FRSC Facilities & Operations 8 2 24

okay this meeting of the facilities and operation subcommittee Friday August 2nd 2024 is now called to order uh Deb can I get a roll call please Mr AGA here Mr Cory here M lar here uh can we salute to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands Nation un God indivisible with liy andice for all thank you move on to

1.3 pursu to the open meeting orw any person may make an audio video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible uh Deb is there any citizens input there is not okay thank

you okay we will move on to discussion uh 3.1 discussion and vote to refer refer air quality report um before we start can we get some introductions please and thank you can start over there hi my name is Cynthia gilr from Common Sense environmental thank you Cynthia Phil Terell from envir Health Incorporated thank you Tom you're up school commitment Tom Cory for of the school committee school

committee Mimi laraby Kevin school committee Tracy curle superintendent Cho Co okay clarifying question um can you explain to us who is what department is because they have multiple like I got three different reports and the like so that's one of my first questions the second one is the contract for the the meeting where we had the little bit of like how we going to get the person or

something I'm still looking for the contract for that person I don't know if it's in here I think this is more of the um this looks like a report from the person so what I'm looking for as a baseline before we start is to know what were they contracted for how much money was it so that we could um that'll take care of some of my questions I guess as a point sure

thank okay so um I will look this while Mr is uh doing his um his presentation I'll look better up I should have the document on my phone I will send it to you but so the so the first the first piece is Mr Terell from environmental health he is the consultant that we hired to do both um a combination of the U mitigation this mold consultant piece and also to develop a strategy and plan um

assessment to move forward so that we have something in place um what what he'll deliver as a template we'll be filling in the blanks of the individual schools um and all of the intricacies that each school has and then incorporate that into into the overall plan so that's what we've that's the contract piece Mr Terrell's contract is an H piece which will determine how far we go and then before I come back to the

committee so as I said to you um when we were at that meeting up to the $25,000 um Mr Terell and I had the conversation um and then after that we will uh engage the school Comm for the for the longer Hall so to speak for the bigger picture that we um we need to um to keep this this piece going I don't expect that initial contract to last

very long Mr too is spending a lot of time with us me um in our buildings and doing a lot of leg work um but however that works out um him and I we will um come up with a long-term proposal um that I will bring back to this so I guess the reason why I'm asking about the contract right from the beginning of the meeting was my concern was at the

time it was July mid July whatever we were having these issues so we had some reports from Common Sense environmental which was here the longest like that was first person so then we and I personally didn't feel comfortable with the fact of we need an outside person to come in and take responsibility with their license on the line to say this building is safe for the children and the staff or it's

not but to me that's what I voted for when we went for this particular group sure so what I'm looking for is the contract language with environmental health that says this gentleman if he's got a license in this field is going to sign off on by what date is he going to sign off to say that the buildings are clean they're done properly whatever it is like that's what I'm looking for is

to get to that granula piece of that's what I V for and I before we get going about what it is I just want to know if that's not the case please tell us now if that is the case is this the gentleman that's going to sign off so I'm going to tell you that that's not the conversation that I had with Mr Terrell what I've asked Mr Terrell as I

asked my other consultants and I just want to introduce pooni who's here um also as part of the group that has been doing the outside work they're all outside Common Sense your environmental yeah Max Services we working with common sense okay and Mell is working independently from the m and the m one is not here at the meeting um what what what I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't see you Scott okay that's if Scott if you

want to sit up here that's up to you whever you're comfortable I didn't see I'm sorry I'll answer any question yeah so so you understand the question I just question I expect personally and not having seen the contract where it said that which is why been asking for several weeks now for this when I was up and maybe the other members can speak for themselves but in a public meeting

where I was when we determined we were going to do this rush job to try to get this in my impression at that time was that we were going to get an outside person who was going to certify that the place is clean of mold and ready to have kidss and staff in it was my own personal press if that's not the case please be up front and let us know no

I'm just saying that's why I'm asking and if anybody else wants to say that they think it's otherwise that's not the that's that I'm going to say that that was never what I intended leaving that room because I to be totally honest and this is not my field I have people here I don't believe anybody can guarantee that 100% after one day is worth of testing because my belief in all of this

is It's a snapshot in time and that we will continue to test and we will continue to Monitor and we will continue to be V Vigilant on all of this but I I don't believe that that's possible I understand Madam super liutenant this is what I'm just trying to tell to you as a director of this entire operation it's my personal belief that that's what we voted for in order to spend unlimited

funds to make sure the place is safe for our children so if it's not the case please check it out try to figure it out and how do we make that become a reality between now and the start of the year so we actually have and there's no disrespect to you Mr Pico but you're not an expert in it like you said so what I want to do is get us on our side off of

the well maybe because you're not the expert what I want to do is have an independent person that with their license on the line says in my professional opinion the cleaning's been done properly the I don't want to keep going back and forth all summer over well they didn't clean it right they said one thing they said another thing that's what I'm looking for in order to stop school so ing to you the bulleted

list of what is in the contract visual inspections of affected classrooms Airborne mold sampling surface mold sampling C consultation on response to Water Events future planning for mold prevention and response so there isn't something in this bu list that speaks to uh we're going to certify or we're going to guarantee that the school is and I already said what I said it's just I'm

giving you the heads up I'd rather you go back now afterwards and talk to whoever but I would think that anybody would want that because we're not experts on so that's what I expect between now and don't forward so they can present all the stuff that they want at the end of the day I still want at the next meeting some answer to who's going to sign off on this thank you are you thank you Mr

Pico um I'm I'm ready um to okay put the presentation on if Mr Terell is ready

we just hit the down arrow and I want Advance slide my name is Phil Terell and I'm the president of Environmental Health Incorporated which is a 25 person uh industrial hygiene and environmental consulting company um our work is mostly in schools and colleges and the pharmaceutical industry and I've been doing this for 44 years I'm a certified industrial hygienist and I have a doctorate in

occupational hygiene from UMass

L good so um I'd like to talk about uh testing I did at LNO and my recommendations my testing at Green and those recommendations and a uh brief discussion of a final plan that I'm putting together that is uh for going forward to deal with moisture and mold issues in your school buildings that will be sort of a generic plan that can be customized to each location if you'd like to do that okay

so um there been in in LNO there have been several different things that have caused uh water and moisture problems inol there was a flood with a sewage component quite a while ago and there are many roof leaks in at least four different areas here's an example of a damaged ceiling in the library so that's below roof leak and it's right next to an area where I took a sample above the ceiling

um which I might talk about in the future so that's an example of where professional abatement is needed based on a roof leak I believe the roof leak has been stopped but the water damage and that mold is still there um one common theme in both buildings that I'll be talking about quite a bit and one that um um defies U me ever signing off and saying a building is safe is that both of these

buildings have chronic high humidity and can you probably answer the question better on why I'll take a really brief stab at it and the hbac systems for the buildings um aren't real good at removing water vapor and um operation over for many years in summer times and hot humid times have kind of cumulatively built up a series of problems in these buildings so I don't know of a real fast solution there's a

lot of things that can be done real fast that will take care of much or most of this but there's probably going to be a uh some Capital costs and some budgeting and some longterm components to fix these problems and they're not they're not the kind of thing that you can just fix overnight as far as I can tell can I ask question yes just a question on the atak piece as you talked

about is that one of the in the industry one of the first steps is making sure that the AT Systems are working properly in order to prevent these situations yes but if let's say for example they're underd designed or not well-designed um those problems can crop up over time and uh I I would defer a can on that did you in your professional opinion do you evaluate the systems that we have as

being under designed I'm not an hbac specialist so no I'm kind of concentrating on mold so if if a system wasn't working as intended for whatever reason whether it's underd designed broken whatever it is for a period of time would that exacerbate the mold issues in the school absolutely thank you sorry Dr no that's that's a critical point I'm glad you raised it um but it it kind of stretches the timeline a

little bit I mean you can work on the big things first and and get a tremendous amount done in the next month but I don't think you can start from scratch with new systems if you need them I don't believe you can tear ones that are out that aren't working right because that costs a lot of money and causes a lot destruction okay so um chronic high humidity can um saturate the fiberglass

