you just want to, you know? But I do think that many people on that board would be interested in hearing what we have to say.

[00:20:47] Are there people on that board who don't care? Probably. But I think there are plenty of people who would agree that this is important to us and we do contribute to FCPS.

[00:21:08] And, you know, while we're not, you know, a significant force for every magisterial district, I mean, we are centrally located.

[00:21:26] They use, I don't want to say they use us, but they do use our facilities probably more than any other school in this area. Forgive me if you said this early on, I'm setting up here.

[00:21:45] So are we going to ask for a conversation or a study? Are we not ready to sign that? well i think it's a conversation first like are you willing to have are you willing to go down this rabbit hole with us without opening the legal part are you willing because if you're not willing to look at the contract and you know then that kind of says it all that's either we have to legally just open it because we can have you don't have to open up the whole contract you can do a board-to-board amendment or

[00:22:24] addendum. Even opening it doesn't change the terms that two people have to agree to be out. I just don't want, I'm not playing the game of, go ahead, open it. That's also not our, that's not our goal.

[00:22:40] Our goal is a conversation to adjust it, as you said in the very beginning when you brought it up, to modernize and to make sure that the contract is clear for this day and age. So don't think it's a matter of anybody leaving anybody it's a matter of hey is this working and for the parties that party or parties that it's not working for what areas is doesn't need to or it can be working and we still need further clarification are there areas that we can flush it out i mean i think the modernization is the word for it just needs to be looked at and a conversation needs to be had and what are the

[00:23:15] gas yes and please know that like threats from anybody in the financial office this is not their contract they would have to do you know what i'm saying this is a board to board agreement and i don't think we're going to board of supervisors school board city council school board agreement and we're not particularly also saying we're coming into a just for the money aspect like we'd like to also look at the tuition bill but but there's some of this is that there's other things of can we flesh out what we're providing what they are providing and what that

[00:23:52] looks like in 2025 as opposed to 1970. I think the classroom rental fee like talking about that and understanding what it is and yeah and debt service are we paying for your debt service why are you not paying our debt service? I do think you should be careful about questions like because I don't know that it's I don't know that people are going to have the answers to the questions.

[00:24:13] No, no. That, okay, let me clarify. That is not a question for their school board. Their school board has no idea what we are paying for. The actual itemized bill, that's a question for their financial office.

[00:24:29] And the issue with that is we don't have to do anything. We have a right to ask them to clarify what it is that we're paying for. If they refuse, then legally we would ask our attorney to get the information, force the information.

[00:24:52] You know, I mean, realistically, too, we might look at it and everybody might decide, like, it actually works for both of us, just leave it alone. Yeah, 100%. Yes, like, it's not like we're paying 30 grand a year per kid and they're paying $20,000 a year. We generally pay between $500 to $1,000 more per pupil.

[00:25:11] And there have been years where we have paid less than they pay per pupil. It's quite literally luck that it has worked out that way because there are quite a few areas of the contract where nobody can really say for sure how they got these numbers.

[00:25:35] And they were agreed. here's the thing like the attorney said the city signed this contract so they knew regardless if these numbers don't make any sense and it is quite apparent in a lot of the memos that the city acknowledged that some of these percentages were either you couldn't explain where they came from or they the city felt like they were unfair they still signed the contract we have no recourse

[00:26:12] We weren't there. I mean, I was, whatever, eight years old when they signed the contract, but we have no recourse. The city signed the contract. It has no termination date. They signed a contract that has no termination date.

[00:26:28] It also does not say that the contract needs to be revised every five to 10 or 15 years. It says nothing. At the end of the day, too, the way those numbers have lined up, being just a little off when we're in the oven.

[00:26:44] So it's a pretty good guess that they made when they came up with those multipliers and all that stuff. I talked to Janice about this. She's like, I have no idea how it always works out. She said, but it does. She said, I have no idea. She was like, nobody really, so.

[00:27:04] I mean, I think you bring up a good point of that, you know, in the conversation of modernization, Do we see whether the board is open to maybe establishing as part of this annual meeting we do have to have a periodic review of the contract and see, like, sort of just best practice?

[00:27:27] It doesn't have to be in the document, but just more. But that would be, if we were able to get everyone around the table, that would be an amendment to the contract or an addendum that, Hey, section 18.5, we're going to make sure that every five years that this contract is reviewed by whatever boards are in office.

[00:27:58] And nine times out of ten, it's really only us that's going to care. I mean, we are a rounding error in their budget. We are. I mean, their budget is billions of dollars, and we pay them $77 million.

[00:28:18] I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying, like, even if we, like, got it to a point, like, even if it was like, oh, they're going to pay us $2 million less next year, I'm not so sure that they would probably be like, okay, that's reasonable. It all makes sense now.

[00:28:34] But they could go the other direction, too, where they're like, no, we're not going to change it. I mean, I don't disagree with that. But I think that relationship is we do get amazing services with the tuition bill that we do have. But on the other end, we do provide them seats in a very difficult area to figure out the boundaries here.

[00:28:56] I mean, how do you shift 2,000 kids? 2,440 kids. Especially with the drama in the western end of the county at the moment. We're pulling kids from the western end of the county. Yes, and I did speak with one of their board members about the new high school, and there had been conversation about it being a magnet school.

[00:29:21] They're looking to have it be an overflow high school for Centerville and Chantilly, which would, that's what we're pulling from that end of the county, from Hampton Chase and Office Stringfellow and Clifton Road.

[00:29:39] But they're also possibly looking at a magnet component in terms of doing something with aviation, since it's so close to the airport. So, yes, they have kids in our buildings, but that could affect us.

[00:30:03] If they, everybody that comes to us from the Chantilly Centerville, who would normally logically be part of that magisterial district, they would end up being in the King Abdullah school.