pipe insulation inside the unit ventilators and the ceiling mounted FCO units uh can cause drips on top of ceiling tiles it can cause a lot of different things and with moist conditions come odors um uh you've all been in damp places and known that they have smells and some of those smells are mold or fungi but other smells are are a variety of other things that aren't really easy to test but we know our nose

tells us this just smells a little funky because it's very humid okay schools are by definition full of paper products and some classrooms are much more paper intensive than others because of the nature of the class or the teaching habits of the teacher or the storage practices or other things but there's a lot of classrooms that just chalk a block full of paper and paper in a really humid environment is not a great

combination uh when I looked at univ ventilators in green uh some of them were full of paper they had little um hanging Chads they had little round discs that were colored they had all kinds of stuff that had fallen in and were getting wet and moldy inside the unit that that's really not anywhere near the biggest problem but there's just um human environments can create lots of secondary problems can I ask question

yes can you please explain what the unit ventilator is and yes and what the piece would be so in an exterior wall um in in room 108 which is the room where I started there were two of them there's one along here and then there's a space and there's another one there and they are a a fan or fan coil system that has four pipes two pipes for hot water and two pipes for chilled water so

depending on the time of the year it can either circulate hot water through the coils and fans can blow over those coils and put heat into the room or if it's chilled water it can it can introduce um cold air into the room and also air passing over the coils if it works right will cause condensation and that water will condense out into a pan and drain to a sewer so those are systems that are kind

of Bedrock school system ventilators they're they're quiet they're usually in the exterior of the room and they um they're in many many classes are you into you said there something about paper falling into something be a problem where was the paper like when you went in there so you opened up the top the front and the Pap was sitting on the coils and it was just all it had fallen through there's a grate or a

grill on the top where the air comes out and stuff had just fallen into that was it visible from the outside no so is that part of a preventative maintenance plan to open that and clean it yes thank you but um there has to be a teachers have to help out in this regard I totally I understand just I'm just trying to figure out as you said I was thinking that's what it was and if if

it's it should be part of a a general cleaning routine you open the off but it's it's something that isn't a one time thing it has to be done thank you sir so here's an example of a piece of pipe insulation right here inside a unit ventilator and it's got quite a bit of pretty nasty mold on it and when I squished it uh water would drip out it was like a sponge it was really really

wet so so fiberglass this is um fiberglass pipe insulation with a cloth or paper and cloth scrim cover inside a damp uh inside a a cabinet where you're U moving air and you're ringing water out of the air through chiling um in really high humidity environments the that stuff will get wet and get mold so one of my recommendations will be to uh survey all the rooms all the univent all the univ ventilators and fancoil

units find that and replace it with clean insulation that is less likely to get moldy if if it's in high humity environments can I ask another question sure do you have the room number where that was 108 108 and that had to have been after July 17th when you were hired must it was earlier than that but I'm not positive it was my first visit in your first visit but so my question

to Ken or any of the other folks was has anybody else looked at room 108 prior to this particular gentleman doing it yes and they find the same thing yes and those are all being changed but it so it wasn't his necessarily finding this we already knew that this existed in the room that was let's say it was in May when we had issues with something it probably was during the school year I'm guess so the

the unit was taken apart when Mr Terrell came down he took the front of the unit apart crawled around inside it to see that that's a a big picture of a small area so that picture is is large but the side of that unit then maybe a foot and a half if that wide and those are are sitting right on the side of that unit if you could please get us I'm not going

trying to put you on the spot anybody that looked at 108 prior to Mr I'm going to tell you that been looked at many times by internal people that's fine it doesn't have internal not any contractors or anything it was all our own maintenance people sure I just think it's a valid question he's presenting it to us in a public meeting that says that picture looks terrible I think everybody here would

say that picture looks terrible my concern is that if that was terrible we found it on whatever date that was it he's did it I want to go back and say how did we miss it we didn't miss it we didn't miss it so nobody else with that so there are 40 rooms in that building and did we see that piece maybe not to that extent not to that extent

but there was mold and we've never not said that there was some issues in these buildings I'm I was only referring to room 108 so the room 108 that he's referring to is the same room 108 but the same room 108 has been an ongoing issue since November let's say or whatever for a longer period of time so that's my concern is just trying to track it back to say what happened yes

just to clarify is it room 108 or is it 8 this is the first room it's 10 that's correct I and 008 is the room in question one of the major rooms in question since November yes that to me is where I'm going with that question so he came in on let's just say it was July 1 and okay fine we know we found that on July 1 my concern is how did and

I'm not saying that we didn't try whatever could have been hidden behind something wasn't hidden I don't know the answer absolutely but if it's wide open yes looks like that yes and we've been dealing with it since November God I have a problem with person that's all I'm saying so Mr Pico I'm sorry go ahead Mr cor Mr Terell are you just explain to us the design of room ventilators two

coils hot and cold and chill and that moisture gathers around pipes in those units all the time is that what this is something similar I wish I had a better picture to explain how they work but um the primary function is that either chilled water or hot water passes through coils and then air is run over those coils to either heat or cool yes the air um this was to

the side of that these are the pipes feeding those coils and the cabinet itself was very humid and the insulation got saturated sure fiberglass is absorbed so chronic high humidity is the sort of the one of the culprits to this thing and it probably happened over over years so the next begs a question like you said that a lot of your work has been performed in schools in in those types of buildings now I know from

the new construction at Derby High School this completely different set of building codes that are in place now that were not in place in the 70s ' 80s '90s have you noticed better design and newer buildings rather than the older building now these buildings that we're referring to would were built in the '90s in the early 2000s uh slightly better but I still stuff like this all the time not

to meet code to meet a safe environmental code in a building how do we steer away from these issues if they're so endemic they're so environmental there so much part of nature they're going to be ongoing well you use materials that won't get moldy if they get wet and you use materials that aren't absorbent so you use instead of sure that was my question on building codes so materials being used there there has

been a migration to better materials and materials that perform better in human environments and don't sweat as much are you able to consult on those types of materials going forward no other than in a general sense I I've made a recommendation along those lines and then the hbac people can pick the best product but no I'm not an expert on that okay thank you very much but I do have a

fairly tight timeline and there's a lot that I want to cover so um maybe we can hold questions a little and I'll answer them as best I can got it okay okay uh it took a lot of samples in the air and I concentrated on taking them where these folks and that gentleman took the samples before I kind of retraced those steps um to see and and you know picked a few problem areas

too but everywhere there had been a a roof leak or a flood or you know those types of things that's where I took my samples because those would be worst case location and what I found in the air was the air was really good um I think it probably was really good because um Mr Pico has been doing a lot of work to lower relative humidity in the building through the use of um single

location portable dehumidifiers and updates and upgrades to the hbac system to make it work better to lower humidity and to run the building in the summer just like you run it the rest of the year so I have the feel I I can't speak for the past but I really thought the airb the air numbers were great um the only problem location I had was as a sample that I took in the

ceiling near where that nasty picture of the ceiling in the library was that's the only problem area that I got everywhere else would be typical or better than most schools or commercial bu buildings so air in this building is not problem we we shouldn't get hung up on air and if we can get a lot done in the next month I feel pretty good about green I found mold on surfaces I showed

you two pictures of those one on a ceiling one on pipe insulation so there's definitely we can't stop at just having good air that that's not a good stopping point we got to really work on a whole bunch of other things I mentioned professionally evade that's not an in-house function that's that's going to be should be contracted out to professionals long-term humidity control and waser management are

essential um and I would never sign off on a document saying you'll never have that your mold problem is done in this building unless I probably wouldn't do that ever but I definitely wouldn't do it until I saw a lot of changes okay uh I I uh asked you to defer a question so I'll take some more on you just referred uh that those first screens to uh green you were talking

about the turno correct I was talking about the turno thank you so far haven't talked a bit about green other than other than saying that they they share some of the same things okay that was my question I'm switching to Green now yep so under theal and I understand fully whether you would want to give a an opinion or not or anything like that separate from that if you worked in that

school what I want to find out is as a profession what would you look at as far as letting the school committee know that that building is safe for adults students and folks to be in there what are you looking at before you would put those people back in whether they were your child your wife family whoever like what what kind of things would we be looking for to say this is what we would