[00:30:25] So we just need to like tread very lightly, not bring up that school. But just knowing like we're very centrally located in the county, very centrally located.

[00:30:41] that doesn't mean we couldn't take kids on from woodson they're overcrowded at woodson um we could take kids i mean think about even oakton they had a huge renovation i think they're almost at capacity um like there there are areas where we are in a good position geographically to help them so all right so we'll just leave that and i'll figure out from sandy um possibly if they have something that they she might say no let's just talk about that um which would be

[00:31:20] great because then we don't have i mean i don't think they have anything pressing for us anyway um not that they've brought to anyone's attention so can you send the ssa and all the amendments that are out there so that we have a complete set of everything there are no amendments I thought there was one.

[00:31:40] Nope. I thought we did one just catchments. They're, yeah, but they're not amendments. We found MOUs, but they're not amendments. Yeah. Okay, but. Yeah, there's just. I'm thinking one's like a couple years back. No. I thought we did. No, there's not been anything done in a couple of years.

[00:31:59] Okay, Dan, are you, do you want to know if you're ready? Okay. Just a brief update on this, and this is really just a summary of the notes that I sent to you last week, just so we'd have a chance to kind of talk it through in real time.

[00:32:16] So just as you know, we met with both architecture firms, mostly architects and Architecture Inc. a few weeks ago. Our team, me, Barb, and Carey, met with the team, and we kind of came away from the – the purpose of it was almost like a pre-planning – or a planning pre-meeting is a better way to put it, just so we could start getting our heads around the scope of the things that we needed to look at.

[00:32:39] And both meetings went really well. I think we walked away from it feeling like we're in great hands. Both firms are so competent. They've worked with FCPS schools before, so they're familiar with the region, the area. They know us. At least one of the two firms has built buildings in the city of Fairfax before. And I just felt like it's, you know, there'll be moments where things feel painful, I'm sure, but I really do think we're working with people that are smart and fun and going to be easy to work with and pay attention to us and all those things.

[00:33:05] So I think it's going to be a fun process. And so just an opportunity tonight to kind of look at some of the things and to think in real time if you have questions or thoughts or things that you're wondering about. One thing that is kind of cool, they are familiar with each other already, and one of the architects reached out to the other, and they got together also to talk about ways to bring, in some cases, verbiage, but just sort of the structure so that both school communities feel like the process is similar.

[00:33:33] No one's going to feel like somebody else is getting more than they are. And obviously, it would be our job to monitor that and make sure it stays that way, but so far, we're off to a good start. And they were all good with that idea. They see the benefit for both firms for that. And so if you want to, I'll share a couple things, and then you can ask some questions.

[00:33:49] It's only nine slides, but they're quick ones. This is a tentative timeline, and we had a question about kind of the overall timeline. And if you remember, we've got funding to get us through the end of FY26, so the end of June 26.

[00:34:05] So you can sort of see, like when we talked to these guys, we were thinking first, what do we need to talk about to get us through January, assuming that we'd have a new superintendent, the seat by that point because we don't want to go too far without that new person but we also don't have time to sit around and wait so we want to get some things kind of going and then also just sort of sketch out what happens from there if we get the funding that we're expecting to get from city council kind of what happens down the road and so just a quick look at this and again this is architecture inc sent us a graphic and a narrative and mosley sent us a narrative so i'm

[00:34:43] going to show you the providence graphic and the mosley narrative in just a second but just if you If you can see, through end of March, we've got planning things, and we'll talk about it more specific schedule in a second, but that's sort of where we are. So April through June would be continued planning.

[00:35:01] If we have a feeling in April that we're not going to get the funding, that's where we would take a break. If we do anticipate getting funding to continue the project and finish the job as we intend, those months would be filled with more planning also. And so, just there's, you know, there's design, there's, I'm going to show you kind of what we're going to talk about with the community, but there's different phases, and the last phase is the one where you actually see shovels in the ground and all that stuff.

[00:35:32] That's construction, theoretically starting in January of 28, and you see everything before that, permitting bids and awards, all those sort of things. There's a lot of design and planning before that. But construction takes two and a half years with the intent or the goal.

[00:35:48] And remember, this is like, it's a long way off right now, and a lot of things can happen. But if everything lined up and the weather was good and funding was right and we were productive in our planning pieces, you might be able to open the school in September of 2030.

[00:36:08] This took two years off of that. Just be anticipating. I'd like to be there at the end. And so SC means substantial completion. So August of 2030, aiming for substantial completion. Let's see if anything went on. Why don't you talk about SD just for people who are DD?

[00:36:27] Yeah, so DD, well, I'll tell you what. Let me go to the other narrative because it's going to spell it out a little bit better. This is the same idea for Daniel's run. Let me see something real quick in my notes to see if there's anything I wanted to know. And again, just remembering that anything after June 2026 is tentative because the funding isn't in place right now.

[00:36:53] And so then looking at the Moseley architecture firm narrative in the same way. You know, both firms talk in terms of milestone dates. I think that's probably an industry standard. So take a second and just read that. Well, since we're recording, we've proposed a schedule and we'll work through the owner to accommodate mutually agreed upon milestone dates and understand that the city will authorize the four phases of the project based upon project viability and funding availability.

[00:37:24] We've assumed 28 months for design, 10 months for permitting and bidding, and 32 months for construction administration services. We anticipate a construction NTP notice to proceed issued in May of 2028, substantial completion in July of 2030, and school opening in September 2030.

[00:37:42] We will provide a project schedule for design and permitting activities For the purposes of this proposal, we assume regular update meetings in person or by web link during design activities at a mutually agreed upon frequency, agreed to frequency. And so basically, this is the narrative version of the same thing.

[00:38:00] There's a month differential from that substantial completion in July versus August. But you can see seasoned professionals, two different firms, and they both came to the same conclusion about the sort of time frame that we'd be looking at to do these projects. and so questions about that you kind of get the idea design is where we're doing all the things that we dream about doing what's it going to look like what do we want in there what are the new innovative things what's all of them we don't need it anymore what are our big spaces look like is there anything innovative that we want to do in the classroom and you know even thinking about things like technology and other things like what wiring do we need to put

[00:38:37] in something so we don't have this giant cord right across the table things like that bidding and permitting is just what you think it's like going out to bid for the construction work. Now, both of these firms would be with us from now through the end of the process. So they design it, they work with the supermitting and bidding.

[00:38:54] The way their contract is written is they're locked in until the last shovel's empty. And then they bid for the actual construction and other pieces along the way. There are other professionals who would come in and assist. They both have, I don't think they're all design teams, they both have teams of experts. So engineers, designers, financial folks, everything that work with them, some of those overlap. So some of the people who are going to be doing both projects, some of the organizations and so you might see the same engineering truck at Daniel's Run one week and Providence the next. And you might see different ones and it won't really make any difference.

[00:39:29] It's just like they're both doing the same work basically. There's nothing other than, I mean, there'll be site differences and community wishes that might be different and things like that. But both of these things are building kind of the same building on very similar terrain in the same community. So questions about that? Are either of those timelines?

[00:39:46] Do any board members have questions? I just want to make a quick statement. That's fantastic to see that this process, although stars align, is six years from when the bond was passed that the schools would be completed.

[00:40:02] Any year earlier. Hopefully. And there's plenty days and enough money. Exactly. Stars align and everything else. That's a fantastic timeline, and I really hope we can absolutely do that. It feels close, too, doesn't it? 2030 is not that far away. Right, when you get to be this age, everything feels really hard.

[00:40:20] It's all tentative, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. All right, so there's those. And we can come back if you come up with any other thoughts or questions on that one. Okay. Then just looking at a more specific schedule for us for the next few months. Basically, both sites, both teams will be doing simultaneously getting data and talking to the community.

[00:40:42] So it's actually the same thing. Some of it's environmental data and building data. So we already did a walkthrough of Providence last week with a team of about 20, so engineers, security folks, everybody who's going to cafeteria design people, all that food service design. And then all those people, they come in, they walk the building, they reaffirm what was in the facility conditions assessment.

[00:41:03] They see what broke since then or what might have changed. You know what I mean? And they also probably reevaluate and say, like, well, I think that's going to be okay or whatever. Like, they look at everything. They take a lot of pictures. They'll be building scans of both organizations. We'll make 3D models of the schools.

[00:41:20] And all this is planning through us and through the schools. We sort of assist with getting that set up with the schools. Just because we don't want to leave a big burden with the school to just manage. And I have a feeling all of these folks are going to be so professional on it.

[00:41:35] We probably don't even have to be there. But I think it will make things a little more seamless if Mr. Pratt and Ms. Mullen talk to us rather than just a bunch of people they don't know. I think it'll make it more clear for them. So data gathering, stuff in the building, listening sessions with the staff.

[00:41:52] Both schools will do a meeting with the staff in November. And we've got firm dates for one firm, and this week we'll have firm dates for the other. And the windows will be pretty close. Some of them, I doubt we'll do anything on the same night, but we might do some things during the same week.

[00:42:10] Staff meetings are probably going to be, the first one will be in person. You know, with collective bargaining and FCPS, we can't require anyone to be there. We would just throw it out and say, if you're interested and you want to join us, come. And if you don't, you don't have to, and the information is going to be there anyway. So we would do the staff meetings in person, and it's really just listening.

[00:42:29] What are things that are troublesome, worrisome, things that we need to address, things that you love and you don't want to lose when we renovate, all those things that as a teacher. I went through one of these processes when I was teaching sixth grade very early on, And it's the same thing. It just gave us a chance to talk about what was important to us.

[00:42:45] And as people who run the building, you want that. And then also a community meeting. Community meetings, we're going to start online. Eventually, there'll be things that you want to look at, maybe touch, and those will be in person. But to start with now, we want to be accommodating to folks who have kids.

[00:43:01] And it might make things easier to be able to listen to it online. So we'll see how that goes. And we're kind of entitled to either and both as we go through the process with both firms. and I kind of leave it up to us. Let me see if there's anything else on there. It's kind of the same thing all the way down the list.

[00:43:18] And Ms. Esther, ask your question. Now I think I'm going to clarify one more thing. Just a quick question. Sure. Well, maybe I can't say that. Ms. Esther, with the staff listening intro session, is there another opportunity beyond it in person just so they can get feedback?

[00:43:36] I figure there is. You know, really, honestly, when I was teaching, we gave information. We snuck over and saw what was happening and gained information then. So kind of throughout the process, they're going to be listening. And they'll also revisit things. And this is just like you'd imagine. It's almost like doing a draft of a paper where they'll gather a bunch of information, and they'll go back and write it, and they're going to say, no, that's not what we meant.

[00:43:57] We wanted this, you know, and they'll have a chance to. And also, our staff is part of our community, so they're welcome to come to any of these meetings at any time. They're welcome and appreciate their input. And then just for clarity, I think I'm going to talk about the staffing needs and the outside help needs in just a second.

[00:44:17] But you can see, you know, when I first started, we were just starting the facility conditions assessment, and there were a ton of times where I would coordinate just exactly what I just said, between the architecture firms and the engineering firms and so on with the school.