want somebody to sign off on okay um on Sunday I'm going on vacation for two weeks but when I get back I'm going to spend a lot of time in both of these schools to track all the recommendations that I've made and to make sure that they're getting done and I would also look where I saw a visible mold and I would want to see that it's not there I'd want to see uh uh pipe insulation

that's moldy replaced with high performance clean insulation so if I were uh either a staff or a student I would look to a report from someone like me that said uh we're making great progress and we've ticked off all these things and here are our long-term goals but this is where we stand so um I I'm I'm planning on doing an update I'm not done the only thing I would ask is that

when we talk about whatever he's going to do the arack system I've said this for a long time is the problem and if you can recommend all you want about removing all that stuff and doing all that stuff and as a amateur who has no knowledge other than just trying to pay attention to common sense if you don't fix the aack system we're going to have it more moisture again like you keep

saying I could I couldn't agree more so what I'm asking for the superintendent is we also don't need just what his recommendations are for that we need what our systems I've already asked this question of what's this how how much is it working and not working that is what I'm looking for is something to say here's what it takes to fix all of these buildings the right way because we're in

this predicament because we have systems that don't work that's one of the reasons in my opinion I would disagree only to this sense that no school buildings were designed to be open during the summer and we've decided as a society to have year round school so we're trying to keep a building that wasn't necessarily designed for all of this humidity all sumone comfortable and to keep people comfortable in the summer

the tendency is cool it down turn on the air conditioner get the rooms cold and I'm going to say again I'm not the guru but I would think that if we're putting people in a building that wasn't designed for summer use and we're trying to make it usable in the summer because of the need I'm not saying they went wrong in doing this what I'm saying is is that that wasn't the original design

we did shut down schools in the summer they weren't as occupied as they are now we had close to 3,000 kids in buildings Sy some that's not typical summer school it is for us but that's not what's always happened so I don't believe that the hbac systems were ever designed to be year round buildings I really don't I that's my opinion and that's disagree I would ask you m of superintendent what is the age

of the Green School how old is the green school when was the school 21 years old 21 years old have we had summer programming 21 years ago I would say about yeah to the 2 3,000 kids it doesn't matter it does matter because if it wasn't built if if the argument is that the schools weren't built for summer that means half the kids if we only had a small number it shouldn't matter what the number is

because the school's only 21 years old so if we've had summer programming whether it's a small amount or a large amount we were going to build a place that we had summer school so to me and we can respectfully disagree I think that HVAC systems and the lack of fixing them over the last number of years has been a very high contributing factor to these issues not not withstanding the

leaks that haven't been fixed properly the the other leaks that were happening with the sewage and everything else we have a whole slew of things of why one of which is if the HVAC system works like 100% 21st century like it should it should it wasn't designed but it regardless of it wasn't designed over the last 10 years we've had $10 million more money to spend we should have had these systems upgraded replaced and

brought to the committee to fix the arack system so they're working for the best of their ability and spent $15 million in the last 3 years that's it takes a lot more than that m a lot more and as we are both novice here yeah just spewing out documents and numbers and all of that as we are both novice here I have spent $15 million and was done by engineers and designers not by Ken Pico

scribbling something on a piece of paper I did get people Engineers to design the systems the new systems the new hbac systems the new unit ventilators in heny law so are we talking about the green school and the luten I don't know if you're only talking about that you're all over the place you're talking about maintenance that's never happen for long so the so the the reason why I'm asking

the question is we're talking about the Green School New the doctor just talked to us and told us in no fewer words very honestly that a arack system that's not work properly is a contributing fact and Theo the two issues on the agenda here I'm only saying that at that green and that lerno we didn't spend $15 million over the last four or five years no we haven't that's my point the green

and the lerno the two that are in front of us now I know we have a problem across the whole thing I'm not saying about all the things that I'm having every school has a problem now green and the lero in my opion the H so when we say the folks that are going to come back work in India we need to say this is the system that we're going to also

do all this stuff and here's the plan on how we're going to make that P track system work properly that's what I'm trying to get at and I think that's what everybody would want my problem is is that we wouldn't be sitting here probably not as bad if we would have had some of these other issues addressed that's all I'm saying are you okay right turn no one one question

I have a question so you say you're going away for two weeks uh what would the timetable be where we could get our first report from you um you mean relating to the followup work y you coming in and doing you said you going to come in and spend a lot of time in the in the two buildings when can we expect our first report from you uh if within a few days on visual things I

I'd be glad to give you feedback right away and you know if if if it's helpful well I don't want to rush it I'd rather have accurate um I don't want to rush you I'd rather have you do the work and and get us numbers at your timetable I'm I'm not trying to rush you but school does start uh the end of August but I'm just asking for a timetable so if you say a couple

days in you know I soon as I get back I'll start working on it and um I can provide a bulleted list of progress um on a daily basis if you want it you know I if that speeds the process I I can do things you know reports take a long time to write so if you like uh interim Progressive things I can give it to you okay now when you say you're coming in

into the schools you got to be retesting and testing and a lot of what I'm going to be doing is inspecting what I want to do is look to see what's been done especially in lerno because in lerno it it's a matter of things that need to be done and then when those are done um you're at a good spot it it's more complicated in green I only have 15 minutes to make my presentation here and

then I've got a run so I'm going to move ahead okay so chronic high humidity is a much bigger problem than green you walk into the school you can feel it you can sense it you can smell it uh it is that the systems are a little older and they're not as good at removing moisture uh Ken could answer why I really don't know why that is but um it's it's apparent when you walk into the

school same as latero but more severe okay uh I did lots of samples uh where other people had done them in some other spots and I found them to be in the um I would call them moderate not scary numbers but not low like I would like to see not not well controlled most of the mold that was in the air was the the types this is kindy of makx your eyes

Blaze over but it's it's the kind that grow from high humidity uh layman's term is um mildew U cladosporium is the kind of mold but it's it's a very common mold that grows outdoors and indoors but it likes humid environments and that's what I found not the scary kind of mold necessarily but no mold is good so uh probably about half of the classrooms had mold levels above what I would like to

see all of those will respond well to lowering humidity that's that's a fast fix that we should really push toward really hard uh found a lot of mold on surfaces uh where you have chronic high humidity um mold was growing behind anything vinyl that was applied to the wall so in one room we had a uh a tree that was applied to a wall in in sort of a one of those

um anyway there was a vinyl Tree on the wall and when the wall the tree was peeled back it was mold underneath it and then um when I based on that you know knowing that just like all vinyl wallpaper if you peel all vinyl wallpaper off of a wall that's been there for a while you always find mold behind it same as it same as this um when I peel back the baseboard the vinyl

baseboard same same situation so that's an example of a room where there should be professional abatement of that wall because there's really no way to scrub mold off of drywall drywall is paper gyps and paper and paper is molds favorite food you know it's it's pre-digested junk food from old it can can grow on paper really fast so drywall that is in a really humid environment will often have traces of this high

humidity mold inside the um fan units I found the same things that I found in laterno I found mold on the pipe insulation uh I also found lots of sealing tiles that were sacking the the humidity is so high in some of the rooms that all of the ceiling tiles are dipping and sagging as if they if they got a little bit wetter they would fall out that's an exaggeration but anyway it's just a

marker for high humidity that's been there for a long time okay so uh to summarize green it's it's more challenging uh and HVAC is really the key um in the near term since since these systems probably will have to be upgraded or replaced um portable dehumidification units uh will help and I think you've already purchased a lot of them and put a lot of them in there and they are beginning to help but

um low humidity will will really turn around the way the the rooms feel and the amount of mold that is measured in the air and we care about that because staff and students um certain percentage of staff and students respond to molding air with increased allergy symptoms and and other things sometimes asthma so we want to get molden air levels as low as we can there's always mold in all Air

there's mold in this air you go outside and there's a ferocious amount of air Outdoors right now but you still want indoor environments to be um as mold-free as you can so when I made my measurements um there isn't a standard for mold OSHA and the EPA no one has a standard for mold because in the winter time a typical outdoor level would be I'm going to not throw out units um 10 outdoors

and if there's snow on the ground zero and indoors in the winter time the typical number would be 20 or 40 in the summertime Outdoors um I think we measured 15,000 on the outside samples and anywhere from 300 to 2,000 indoors so the levels we measured are way below Outdoors but they have um some spores on them uh suggest that there's growing on building materials and paper and that's