[00:44:35] Sometimes I would meet them over there and carry the key myself so that nobody in the building had to be pulled away. So there's a role for someone in our office, and then there's also a role for someone who understands architectural drawings and permitting things like that. And that's not necessarily the architects.

[00:44:52] This is somebody else. So the architects are going to protect us really well. It's also smart, and I'll talk about it in a second, to have somebody else who's monitoring the architecture stuff and the things that they're doing to make sure we're getting what we want so that there's no misunderstanding. Any other questions on that one or thoughts?

[00:45:09] And then one of the things that both teams ask, both architecture teams ask us to do, now their verbiage is a little different, but I have a feeling we'll either stick with what they normally use or we'll just merge and use one, but the spirit of these is kind of the same on both teams.

[00:45:25] So they're asking us to create three teams at each school. This is very similar to the work that we were planning to do and we did when we did the bond referendum, where we gathered some people together who had a high level of interest and wanted to be involved in the process.

[00:45:41] And so the integrated design team slash owner review team, depending on which firm you're talking with, this is the group that really gets into the details of the design team. It's the first line of decision-making, reviewing environmental standards, lead certification, systems, milestone documents.

[00:45:59] We're going to be regularly with this team, and people will drop in and drop out. Like sometimes, I mean, in a minute I'm going to refer to my little experience with concession stand and stuff like that. I think there are times when we want someone to be able to translate what you all want, what our community wants back to the firm.

[00:46:17] There are times when they're going to say, I'm trying to get in touch with somebody in the city and I don't know who to talk to, and then I'll call and find that out for them. Not necessarily just me, but someone in our office. So superintendent, assistant superintendent, someone from FCPS facilities, and we have someone who's willing, and I'm working with FCPS right now just for clarity.

[00:46:35] In fact, remind me to come back to that in just a second. Someone from the project management team, which I'll talk about again in a second, will invite principals sometimes, there'll be a city engineer with us sometimes. We could even invite a city council person or a school board person or city manager, just depending on the event and what they're talking about that particular day.

[00:46:56] I think the FCPS thing, we had one little hiccup, and it's almost like a blessing that it happened at this point, where one of the architecture teams asked for some documentation from FCPS, and the FCPS response was, we're not managing this project. It wasn't a snide response.

[00:47:13] It was just like, this isn't our project, it's somebody else's. And so this gave us a really good opportunity to solve the problem now of what is this going to look like for the next four years? Because if the SSA stays intact, FCPS will pick up a lot of the maintenance on the things that we put in, and we don't want to put in a system that they will maintain.

[00:47:32] And so for both of us, this is a great example of how the SSA would function correctly let's talk about it now so that it works now 20 works for everybody 20 years from now and so we're working through that piece of it and i had a great conversation with the person in fcps and i'm kind of waiting for a response so i know we'll talk again soon and i think it's going to end in the right place and i'll keep you posted on that obviously so that's one team the second team when i was a teacher i was on this at our school the steering committee so key stakeholders and decision makers to set big picture goals and directions for projects will meet the strategic intervals, more often during design and less during the later in construction phases.

[00:48:12] This is a number of school board members, whatever you all decide is fitting. Superintendent, assistant superintendent, again, somebody from facilities, somebody from project management, and then for certain meetings, principals, engineers, PTA leaders, community members, city leadership representatives, and really anybody else you deem important to be on the team.

[00:48:30] I know at one point we talked about having someone on the team to help us look at the financial piece of it to make sure we're, you know, our goal is always going to be to be responsible stewards of the public's money but to make sure that we're doing that and it might be good to have somebody who's objective who's not on the, who's not looking for the faucet design to think about that piece, you know, so somebody who might play that role. That's the steering committee, again, more early and less later for steering.

[00:49:01] And then the final team is really, this is the public team, this is where members of our community, parents, Students, coaches, anybody else who might want to be part of this could join us. Basically open to the public. We publish information that's shared with this team for everybody to see.

[00:49:19] All interested parties, including the steering committee, are involved in this. We'll gather feedback from this group about experiences, hopes, likes, dreams, et cetera. They'll also get the opportunity to look at designs, refine the design along the way. And, of course, the steering committee would review materials before they are released to the public.

[00:49:37] And it's all public information. that they would, the steering committee kind of helps steer us in the right direction and make sure that, again, we're being responsible with money and all those things and thoughtful. This group gets to dream big and, you know, kind of just think about what we want as a community.

[00:49:54] So that's, those are the three teams. So that's kind of like, it's up to us. Over the next month and a half or so, I think, Barb, did I get a goal of late December for that or January 1st? Somewhere in that ballpark of kind of having the composition of these teams in place.

[00:50:12] And so this is, and just like the bond referendum, we need to get a list of names together, talk about it, think about who's interested and who we might want to recruit, reach out to those people and recruit them, see if they're willing to do it, make sure they understand the commitment, and then kind of go from there.

[00:50:29] And so one last thing, and then to your questions. So I love these old pictures so much, and I want to share them with you one more time. So at one point in our community, there were parents who sent their kids to these four schools.

[00:50:45] So if you've not seen them before, Leighton Hall in the upper left corner became Daniels Ron, Westmore consolidated with Germantown below it to become Providence, and then Green Acres joined the Leighton Hall community to become Daniels Ron.

[00:51:02] And you know, like, at one point, I don't know why I get emotional to think about stuff like this, people got up every morning, they sent their kids to these schools, and it was like important to them. And then one day we said, we're not going to have those places anymore, we need to make something good for them. And we did, you know, and so when we think about, like, you know, you know what we got.

[00:51:19] Apparently it's been a long day, and you all have been working in a way too hard, right? So, um, Barb's seen this before, though. It's not a surprise to her. I didn't bring the tissue. Yeah, I know. Barb's starting, too, now. Dean, you should have started with, like, you didn't, you should have, you couldn't have started with the closing of John C. Wood and Fairfax Elementary.

[00:51:37] Fairfax Elementary, right? I worked at John C. Wood. I was like saying, like, there were six schools. Yeah, there were. There were. I've got pictures of them. I'll share it another time, too. But what I think is, like, what's important is us getting it right. You know what I mean? And we need to, for our kids, and for the 30 years from now, there'll be another group of people who sit around a table like this and decide to undo what we did or go to the new thing or tear them down.

[00:52:02] You know what I mean? And there's a lot of beauty in that. So, like, there's an honor in being involved in this, and it's going to be a challenge. And some days they're going to be mad at each other about things like that. But in the end, if we get what we got last time, we'll be really satisfied. So, you know, I'm in, and we'll have other good people who are in also.

[00:52:19] I think I do want to say this, and it's going to seem self-serving, but it's not in some ways. I do want us to think about, or I encourage you all to think about, the staffing needs to get this done. So there are communications needs that are going to come in the next year, and there are going to be staffing needs for all those coordinations and things that need to happen.

[00:52:38] I think that, like in my opinion, as somebody who's worked in the office and knowing, like we want to keep up the good things we do every day in the city, I think having a full-time superintendent, a full-time assistant superintendent, even if it's the current status with both of those, and then the full-time communications person, especially through these first couple of phases, because there are going to be a lot of meetings, there's going to be a lot of information, we don't want misinformation, we want to make sure everybody's included and feels a part of it.

[00:53:05] So I think those are considerations. When we did the budget originally for this, there was a three, oh, okay, I'm going to talk about the project management side in a second. So that part would be on us to figure out or to ask for funding, and it's not a substantial amount of money. It's not a lot more than we're already doing right now.

[00:53:22] The other part is the project management piece, and that's where the people who know how to read plans comes in and know how to fill out permits and all that. We built in a 3% cost into the budget, So it's already included as a line item to have a project manager.

[00:53:37] And so when we did the concession stand, my little tiny example, and other people can speak to this a lot more wisely than I can, but FCPS had a project manager on site every day to make sure that the concrete block we bought was the one we got, you know, like those kind of things, and the drain where it was supposed to go, and the people coming for permitting did come and sign off before they covered in concrete, those kind of things.

[00:53:59] And so that's another thing we need to think about probably pretty soon, hiring a firm of some kind or making a decision to fill that role with somebody who knows what they're talking about. You know, I think, like, many of us were trained as teachers and educators, and I think we need somebody who also understands facilities and construction.

[00:54:21] And probably the opposite of the steering committee, less in the beginning and more when we get on the ground, when we start digging stuff up. We definitely don't want you to be looking at that to figure it out or whoever our new superintendent is. Unless, you know, maybe we have somebody who has that role. But, all right, so I leave it for questions and thoughts.

[00:54:39] And I would caution that when we went through bigger renovations back in late 90s, 2000, that we had only a part-time superintendent who was made full-time.

[00:54:56] During that time. just for the time and then they hired an assistant to the superintendent that's when that position was made so i do not i'm just not saying i don't think it's not valuable but now we have a full-time assistant superintendent and a full-time superintendent i don't know it'll be difficult to justify having we're gonna have to it's gonna have to be a conversation on how to approach that because having, and I'm not saying we shouldn't have a consultant

[00:55:33] or some sort of management company because that would be the smartest thing to do. I think so. And they do have people that were on site during that time. Yes, but I think, I will check with Janice, because I had spoken to her about this before.

[00:55:51] I don't think that that, I think that some of that was done through Fairfax County. Well, we were paying them to be the building managers at that point. Yes, I think so. Now, Fairfax County's fee to do that is 9%. So the project manager, and that's the way that I understand it.

[00:56:07] So don't quote me on that. So we would need to have, my point is this. We just need to have our ducks in a row. Right, 100%. And in terms of communication, again, you know, there's only so much money in the city budget.

[00:56:25] And likely what I think would happen was they would say that they they we could use their communications and i'd be weary of that as well because i don't want them to eliminate our communications person so just things to i'm just playing devil's advocate like me too you know what i mean that's why i said it's my recommendation of my thought i think the the difference between what we have now in full time is 10 hours and this but it's benefits the city doesn't really care about the hours i will tell you i've had many fights with them yeah i I mean, even when it came to your contract, it was, you know, it's the benefits.

[00:57:03] They don't, benefits, costs, that's the majority of the costs. It's not, they're not, as JC said to me, I'm not worried about salaries, you know, so. Fair enough. It's true. I just think, like, I think my point is, well, we ran into this when we did the bond referendum.

[00:57:21] We just need to tread, we need to tread lightly and not ask for all these things all at once. Agreed. And I think the reason I'm bringing it up now is so we're thinking about it in advance and not, like, deciding in real time, like, we need somebody right now. Now's the time to think about it. But we do need to think about it.

[00:57:37] And we start needing to, like, lay the breadcrumbs. Like, hey, this is how they did it in the past. So, I mean, you had a question. Just my question is, with your recommendation, would it be one person on both sites? They would just go back and forth between the two? The project manager, the 3% is built into both figures.

[00:57:57] So it would probably, I mean, we'll have to decide that also. Like in the beginning, I thought we'd want, when Laura and I were on this team together, I thought we'd want one architecture firm to do both buildings. And when we got in there, it sort of made sense to me to have two dedicated teams.

[00:58:12] You could theoretically have two different companies. You could have one company that has two different teams or one company that has one team. That's both. I think that's probably when we look at those project manager firms. But it's not like two full-time people. No, no, no. The project manager thing wouldn't be full-time.