not acceptable even though the numbers are well below outdoor levels so um my recommendations for for green are going to be dehumidify and really work on that really hard both by changing the way systems are run and controlled and also using portable dehumidifiers um there's things that staff can do to um not store as much um paper based products you know not be pack rats not store G giant you

know boxes just piled to the sealing in certain rooms that's that's not a good idea uh it' be good to stop applying vinyl to the walls even though it's a it's a kind of a fun decorative idea it's it's not a great idea for this situation especially with high humidity okay um Ken I'll be sending you question yes go ahead so what when you said uh if there's mold you need professional

abatement what what does that mean that means that a um a mold restoration firm would come out and cut out or remove uh molding materials in controlled environments so instead of just let's say this wall to the left of this had mold on instead of just using a razin knife and cutting this out and throwing it into a dumpster you would build a bubble around it and um remove it in a controlled environment so that you

didn't uh release spores to the environment okay and then you would mentioned about uh BS and rooms and uh temperatures and all that stuff do you read the computer reports for the room temperatures at each of the rooms at the green school no do you know if they exist I don't believe they do I don't know so you mentioned humid uh the deif fires that we purchased you mention that yeah and

that's helping is that the little white ones that you've seen in those rooms they're the they're the portable ones that are sitting up on top of counters and draining into room sinks those small ones small ones those are sufficient they're they're a big help I don't know if they're sufficient or not cuz I was in a room and I saw like one like looked like that to me it looked like something

you could buy Ocean State Job block like a small one then I saw this big thing look like a Zamboni that's one of the ones that that's a professional style model yeah what would you would you recommend using the white ones or purchasing the white ones um that is not a permanent fix but that would sure help just might need more of them as that go by how they are they

cost a fraction as much as the others and as long as they can be drained into a sink um they'll do the job just keep running them and it'll help yes but we might still need the larger ones at some point well um I I would say one of some type per room would be would be useful in rooms that have problems we talked about whatever the word is the hum humid

sensors or whatever they call them putting those in every room what is it humidistats the humidistats is that a recommendation that you have now for all rooms no what was it is it not worth it we've heard in the past that we were going to do that in um let's say every room so I don't think it's a bad idea it's just not it doesn't address the problem at its source it's um

I don't know so you don't think that's necessary as a professional I it wouldn't be my first priority would it be a priority would it be a benefit to for us to be able to have some sense of uh information like we don't know how hot the rooms are because we don't have the systems working properly is it going to benefit us to then therefore have at least have something to tell us hey you

know ding ding ding this is going this is too humid so we might need to put an extra dehumidifier in or something is there any to sort of stop it before it gets to be the air conditioning unit breaks and goes down and we don't have any way to say tell anybody other than that you if you come in and it's hot then you say oh it's been gone for all weekend you you rais a good

point the paper clutter you talked about in the rooms do you have a current recommendation for that relative to given direction to the superintendent to tell her folks to say you can't have clut I went to personally went to a room at the green school that was horrified with the amount of clutter and the things that were stacked up over that event in the corner it was unbelievable and Mr Pico and his folks

had to go and clean all of that stuff to try to get it done but if we're trying to say how we're going to stop some of this problem one of them is like you just said you'd have to do less clutter and whatever can you give a recommendation for the superintendent to say what that means so that she can then therefore tell everybody here's the new rules does that make sense uh yeah but it's

nowhere near as as simple as that it's a much more complicated thing than that because teachers you know that's part of their job is to do that and they also will probably be quite annoyed to be told those kinds of things so it it has to be handled really carefully uh and there isn't any standard or reference that says you can have 3 cubic feet of paper and above that you got to get rid

of it so it's it is a little complicated my my recommendation is is going to be something more generic like keep your um unit ventilators clean tops clean and you know minimize how much paper you stack up in your rooms and if you if you want to store stuff over the summer store it at home and don't store it at school but I I I don't know or if you had paper on a bookcase

let's just say you know you have a bookcase you have a bunch of paper you have books on the bookcase we can see that if that was the case okay you get that's what You' got if you got 14 boxes full of of books and paper and things from for the last 10 15 years in the positive that's what I'm trying to refr especially since not it should not be and it's also been during that time

period of high humidity so you're right you're you're absolutely right I'm trying to give some teeth you know to the superintendent to be able to say there's a reason why we're trying to limate I'm not saying to get rid of it all I work in education I know it's not possible but I can also understand that we shouldn't have what I saw at that green School in the pre-a classroom

right I agree and I would like to think that if people understood where where the risks are in storing that much paper product in a room um if they understood the risk they might be less likely to do it so I think that makes sense my only question M chair is what is the process now for the so this gentleman are the other folks going to get to just weigh

in on anything or if they like I wanted if I could just kind of jump in here a little bit um with the question specifically with the if fires so we've worked with several first of all you guys aren't alone this is a with this high humidity if you don't have air conditioning SL humidification systems in your schools and you get this kind of weather for a week two weeks this is the

second wave I think we're looking at three four five weeks at this point in the summer it's a particularly I think you know if you look at averages at wor summer but every summer you're going to get some weeks like this and over time you get an accumulation so may not you may not see it year one two 3 four five that picture the PIP soluation we don't know when that happened it could have

happened a year ago 3 years ago 5 years ago it was all of the above it's gradual right it's gradual so to try and answer your question of unifications there are equations that we've used we've implemented Solutions in other schools it works is it's a multifaceted you're hitting in all the right things you're asking great questions you're right right on the money you're all around it

it's a multifaceted approach to to to fight this okay so first yes absolutely you got to decline no question about it there's teachers who just accumulate I mean we're all different some do some don't the ones that accumulate year after year if they start looking at that stuff they really don't need it so there should be something implemented to maintain you know minimal amounts of

accumulation in the summertime keep the doors open keep all the all the cabinets open keep fans running run your deif fire you don't have a system in place it's very expensive to get you know air conditioning in every school right we all understand this there's budgets to stand by so so as a shorter term solution get deification machines you can get a combination uh small ones um and and large ones it can be both get

the small ones they work very well I think in these classrooms where they can sit up on the counter and drain automatically you got to keep draining it you can't get the type that shuts off when it gets filled because it may be sitting there a day or two and you've just lost BR that you gained you have to get it continually draining then you can get the large industrial sized ones that I think you

you refer to one get those in the common areas if you get enough of them it will get you through a short-term solution until you can afford to get the real solution and that is H system so there's a lot of little things and I got to say I've never met this gentleman but I'm listening to his presentation and if you read the reports that we generated at the very beginning it's almost verbatim

and I feel good about that because I respect his credentials and it's good to see that what I've been recommending has been working with other schools I've seen it work in other schools in other towns you know anyway but it's good to see that somebody of his U you know abilities uh Right Down the Line we're seeing things all the check boxes are all the same so that's a good thing uh

there is Solutions it's not always real simple it's not cheap but there are solutions you guys can fix this I can tell you that thank you thank you before I leave um this is the plan that I'm working on and it it has the components that address these issues going forward and I'll be working with Ken on that and it will be um for system wide and it it's looking toward the future to

respond to problems as they arise or to prevent problems and um that's that's just as important as these other things u in the management of this yes sir just a question about the moisture in in concrete do you think that it would help sometime along the way measure whether the um base of the building is is moist from from that water

table um I don't I think that might have been a good thing to do years ago when the flood happened right now I I I don't get a sense that um that's a contributing factor to the to the ongoing problem so um I agree with these two gentlemen I mean you're always going to have ongoing variables you're going to have materials that are going to be terior you're going to have wet kids coming

in it's just the nature of Beast so you get your proactive approaches in line and try to maintain them but you're always going to have those variables thank you again just a question to the common sense folks so I had mentioned before that room 800 seem to be the issue and I'm looking in your May reports and it doesn't look like we tested room 8 at all you are you referring you know the

room I'm referring to I know the room you're referring to yes but I'm just looking and I make be missing it but the report dated May 31st 2024 it says the samples of outdoor rear School 4543 78 like I'm was just trying to was trying to follow up on my question before Mr Chico yeah about tracking room eight just for you know and I don't see it yet so we've been to Mato several

times initially I think it was for a handful of identified rooms and then I think there was an expanded list after that and then there was like an isolated room where we did find uh the insulation situation but actually was up in the ceiling not behind the univent um and then at one point I think we did the every room in the school it kept kind of escalating so we did maybe I'm just

missing my question is there is I read it somewhere and I can't find it now where it says your evaluation was done Limited in scope is that just because of the nature of the rooms or was that limit in scope of of the building so we didn't do the entire building was a com it was not a comprehensive building assessment it was so the thing thank and just a quick uh followup

it it does help to have a gauge measuring humidity for sure no doubt about it I mean it's always helps to measure anything you're trying to fix right you get constant feedback there what we're doing working yeah you get a quick G or name I mean it's not an end all be all but it certainly doesn't hurt to have I've recommended it in in other school systems that we installed to that

was part of it we had little little cheapies you know U just set them up maybe every other room or wherever and you get yeah just keep an eye on is that Eng here somewhere that you would have recommended that I I I don't know if I did it in one of those reports or not CU I don't think we were at the point where we were um recommending um a complete

solution just haven't reach that point we're kind of approaching it now it seems to me and somebody using the term humid St is that a name name brand or is that like you're saying these little senses CHS yeah I don't remember I don't he miss that basically you want hum something that measures humidity relative humidity basically you can call it whatever you want Mr all the rooms that have one of those so I think that

was in reports emails something going back and forth that was a to put them in we were going to have a commitment there was a conversation that we had that we were going to put humid stats in the rooms we put them in seven between seven and nine I don't have the particular number but we have put them in in seven or nine buildings we put them in the buildings that we had issues with and

are these chees to you they're they're not they're not a item that check that ties into any hdac system absolutely not they are just to read that particular moment in time but what I meant when he said cheap is I'm thinking it's short money I don't know what I don't know what that cost like is it ridiculous money um I don't know maybe $30 $40 a piece you know so I would look

into personally through the back and forth emails and this and that it was recommended by the folks from the MTA our people uh all these other meetings I think at some point we committed to putting a human staff or human centor you know in every room in every room in the district or just in every room in the school says they were going through right so when you look at theal email

chains and everything else I'm pretty sure somewhere in there it was here was what was said at a meeting with the parents with the staff with the MTA was that we were going to put a staff if we committed to that I think we should do it yes and probably do it maybe at the green if this is the same uh thing maybe get a B purchase or something if that if

they're going to be valuable now you know I've asked you the question can we see the temperature in each room so that we get an alert or something and the systems are not in place right now because we haven't spent the money that we should have potentially to do it so the short of that the next thing we do is we just and the way this is Kevin speaking we roll the dice when the heat

wave comes and we the air conditioning could go down if we're not there we're just rolling the dice hoping it doesn't go down because if it goes down for 48 hours and we don't catch it we're going to have a bigger problem on our hands again no matter what school it's in is that accurate well anywhere any place anywhere and then you know my house if my air conditioning goes down I'm going

to feel it right away and and so that you can say that in general statement if you don't have air conditioning in this weather yeah so what would you recommend as a as a professional to Pro protect us against that happening against your uh HVAC system shutting down so either either the unit itself having a mechanical issue or electric electricity going down I mean youve got you can have

somebody on call 247 have a you know somebody that's ready to come out fix it right away when it goes down um emergency backup generators as far as electricity go out I mean again these are all not simple cheap you know solutions for a budget to handle um I think your shorter term best way to go to stay focused is to get dehumidifiers until you can afford an HVAC system in

every school I the green school does that have an HVAC system any kind of but has an HVAC system none of our buildings with the exception of dery high school and um okay to a to a limited extent more but none of them have any okay humidity but we plan but the overall plan is that we will put in 3 to four units yeah per building of commercial not not a affordable but a permanent

with duct yep so that's buildings to take care of humidity because the systems wen't designed that so it'll be an add-on to all the systems but it is what we're talking about now because we what we're currently doing in most most of our buildings is we're mixing heat and and air conditioning right now so we've got both systems running at the same time yeah to try and take care of some of that humidity right and it's

worthed my understanding is yeah there was some success with that exactly so this is that's a huge step you guys have made it as a community youve made a decision you've recognized the situation you you made a decision made a commitment financially to go with the ultimate solution and that's great so now how do you get from here to there and the answer really is deification buy more affordable combination of those

small ones CU they are a fraction of the cost these very money you can get three or four of those and not more for the cost of the Bas industrial size those are about two grand on work but those are great too for certain areas cafeteria maybe strategically in a hallway office area uh you can use those strategically too so it's a combination effect but that cost is not you know

it's not cheap in in a sense right but it's way way less than that big cost you have to you have to commit to for that ultimate solution so it's a way to get you from here to there and it works I can tell you it works I mean several towns right around here recent years we' implemented these combination of recommendations including decluttering fans running you know if you have a a you know water

intrusion event pipe or a roof jump on it right away fix it right away it's a combination of things and I think I I did outline them in one of the earlier reports but I can certainly give you another comprehensive list in combination with Mr Terrell's U recommendation but they're kind of right right line he was talking right out the money it was a great presentation thank you can I actually

just revisit so yes the the questions that U Mr Agar was asking about monitoring humidity monitoring temperatures if we were monitoring the humity in classrooms with you know being able to access remotely what the humidity was in you know in different classrooms across the district um would we need to be monitoring the Heat or is monitoring the humidity the biggest factor that humidity u i mean uhv temperature is a

factor uh as far as one's Comfort level and a learning environment especially I was just thinking about I think one of the concerns was kind of on a weekend system sits down it shuts down how do we know but really monitoring the humidity in those situations would be the bigger ticket item anyway yeah it's all about you could show up to a really hot building on the relative High relative

humidity is the enemy that is your enemy right now period end of story we're talking about really and the enemy is only really around from like May through October nowadays used to be September where we're going so that's kind of your spot now from a student learning Comfort level typically you would say okay we just going to get to the end of June middle of June right gets out and then

we get just got to get through September maybe halfway through October all right now we're good because the natural environment gets gets more you know to the point where it's comfort and and one affects the other outdoor environment affects the indoor environment it's just way the way it is so that's really what you're talking about you have an enemy in place May through October you're fighting and and and it's a

multistep combination to fighting you know all the little things we just talked about deification and then ultimately yeah get air conditioning in and now you're not just ringing out the moisture in the air you're causing the right temperature you want for ultim ultimate uh Comfort level for a learning environment so doesn't an air conditioner in lments terms assist with humidity in general form of

humidification right yeah humidifier is just humidification and actually those will warm up the environment when it because you got that motor running it seems sort of simplistic but in my view if the air conditioning systems were all working properly we wouldn't have as much of a problem with the humidity as we do my understanding is you don't have air condition really we have air

conditions in every one of these schools they were shut down not in every one in the green and the Lal school we talking about today we have an air conditioning system you do my feeling is that if the air conditioning system was working well even pretty well we wouldn't have the issue that we had so the air conditioning systems were either a not working up to capacity B purposely

shut down when we during the summer for whatever reason or something something happened to our air conditioning system at these two buildings that we have it but in basically most of the schools that have air conditioning most of our schools do we're getting reports now that we have these issues that every school with mold basically so trying to stick to the that he reported on that

you guys probably your limited scope wasn't to go look at other schools right hases your company ever looked at any other school but these two no yeah so uh actually for us just leral Lal right so we have issues putting yourself in a seat of a school Committee Member we're seeing these issues at every school basically so we're dealing with these two but we also have the bigger issue what what's

uh what is the um what makes you say that that you have you have M issues at every school that's a big state yeah because we're getting pictures similar to what this guy sent to us from staff members from Summer School from whoever so we basically have a mold issue and the gentleman said that you have mold here in this Aira and like so it could be whether it's a mold problem or not

but we have mold type of issues at all buildings visual stuff so now from my perspective we come and say whoa whoa this is at that school that's at that school that's at that school we all get the pictures I know I do they do so it's like oh fourth fall here there's no beat in that building we move kids from one building that's supposed to have air conditioning doesn't have air

conditioning working so now we got to move to another building and therefore the temperatur is going up to 100° and then humidity is happening so like we're trying to you know so when I just keep on saying about the H is because if we had an air conditioning system even somewhat working we got to figure out what happened and why why would this going down I don't have any way to say