[00:58:31] In the beginning, it might not even be much at all. It's just consulting, kind of. And then, like, eventually, you know, the way that I saw the folks, and again, small potatoes, when you're talking about the concession stand, the FCPS guy was there pretty much every time I drove by.

[00:58:47] So I think he was on site all the time, but I don't know how that works in real time. Because there are a bunch of bosses, I'm sure, when you start thinking about plumbing work, mechanical work, you know what I mean? Those kind of things. And I don't understand it well enough to know. I would just add for the context of that meeting, just since I was in it too.

[00:59:06] I'm sorry, I hate to do it. You have to like, because Sarah's next. Yeah, yeah, sorry. So then we're going to get to everybody, I promise. Okay, Sarah, Ms. Kelsey. Are we talking also a person who is not a part of the current firms? We're talking a different firm altogether.

[00:59:23] Different firm. The project manager firm, and the procurement office in Fairfax City, it's a standard thing, you know, and obviously it's not surprising when you think about it because it makes sense. I didn't know that was a thing, but it is. But the procurement office gave us a list of firms that are already vetted by the state to do things like this, to work on projects.

[00:59:43] Yeah, I was just making sure it was not somebody who's different outside. It's almost like that third voice. Like, we're partners together. We trust each other and have faith in each other, but this other guy's going to check us both. to make sure it's right to just two clarifying points so anybody we do hire to be a project manager would not be a full-time staff member it's a it's a consultant and so we're not dealing with benefits this carries contract has been brought up I've brought it up at least twice before and so the cost of this project manager would likely as like begin and

[01:00:22] then escalate from like around fiscal year 28 and then going up to 2030? I think they're involved. When Mr. Plattenberg was here, we actually interviewed something right where we met with one firm, and kind of the idea is we would use them hourly now, and then as we'd get closer, I mean, I think the need would drive that part of it, and I think we'd probably, I mean, like the architecture firms know that this would help them also, so I think They'd give us good guidance on now's the time we need these people.

[01:00:57] You know what I mean? They've mentioned it. They mentioned it when we're having our meetings as well. Because they do wonderfully working with people like us and with educators and people who serve the community in this way. But they also want someone to double-check things and make sure they're right. So this helps everybody, and it's part of their kind of language also.

[01:01:16] May I ask a follow-up? Mm-hmm. So 3% is at the projected cost by the end of the time, or is it an average across? 3% of hard costs from the total hard cost. Gotcha, okay. Right, so I guess it's divided across the... Okay, it's borrowed money.

[01:01:33] I was just going to add just a little, because I feel like when we were in those meetings, the people in the meetings from FCPS were making it clear that FCPS is just big enough that they have those, like they have many people who have that job full-time, and the city does not.

[01:01:51] Yeah. And so if we didn't hire those people, we just would not have what we should have. And just by way of example, so for the concession stand in the press box, our partners at FCPS, like the first call they made to us was like, what sort of project manager do you want me to be?

[01:02:09] Do you want me to make sure that I'm on top of this every minute of the day? Or do you want something that's more conciliatory? And then they did what we asked. I said, like, I want you to be nice to everybody, and I want you to make sure we're doing what we're supposed to do. And they did. You know, that's kind of the way it worked out. But they were incredible partners, and so if there was ever a dispute, like, you know, little things come up where there's a dispute between other firms.

[01:02:30] Somebody ran the wire to here, and somebody else was supposed to pick it up, and it didn't get to where they managed it. They took care of all of it. I think the, there was another point I wanted to make for what you asked. But yeah, I think, oh, the other example is like the scoreboard.

[01:02:49] There wasn't a lot of management of that. We did it. We did it in-house with the procurement team here in Fairfax City, and we probably got a better price because of it. But they came in, they painted the posts, and then they put the big TV screen up, and then they left. It was over. And honestly, FCPS helped us a little bit anyway with the electrical part during that without the project management, because they're good partners.

[01:03:15] What? Can I do a go back? Yeah, let's go. The 3%, I know you said it's in each contract or each. It's just like getting that total number. Since they are technically two separate, can you combine it to make one if we ended up finding somebody but they cost more than 3%, you know, or whatever?

[01:03:36] Well, the 3% would have to, like, we, I don't, that's probably a more technical question than I'm ready to answer right now. Okay, that's fine. But what I would say is, like, there'll be some firms that are big enough that they could have two different teams. It's one firm, but two, okay. And there'll be other people, like when we did, I was surprised that the architecture firms weren't bidding on both schools.

[01:03:56] but most of them didn't. Like, they picked one or the other, and it made sense for them. Which was more popular? Which school? What school did most people want? Daniel's Run. Really? People have a site for Daniel's Run. I wonder why. I think they thought they had to be more innovative to, like, make it work with...

[01:04:15] It's an unusual building, too, when you think about it. Yeah, it is. Two and a half floors, which is, you know, Providence. That stairway that goes to nowhere. It's that kind of thing. And, in fact, other people started, like, playing around with how they would address that. And when they were, they gave, like, suggestions for different schools, and, like, everyone's, like, initial suggestions for Providence were the same.

[01:04:38] Yeah. So I think it was, like, Providence had, like, really obvious, like, this is the only thing that would make sense to do, whereas I think Daniel's running. They're going to have some more creativity. And as a Providence principal, it didn't hurt my feelings that we were good. There's a couple of design faux pas, like KJ, how the upstairs doesn't ever connect.

[01:05:06] But so does Daniel Strong. They have the same issue. Yeah, and they have a stairway to nowhere and a bell that is for nothing. But, you know, those are all things that when those people were sitting around the table. Were they like, why the hell do you have a bell that you can't ring? The bell came at the very beginning.