What's the temperatures cuz we don't have anything to tell us what the temperatures were in all the rooms so two things my understanding is that there we have some HVAC systems that need to be upgraded is that right so we have chillers we have two chillers on their last Light okay um Sylvia and Spencer okay both are scheduled for new chillers October November that's a little bit a little bit easier of a task

than buying a getting a whole new system so that's that's yeah so two new chillers we just put a chiller in in green last year um and four years into laturno we had two compresses and chers go down okay so it's not they're not you know isolated we've had some issues in those buildings okay okay so the other thing I really want to stress to to everybody um when he when he said molds in this

building he means that mold is a part of nature always has been since Millennium it will always be it's part of it has a job to do so there's always levels of mold question is are they at healthy levels for outdoors that's fine well then Nature's going to do what she does right what is it indoors you know there's a level there's a threshold that is kind of standard acceptable level and

that's where he was saying moderate where they're not crazy numbers meaning they're not way over what what the standard is but not it's quite as low as they could be so that's what he's referring to when he said there's m in this in this building number one number two you can have visible mold like he showed a picture here and there and there but you have to look at things in a combination because mold those two

things it breaks down the building materials as you can see it does that's what it does that's what Mother Nature has it do it consumes dead wood on the wood floor and that's just part of its job in nature but it doesn't distinguish between the woods and and insulation in your building it's breaking it down it's eating it that's that's one thing Mo does the other thing though more

significant to us human beings is that it affects your health ADV personally and it affects it several ways but as he mentioned it's not good no matter what kind of species of mold there literally tens of thousands of species they behave in different ways they're Liv in micro microorganism and they all they're all a little different and that's how we identifi one associated with paper

because that's that's his property but the point I'm trying to make is that you can have visible mold here there and there but you have to look at it from a visual inspection in combination with the air sampling because it's the air that's going to affect our health it's at what level does that score count I can see mold there but my measurement of air is is fine is great you saying that in

some cases it was great so just when you see mold on an isolated area don't don't go crazy don't don't don't overthink it okay it's yes it's not good we got to fix it but it doesn't mean that the air is poison you can't be in that room that's the point I'm trying to make so if I'm teaching in the classroom yeah and I see mile if you just said over

there and I feel like I'm getting sick this and that whatever how do you tell me that how would you prove to me that it's safe for me to be teaching in that room we sample the air we sample the air we we look at those levels and we interpret the data and again to his point there's no standard regulated level like here's a line you're bad you're good it's not like that different

uh Consultants use different ranges of what they consider they are kind of good or not good and it was refreshing to hear and say moderate because a lot of times I've been out there and I've seen Consultants say who it's 10 points over what I think is the bad point so you got a problem it's not the it's not the most constructive approach let's just put it that way the problem approach was good

the problem that I'm having though is that so we would have to test rooms over and over to get people to feel confident that it's the case secondly when this gentleman came in July we had already done all kinds of remediation for months that we've been trying to do so he came in and said it was moderate after we've done all kinds of stuff is that in green or and the L Turnal okay so he confirmed

that it worked that it was the correct but it did it didn't go in my mind but it went back to so if I clean this whole place up and throw out all the stuff that had mold on it and do all this other stuff that then you test the air it's going to obviously be better than it was a month before my problem is how did we get to the you know we've been

sitting on it for 6 months so it sounds like as if the in your professional opinion the only way to have certainty is to test the each room oh test and and dehumidify and come up with a number of what is too high yeah we would have to do that I guess if there's no industry standard no no we can we can give you a number the numbers some some generally

speaking a th000 uh cubic uh sports with cubic meter is is is kind of the kind of the number that I hear most some are more stringent they use 500 some are luster they use 2,000 so I think he said they were like 300 to 4,000 and that's why he gave it a model but if we tested every room in the building in third week in August and every room was below the

standard you just said yeah whatever it is or they agree to if if they did that would be then you say that this is okay if it's over we got to still get a problem well again it's not like a go no go but you can't have it both ways it's either you can't just say it's moderat or it's not or some people use this number some people use that number if you can't give us the

number they need to give you the number and say we're going to use this number we can give you the number uh or I'm saying to mean what is what is okay what I'm saying to you is don't look at it so black what would be acceptable number for you we use a thousand if you were in a room we use a thousand and and really what they look at as a thousand is is there's

a lot of buffer in there so from all the Articles I've read when they try to associate people with a with an illness that doesn't have a pre-existing condition and again you can have 20 people in a room and 18 of them are fine and one maybe heals a little something and then maybe one person has a severe as situation or some pre-existing medical condition so it's not top launch you know across the board there

variabilities with who the individuals are their ages so um but you're saying number is a thousand so do you can care with that is I think any is that what we go by or I'm not the professional so I think it's figure out if it's the number if the number is the number I Scott's had his hand up so I I know you're not you can't see him um back chair

I we had something can I just if you put all three reports together if you put C's report their report and our report right mda's number is 500 there's has been a th000 Steve is in the middle right and that's what we've been looking at the other point to Mr Terrell's report is that if you follow his recommendations right our hope is that the number is going to go back down

somewhere there in the middle right the professional abatement is done that's that's the piece that we've been missing that's why after all testing that they did and the testing that we did the numbers were going up and down and the numbers when they started to go back up we went wait time out something's missing that's why we asked Mr Terrell to come in because we knew something was

what was missing and what's missing is that professional abatement because when the flooding was done there was Damage Done Right that was never it was professional what we have I sent Mr Terell hundreds of of P pages of all of the abatement that was done during the flight and he knows that those rooms were cut the teachers know those rooms were cut because the sheetrock wasn't put back up

before they came back in but there's more that c be done down what no no I I agree with you what I'm saying is is that there was we did have a professional group come in service Masters um there was a Ser Pro in another building we've had professionals come in after a flood and take care of that cut the sheetrock up 2 and 1/2 ft whatever whatever that amount was in

these buildings replace the gym floor we asked for the documentation we didn't get it so in in our in our world if you can't prove you did it it didn't happen we actually saw walls that were black and a mess and and and right I'm you've been here longer than I have I walk in I see walls that are damaged and you can't show me proof that they were cleaned up

where I'm saying to you right if like the proof is right there in front of us right so I'm not going to sit here and argue about what happened or what didn't happen we have professionals who coming in that says these walls need to be cleaned up you're hiring people to come in and take those walls out and get them cleaned up I don't care as long as they're cleaned up same thing with the

with the gym right we had stuff that had black stuff all over it let's get it cleaned up I don't want to live in the past let's just get it cleaned up and that was our goal all along so it was what do we need to do to get that school cleaned up by September we had an opportunity to get to identify the you know we did everything we could to get

it cleaned up before end of school we didn't get it done we had an opportunity to do what we could to get it cleaned up before September then we found out about green I think you know the the one thing that we did not talk about here I think it's great that Mr Terrell is here and everybody here here is trying to partner together to work together to get this

work done but the one thing that we're not talking about is the lack of leadership and accountability within the staff of f r Public Schools everybody here as staff knows that if you have a problem in your building you go to your principal that's the person who's in charge of the building at the building level and at building after building after building staff has said to us that they have gone

to the principal to report these problems and E it either gets un not addressed it gets swept under the carpet or they're threatened if they're if they report it to anybody else and the problems that we're having Happ in our buildings is because we went day after day week after week month after month year after year of these buildings not being maintained properly and if you do that in your

house the same thing's going to happen and that's unacceptable and that's what needs to stop and because that happened this district is going to have to spend the amount of money that we have to spend to now correct the problem and I'm glad that we're talking about it and I'm glad that we're all working together to fix the problem but if you don't fix management problem it's going to continue to happen we cannot

have workers employees going to management and reporting something and not having it taken care of we cannot have management doing walkthroughs or either not walking through classrooms or walking through classrooms and not identifying problems and dealing with it whoever is in charge like somebody's got to be in charge of these buildings and make sure that these problems are being dealt with and the union is here