[01:05:24] I know, wasn't it? Yeah, it was like, why do we have a bell? We need just a rope. That'll be for the next rope. Going back in time. That's it, thank you. Do you want to do the CIP update? It won't take any time at all. It's two seconds.

[01:05:40] I'll pull this up just so you can see it, but it's very, very quick. All I did was based on our questions and more questions from the other meeting. Yeah, since these are numbers, I do want you to see them better. There's those pictures I love so much.

[01:05:58] All right. Well, I won't get choked up this time. The numbers will make me less emotional. All we did here is we added the HVAC back. Yeah, just by way of explanation of that, I should have caught that when we did it originally.

[01:06:14] Typically, we had put around $600,000, a little over $600,000 in the years that I was here. Mr. Plattenberg had us go with that. Last year, he was able to cut it down to 313 and then estimated 313 again for FY27.

[01:06:30] Ken, sorry, why would he do that? Like, what is that based on? Well, there's a surplus built up in the account. Yeah, I was going to get there in just a second. But it's a great question. There's a surplus in the account right now. I think the big thing that with your question and talking to the finance office and just thinking it through. These out-year projections of the three, I went with the 313 for the, you know, the forthcoming years. The good news is those aren't dollars that we're voting on to approve right now. Those are estimates down the road. So if we get to FY28 and now we have over a million

[01:07:08] dollars in surplus, maybe we knock it down and we don't take anything for a year. We might have, the big problem or the thing that came to mind for me with HVAC is it's such a critical system And not that electrical and all that stuff isn't, but you feel at the moment it doesn't work.

[01:07:24] And then safety gets involved very quickly and all that kind of stuff. So we don't want to be underprepared to address what needs we need. No, which is why I was like, where is the HVAC? I'm glad you brought it. Where is the HVAC? And honestly, at one point when we were doing the process, I had thought about it, and then I just lost it in the different slides.

[01:07:41] So thank you for bringing that up. The other two were confirming the estimates. And this is just important to hear. For the softball field, the $2,500,000 was the number we had before and is still accurate.

[01:07:59] So we're okay with that. Now, that $2,500,000, $2.5 million is to put a new turf field over the current turf field. So a lot of the things stay the same.

[01:08:14] In the softball field? Softball field. But it's not turf, it's grass. I'm sorry, it goes over the current grass field. I was like, when did we get turf? I don't remember. No, it's not turf. It's not turf. It's turfing the current grass field. Another option that was on the table is turning it around and using the current grass field in the back corner as a softball field.

[01:08:40] That's adjacent to the baseball field. Yeah, adjacent to the baseball field. It's an option, and it might be interesting. Because the grass is decent over there. That's the thing, brand-new Bermuda grass. And it will help us with issues with Country Club Hills in terms of... It will in some ways, but if we were to, there's a lot of infrastructure improvements that would be required if we were using it for this, and it probably gets closer to $3.5 million.

[01:09:05] So it's about $1 million more to turn it around and put it on grass. And then there's a Title IX question of having turf for the softball, baseball, and grass, even though the grass in some ways could be superior to the turf, it's not the same. So it's something that we'd have to address and figure out if we decided that's what we want to do. There's been questions about the turf fields at KJ, the proposals. There were some questions immediately after we finished the current baseball field. And so just if that comes up, just know that's kind of what we have to think about. Same thing's true for the turf replacement

[01:09:40] on the football field. We had an estimate of 600,000. The current estimate, the updated estimate It's around $750. I got one actually today that's on $730, so right around the same amount of money. Well, I updated it from $600 to $750, and that's for basically a new version of what we have now.

[01:10:02] If we wanted to go to a different type of turf, and, you know, you could gather information about whether or not there's a health risk, and I think it was asked and answered and discussed before, but if that came up again, there are other options, but we'd have to find out, like, is it more healthy to use this other product that's new than it is the one that we know about, that kind of thing.

[01:10:27] If we wanted to go to a grass field, it would be well over a million dollars. And then there's additional maintenance. All the reasons that we didn't go with that. Yeah, we're not, I'm sorry. I would never vote for a grass field on a basketball field. So 750, and that is in FY27, with the idea that if it were approved, we would probably be aiming to try to do it this summer, and it sounds like it takes about a month to change over, so we would go from July 5th to hopefully get it done.

[01:10:57] The funny thing is, when we did it last time, that's how much it cost, $750,000. And that was, what, 10 years ago? Right, we're on the 10th year of this, for the way I understand it, the 10th year of this current year. Ms. Hickman. Would that have a huge impact on all sports?

[01:11:16] It should be okay. If we did it through, I mean, practice and things like that, we still thankfully have. We've got a nice practice field that's not quite 100 yards, and we've got a nice big rest. It was fine last time. That is exactly what we did. A month made it work. Yeah. We had the ribbon cutting, and it was all good.

[01:11:33] So maybe like over those blackout days, they have like at least two big blackout days anyway. Yeah, and we have things that we can do. And I also think that just like with the baseball and softball field and the practice field, At some point, you just say, like, let's go in and do the project and then figure out what we need to do to make it work rather than let's just delay it for another year because you can keep punting down the field every year.

[01:11:58] You know, I'm not good at that. The last thing, was my understanding that concrete and paving was going to be done by the city from now on? It was going to be in their operational budget. Well, I don't know. They're not, this is all moving to operational.

[01:12:14] Everything on that top section, but it's not the city doing it. It's still our separate budget. And they're great partners also. And just by way of example, there's a paving slash painting project right now at the high school.

[01:12:31] And the estimates that we got from FCPS were far less than using the contractors we would have gone through the city. They were great at giving these names. I just didn't, I thought we were taking it out of the CIP. Yeah, we are. This is almost for just like, remember, this is what we've always done before.