to work with you just like we've been doing we've been working with at LNO and now we're working with you at Green and now we're working hard to identify a health and safety person in every single building because we want to help you we want to be part of the solution we want our buildings to be safe for not only our staff but for our kids but we can

only help you you are in charge you the school committee you the superintendent your principles you were in charge we can only help thank you we need a motion to refer this one second one second I just only make a point about the I think basically reflecting what was said over here if you want to set a number to qualify if it's safe or not that's fine but you need to recognize that it's not just

black or white and the way that the question was phrased if you have someone getting sick how can you tell them that the room is safe the answer is really can't it may be that they're getting triggered and that they may be compromised we don't know and that's one the reasons why there is no standard that's so on the agenda it it says discussion and go through for a quality report I have additional questions on

the School uh the so all the other schools that we received complaints on so um when I what's on the agenda is to do a quality report but I would I'd make that motion but with the understanding that on Monday when we meet we're going to get a report on all the issues at all the schools and I think that covers Us under this particular report may we did this with school you know I'm just

saying so as we're getting we're getting a lot of complaints about all the schools building up down whatever now when I get them most times I can see them because the union is send you know you've seen the same as I have not saying I've seen things that I have't sent to you but when we make this motion to refer air quality report I think it's incum upon us to say we need people at

the table for the full committee to be able to ask questions to about any of these issues this consultant that consultant because if Monday comes this a meeting before the school starts basically yes you know so so I just want to clarify though in terms of the air quality report versus an update on uh the mediation work that's being done in in different schools because I I I'm asking the question I don't know

that we have an air quality report for all scho and I'm not expecting that okay all I'm saying is what's here on the agenda would be the a quality now you as a superintendent working with the chair and the vice chair can make anything you want on the agenda right I'm just making it a public meeting for anybody to see that I'm feeling like we you need to have an update on any of the mold air

quality issues in all of our schools because this is a meeting before our school start so then you can say whatever you want to do they'll try to ease everybody's concern that we're doing the cleanup we're doing this we're doing that and we're going to put humid stats in every single class whatever it is but I just want it to not get pigeon ho which sometimes we do and I ask for something that's totally legitimate to

be put on the agenda and I get denied so I'm asking in a public meeting on TV to be able to say when we make this vote I'm expecting that as one member we're going to get all of an update on everyone sure that makes sense thank you motion to and that's for August 12 August for the yeah and obviously you don't you can't commission a report for every school in that goes with the same

I ask what's the update on what's the capacity of all our H system how they work those type of things should do motion to made to refer I I I couldn't hear motion motion to refer this on the item on the agenda to the full Committee just to discuss all in favor I if I if I could on that are you asking for the same document besides what you just asked for are you asking with this

that we're going to send the same documents that we have here to the full committee yes okay plus the recommendation the update on reports information like you could take some of what everybody said here and give us answer to what they just said you know missl mu just articulated a lot of concerns about something like I would say we should get a one pager on what her concerns are cuz I think they're

valid but if you think they're not valid then we should get a one pager to say this you know what I'm saying just a response to what it is just like a CZ an in make a motion to refer a second one National Guard lease extension second the lease for the National Guard we want to make to refer the leas for the national for the second one move on to

that just okay I I still have a question yes go Mr Cory I just want to I just want to shed a little bit of uh sensibility on the nature of the arguments being presented today I sat here and I felt like the public schools were getting slapped in the face and I'm a product of public schools I spent 27 years inside the old dery high school that was just knocked

down and I'd like to know the air quality in that building was nowhere near as good as any of the air quality is in the buildings that we have currently in our city 27 years I spent in that building with windows that did not open and mold that lived in the carpets from the flat roof that leaked all over the place and I'd like to know my colleague Mr agar all those years

that you sat on the school committee what was done about that that was such a big public outcry because as far as I know what I heard today I'm really quite angry I'm very pleased with the remediation efforts being undertaken by our school Department this is not an easy problem and the common sense that they presented us is that this has always been there and it will always be there so now we need to Common Sense

manage it and I think going with dehumidification is a great step forward to get us from here to there right now because we're looking at some major budgetary items down the road that would need need to be approved so as far as I know I appreciate the concern that the union brings to this meeting we're here for the safety of all our children and our staff absolutely we want to pre protect

all of all of that safety but in no way do I want our schools to be marked as not caring about this ongoing environmental issue is that I know right now clearly we're working to remediate we've listened to all the complaints the parents the teachers we're going to get it done we're not going to sit down and let it slide but I felt like I just got punched in the face 20

times with all of this and and I have to say Mr Pico I'm glad you're at the home because I know you got a handle on this this has nothing to do with with inside any all I know is M Pico you have the general expertise to run the facilities in our school department and I One appreciate that and I trust that we will hear regular updates in regard to this

issue because I know it's going to remain in the public concern with that I yield yes Mr AA so since my colleague wants to call me out I'm happy to respond go ahead so what I would encourage all school committee members to do is to actually become invested and a little bit more invested in the concerns that people raise when I've seen over and over concerns from teachers and staff Union or

non-union that raise concerns at meetings that show us documentation that they raised concerns to their supervisors yeah for not looking for the answers I let you talk and I didn't say anything so Madam chair please let me finish as I start seeing things come out that says we asked this question we didn't get an answer we weren't happy with this we weren't happy with what the principal said I would encourage you and

every other member of the committee to become more invested because what I've seen over the last four months is at least several members of the committee that respond to the individuals that show us the reports back and forth and spend hours I have spent hours of time trying to advocate for the people that have wrote these messages and they shouldn't have to go through it whether

it was 4 months or 5 months or 6 months so what I've done is asked for information from the administration from the prior superintendent and the current superintendent such as I wanted 5 years of of messages to determine how many how many people put in tickets to fix problems in the school district relative to the axes we all got copies of that I'm sure you haven't gone through and

looked at it to try to see it but I have let's keep it professional M listen there two Sid let's keep it professional you allow one person to be unprofessional don't come don't come at so I would encourage you and every other member to look at that data I've also asked for the Last 5 Years of emails to be sent from any custodian or maintenance official to the administration back and forth so that we

can actually see who reported what went because we need to figure out how this happened so that it doesn't happen again I'm not placing blame on Mr Chico Dr kill Mrs PS or anybody but the fact of the matter is we have a real issue here and it's been an issue for a lot longer than we should have to do now school committee members and I've served on this committee for a long time do not

operate in the day-to-day operations of a school we do not handle the day-to-day operations that's the administration from the superintendent on that's why I've asked them for the information but I've been asking questions including in this meeting to try to get to the bottom of what happen now if you want to tell me that you think it's okay for 50% of the HVAC system at the lero school or

green school or 60% whatever the superintendent sent for all of us because I asked that question what is the percentage of how much is the HV system working at every school first these two and now all of them she gave us an answer to her credit she's responded to every damn thing that I've asked her it said 50 or 60% capacity if you don't think as a school Committee Member that's a problem then

we are totally in different places but it's a problem for me so I've asked those questions so I've asked those questions as I'm asking those questions it's the answer for the people that are in the schools now to talk about the dery high school if you worked in the dery high school sir I want to know when you went to your union like these people have to their Union to try to get

something done and I bet you you never did because it didn't come that's where it needs to come from the the teachers and the staff that are working in the building that they feel is unsafe go to a process to they and to their principes those principles if they knew about it and haven't done anything about it which we haven't done in order to try to figure out who knew what when but I

think we should because that if that's going to show what missu indicated that administrators knew about things and either rushed under the Copic but didn't do anything I think we have a problem I also have a problem with things that I get sent to me here's a case in point and I think everybody should know it and I think everybody will be clear we have ceiling tiles that had black on so for

years what we've done here in the school system is we had a can of spray paint called cover up and we were told to cover it up that's what the CST gave to the custodians to cover up I'm a school Committee Member and I get concerned about that so therefore that's why I'm doing what I'm doing because I don't find it appropriate I brought that to superintendent P's attention first I heard of it

superintendent Pon immediately said that's ridiculous that shouldn't be happening and it's not going to happen anymore just a case in point that these are the type of things they're doing so I feel 100% confident as a school committee member that I'm backing up these work is here and the workers that are not even in this school because some people don't even know there's problems