[01:12:46] But when they actually do the work, that whole top section, all maintenance, is going to go over to operational. We'll all go to the operational. Okay, so eventually we won't even have a maintenance section of the CIP. Not on CIP, next year we won't. And we could theoretically take it out now, but this is just to help us through the transition.

[01:13:04] So we know that it didn't just go away, it's just moving. Right. And Ms. Kelsey. So does that include the HVAC then? Would that be part of us anymore? HVAC would be in that maintenance also. Okay, I just wanted to double check on that. Okay. Ms. Sessori. That was my concern in that HVAC repair replacements, replacement, right?

[01:13:24] Yeah. Sorry, I'm just catching. Yeah, sorry about that. It's okay, no worries. Across all four schools, yes? It is. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I feel like that might be more appropriate in the bottom section just because of how we need to structure that.

[01:13:43] Yeah, the replacement piece is what's sticking out of me. It's not a maintenance. Replacement is different than repair. so we have to make a determination and I don't know how the city is going to want to do that they're going to use the end of useful life dates as then then it becomes a replacement and we're already doing it at two of the four schools of the renovation right you know what I mean so like there's there's a lot of things that kind of work themselves out year to year which is also why those out years they could change we might come back and say no it's 626 six again that's all right um remind me when we do the high school roof that hvac is is that part

[01:14:22] of the repair yeah the the ones that we recently replaced would stay and somehow they magically lift them up i guess the big train trains would join us again i think that's the thing with those things they're not you know they're they're 25 year machines and so if we had i mean if we had replace one at Daniel Drum tomorrow, we just have to replace it because we have to go to school between now and then. But smart people know how to fix it so we don't have to throw it away. They'll raise it up and put it back down.

[01:14:56] I think with the high school, it's interesting because of the whole puff roof situation too. And all this goes on while the things we talked about with the elementary school renovations. The difference between those two big projects we just discussed and the roof is there's no real design other than like the pieces that they use to build a roof for maybe a company, but we won't be picking out colors and things like that.

[01:15:19] No, they'll just be trying to figure out engineer-wise, like structurally what's wrong. And even schedule-wise. Is there something wrong? Schedule-wise, too. You know, like which part of the building can we do this summer versus next summer or spring break or whatever. Just one last comment. I think I'm leaning toward, especially if you're thinking about some of the issues we're seeing with KJ and with Fairfax, the HVAC that happens.

[01:15:43] Yeah, yeah. my gut would be considering moving it to the school projects in the long term, just thinking about that. I do think that. It almost seems to me, too, and I'm relatively new to this process.

[01:15:59] So if we got to, there's enough money in there right now to buy a number of units if we had to buy them in the leftover, not leftover funds, but previously appropriated funds. Those will not go away even when this all moves back to operating.

[01:16:18] Operating budget will go back each year, but the money that's in there right now doesn't go away because it's appropriating these capital funds, as I understand it. And I think the, what did you ask? Oh, just more, just, because I knew, yeah. Yeah, if we knew next year.

[01:16:34] Money goes back, like it's the operating costs that go back to the city. It is, but it's already the CIP stays. So even though those line items will move to maintenance, now. Whatever is there currently stays with us. us and the 313 would not go into the existing fund it would go back if we didn't use it which is really probably the rightful way to do it you know but but if we knew that there was going to be like if if we said katherine johnson has to have 10 new units they would be cip items for next year yeah you know like yeah we likely won't replace anything at fairfax right because until

[01:17:13] the roof is done. And just by way of example for that, Mr. Blackberg was talking about at West Springfield High School when they did the renovation. Air conditioning units were going out at the very, very end as they were getting ready and they brought in like refrigerated trucks to run air conditioners and still so they didn't replace it until they were ready to replace it. So it makes a lot of sense to wait if we can. And again, like the ongoing things that, there's so many factors that the Katherine Johnson thing is way more complex than I'll ever be able to understand, but it's old systems and new systems and inventing systems, just a bunch of things that have to work just right for it to be right everywhere in the building.

[01:17:51] So sometimes where it's really good in one place, now it's going to have to be hot in the other. Yeah. It's just something to fix eventually. Yeah, and having been in the classrooms there as a former teacher, I know how fickle sometimes that HVAC can be in spring. Fickle's a good word. i would say that um it might be nice to get the horizon report for katherine johnson just to see which units how many are at the end of their useful life and the work order like because we know like if they we have units that if the work orders are like continual that's a unit but it's

[01:18:26] like the elevator at katherine johnson that thing went like we should have it literally was in our cip every year for 10 years but and it was long past the end of its useful life but it doesn't get used that much so it didn't have any work orders really had like a couple of repairs so eventually we were you know the school board said it was to peter really can you just take that out because every year it says 150 000 for this elevator that we never replace so we do have probably units that are at the end of their useful life but they're functioning just fine but a

[01:19:02] horizon report would sort of give us an idea well we're working on that again already okay you know not just the horizon report but also the environmental management process okay you know that's that's five years old i think at this time somewhere around that mcps where systems that used to run all the time are now off for periods of time right it's causing some problems for us and the county's been really good at helping us like instead of turning on at 6 a.m they turn it on at 4 a.m. and things like that, that they do help, but they don't quite solve everything.

[01:19:38] Yeah, that's been a thing, I mean. And it saves money, and it has the potential to cause issues. Because there was a time where they weren't turning them on until literally right before school started, and the building was hot, and it wouldn't cool down until 11 or 12.

[01:19:57] Especially Monday. Yeah. Every Monday. Oh, it was terrible. Real hot over the weeks. Okay. Does anybody else have anything? Okay, I'll adjourn the meeting at 7.50.30.

[01:20:14] Thank you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com