in their school workers don't even know there's a problem in their school so I'm backing them up and I'm being totally honest with you this is the questions that I have here's what we should get for information I encourage you and the other members to become more active and stop jumping in the boat with us to try to get these things Sol with without have yeah resp yes Mr yes so uh for you

to claim that uh we're not invested is an assertion on your part I'm thoroughly invested in the business of this school department have been for years always will be I think the people in the union even know that can recognize it so I won't accept that assertion Mr Agia on behalf of not knowing what was going on while I was working inside dery High School I worked upstairs in the office

where Johnson Controls used to access all of the controls on the roof of the building I was in constant touch with the remediation work going on at dery high school during those years and I knew that there was work being done to be remediated as we need to get our work done to remediate now so we can represent these people in the best way possible we're coming out from two different angles I

yield thank you anything else it move on to 302 discussion and vote to refer National Guard lease extension we have a motion to refer I second second you all in favor I I I thank you work thank you uh next 303 update G Services uh Mr FICO thank you guys very much so um put together something real brief we are um as you could see we did jump into the spring cleaning

as we thought we would um and it as much as we possibly could we have to work with um with the late start um and uh weather conditions being um extremely wet at the at the season for our spring cleanup um mul you the installation of mulch and most of the the schools has been done some schools we haven't uh be finished um and uh some of it is time um and basically

the amount of acreage is is a slow road so we're doing the best we can with what we've got to work with um we do have um a lot of other projects that that the grounds has been doing not internally but externally with contractors and I listed them at the bottom you know with different Courtyards uh we're try to make the courtyards usable um they were overgrown each and every one of them um

this building um has a beautiful Courtyard that was very difficult to maneuver just the sidewalks in it never mind actually take being able to be outside so we've done some trimming in this one and we plan on putting some pot benches um picnic benches uh and tables in uh most of those areas so that um teachers can use them with students teachers can use them without students um it'll be an outside area that most

schools who have Courtyards don't currently utilize um but they will be able to uh and and a few other items we have playgrounds listed um as part of um some uh extra dollars that um the school department was uh able to uh recoup from the city on um the items with u finishing off net School spending we am mared a bunch of those items that's how we're paying for the two

chillers that we're you know going to put in but there's also four playgrounds to the tune of 1.1 million going into uh four different buildings um to upgrade the equipment or put in equipment that we never had in those schools um and there is still some work doing uh the tany school for instance used to flood out the back parking lot we did quite quite an extensive job with that we also

had the help of um Carlton um who brought over the students and it was a nice project they did a wonderful job um use some of for granite um to make a nice um landscape area in the back um so we are U moving forward with a lot of that kind of work um it's too early for us to to you know give an evaluation um but we will within the next 3 months

come back with another update um I can do it this form or I can do it you know straight to the full committee whichever um because none of these are reing so not all these projects uh Mr Pico are scheduled to be completed by school right by you know some of them are just not the equipment's not going to be any time okay the uh playround equipment kind of like a lot of the other HC Stu

electrical items as long lead time so we ordered them as soon as we had the funds to order them right and and locked them in um and with POS um incumbent the money so those playgrounds are all going to start going in as soon as they uh as they become available to install we're doing some work in some of the buildings um ahead of time so that we can uh have

them the SPAC is ready for the equipment now we chose not to go with Bright View right this was the first we chose we using view for minor things uh we don't have anybody licensed to do chemical U feed so we're doing chemical feed with bre view uh we are doing um a replacement of uh trees and shrubs in different build buildings um with Bri view um and um I don't think there's anything other

than those items that bre view is involved in they are not doing any Landscaping once a month okay so how is the the Landscaping work it's slower dir dir is a Time drain um it's a big campus to take care of um we have two people um that we have going there um at a time uh cut the front of the building they'll do the the edges and all the complete work

at Derpy they'll go to the back of the building you know another day and then um there is work even though our fields are all artificial um Turf there is a lot of work around the fields that isn't um and up on the hill near the tennis courts all of that work is all part of dery proper so it does take 3 days to do dery um we mix it up so that we can have

a crew going to other places obviously um but it is it is a big um is a big time Gap uh or time um commitment that we make to dery you know in order to do that but I I'm as of right now I could not make an educated okay you know uh assessment as to whether or not we're going to be able to take that on um I think that we've

done the in that area as to how much they've got done I think that the dery looks very good um done a you know a real good job with maintaining the front of the building uh and and the the rear of the building and all of differenty proper um but we do have um a lot of acreage to cut uh with the with the crew and um up until the last probably four

weeks you know we were wet for quite a bit two or three rain days in a week just about wipes it out now are you fully staffed you have all you guys we had one leave but now we're fully staffed we do have one on comp and we've had one on comp not the same one but we've had one person on comp since um I want to say January two different

individuals so have six Active right now is that accurate seven active seven active one okay we had one leave we it was probably a 3 week between that person leaving and but the work's getting done it is Can U I get a prend on this document says weekly cutting has been a challenges expected with we and employee intendance I just get a report on what that means break down whatever um the communication

boards we talked about this in special at the out they they will be done before school starts yes so those are like the playgrounds that the community uses so I would encourage them to get done yesterday if if possible and quite honestly if we're hiring outside people to do different things I would put that up the hierarchy just personally to say we're talking about communication boards

for special education children there should have been up a long time ago if that means we got to hire a consult a a private person to go do it I would do it personally yesterday um the software that we talked about at the last meeting and I couldn't I wanted to go back and figure out the time I think it was February or something like that so what M Larry we talked about the right VI

meeting the software we were going to have improved software which is going to give us improv reports is can we just either know what's happening or get us aort so we are we are still doing all of the the background work with it um we actually have a meeting day um it has been maybe 12 meetings deep in the two sections of of the um up update and the two different versions of it and um

we're scheduled to have them on site um mid to late August to go over the training piece with the um with the directors first and then the senior custodians and principles um to be able to get what you just said as a summary for the full committee because we talked about it I don't know off hand I thought we were talking about money like we increased money to pay at that time so

I'm curious about like when did we stop paying more for this and the report that I was looking for was like you know the the gentleman told us we could do uh where everybody is you know like weekly schedules and that type of stuff so so we on the old system currently we still are and that migration is scheduled for I'm not I'm going to say the 20th of

August but I'm not sure on that date but after that gets done and after that migration get better get we will be able to get that's ABS um one more question Mr um a on the communication boards so we purchase is there an option to get them to purchase and get installation uh I don't think there was an option we bought it from a company so I don't think there was a turn key okay part of

this some items that we do purchase um turn key but this one wasn't so we will we will get on there this company maybe there's other companies that would well it would be a separate contractor so we could do that we could just hire a subcontractor yes sir Mr Chico could you give us an update on the uh the kitchen work and the uh Community engagement Center going on

inside RPA so the the rough work is all completed there some sheet rot in areas the the center itself um is just about completed except for a ceiling um a drop ceiling that's going in um walls the room's been painted we have furniture we just need to put a a new ceiling into that room with some new lighting um the kitchen area as I said is rough um some finished work done the um equipment is

scheduled to stop rolling in uh probably mid to late next week and then it'll all be installed and the hope is is that we have again 80 to 90% of all the equipment in place um so that program is ready we also um are uh starting um a program at cus um and we're working on that room currently um it will be a different a different level what we have there at a middle school

downstairs here um in the back in the home uh section so that work is being done um as far as that kitchen and then the final kitchen will be the cafeteria Kitchen in um RPA and that kitchen is um in design War that's a major expense um but that work will be ongoing so we're going to rather than try to do it as a complete project we're going to do a

peace meal we put in freezers and um walk in refrigerators now um probably before school starts those will be operational and then we'll be add piece by piece in the kitchen of all the items until we have um the full workout so those three projects are un going along with probably about 15 others thank you thank you a yes so just at the subcommittee for special education we talked about the need for

that to be done before school start because they're going to use it as a period of the day for the kids just so yes like that can't get backed up to after school has to be done before school house because that's part of the one of the periods and if we could just get an update on the not now superent for the technology department moving down in this building that is we're

going to have a technology meeting next week talk about it but if you know anything in a Friday you say thank you uh thank you uh new business anything motion second all in favor de M drag yes Mr Cory y yes