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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-10-31-SMPAC-min Lexington Public Schools Master Planning Advisory Committee Thursday, October 31, 2024 from io:oo -12:30 p.m. Remote Participation via Zoom Attendees:Andrew Baker, Melissa Battite, Sandra Beebe, Fay Chen, David Coelho, Michael Cronin, Rick DeAngelis, Julie Hackett, Maureen Kavanaugh, Kathleen Lenihan,Alan Levine,Joe Pato, Mark Sandeen, Deepika Sawhney, Michael Schanbacher, Dan Voss The minutes were taken by Sara Jorge,Administrative Assistant for the Lexington Superintendent. The meeting began at 10:05 a.m. Dr. Hackett explained that we are reconvening the MPAC to discuss the impact of housing developments and the changes in zoning bylaws on student enrollment. She indicated that they hope to make a plan for how we will approach this and update the Master Plan. She explained that the MPAC worked on a Master Plan with Dinisco and created a Master Plan Compendium, a document we would use when enrollments were lower than usual or higher than expected.What we are learning from the data is that we will be okay.While there is a lot of worry and angst in the community right now,what we are learning from the data suggests that we are going to be able to handle the impact on our schools. Maureen Kavanaugh shared the eetinenresentation. She explained we do not have any significant space issues at the elementary and middle school levels at the moment.At the high school level,the building remains well over its operating capacity at the current enrollment, which is over 2400. She noted changes in the multi-family zoning requirements for MBTA communities. In 2020,the Legislature amended the Zoning Act to promote the production of multi-family housing within walking distance of public transportation to address the severe regional housing shortage.As a community serviced by the MBTA, Lexington was required to create by-right multi-family zoning. The Annual Town Meeting adopted Overlay District Zoning on April 12, 2023.While looking at the map, she explained that the good news for us is that the areas are spread out, so the development is not concentrated in a single school assignment area that we would expect to impact one elementary school or one middle school very intensely. Still, obviously,the high school is a different story.All students are going to be at a single high school. She explained as we are still getting information about which housing is going where,the size of the housing, and the specific location of that housing, another variable is the completion time.We have always been able to absorb gradual changes in the housing market.When there is a big influx all at once,things get more complicated. She noted that it is implied in our data but worth mentioning explicitly that housing doesn't necessarily guarantee students, so you can see over the years that we've had some declines and increases. During the periods of decline, it's not because Lexington removed housing; other variables at play would drive enrollment down. Certainly, new housing adds potential, as it adds more landing spots for families, so when those other conditions that drive enrollment up come into play,we now have more landing spots and potential for students. Maureen Kavanaugh concluded that while it seems like enrollment will go up, it doesn't guarantee that the kids will show up. Michael Schanbacher commented that while I understand what you are saying, it would be helpful if we had a way to distribute students around so that we don't tax any particular elementary school and to be able to explain this when we present these to the town meeting. Maureen Kavanaugh and Julie Hackett explained that we already have flexible assignment, where we can assign a student to a non-goe-coded school if their geo-coded school is overcrowded. Deepika Sawhney: Does it matter if these are rented or owned? Do we know if these developments will be sold or managed as an owned set of units? Maureen Kavanaugh: In reviewing historical data, I found that it does matter whether an apartment or a condominium is owned by someone else. Joe Pato: We don't know if the condos are being rented or if they're owner-occupied.Also, for this analysis on 756 units in the pipeline where those bedroom count and ownership models were known,we got a note yesterday that additional data will be provided on the remaining ones in the pipeline. So that'll go into the rest of the work that's being done. Deepika Sawhney: If they are owned,then you have a family that moves in and hopefully stays, and their children graduate. But if they are rented,you could get into a cycle every four years or so. Maybe there is a way to put in a variable,which is what you might get. Joe Pato: In the 2014 preliminary report to the School Committee,the enrollment group did have a tenure analysis to show how long families resided in their locations. The average tenure in rental locations was shorter but not significantly shorter than that in owned properties. It was a difference of about a year or two, and they were all on the order of seven to 1o/11 years. So that notion of a four-year turnaround really didn't appear in the data examined from 2004-2013. Joe Pato: I just want to comment on the minimum to maximum numbers,the minimums were the lowest number density that was seen in the system, and the maximum was the highest. There was only one development where could watch it grow, and it was the Avalon development that occurred during the study period.We can see that it took a number of years to reach the average point.When they go online,you shouldn't expect that they will give you the target amount. It took over 10 years to reach the maximum amount, and then it fell off from there. Maureen Kavanaugh: I'm curious to see how much data we add using Avalon as the example and how much of that is related to other variables, conditions, recessions, pandemics, etc. Michael Schanaber: There's a tremendous amount of time just in the documentation phase to get these developments to a point where we can pull a building permit,but they haven't even started any of the site work yet. They still have to go through the building department and all these hoops they have to jump through.We have time, and that is the point that I'm trying to make. Alan Levine explained that the fact that it's not happening today,the units aren't occupied, doesn't mean that there isn't some timeliness required with respect to what the Town needs to do,with respect to the potential for development.We don't have time,we don't have three years to wait to see what happens,because a lot of development could happen that we don't want in that time period. But we have to be mindful of what the control possibilities are. Joe Pato: Just to be clear, our task is to study what are the potential outcomes and how we would adjust to them. It's not our domain to talk about zoning change. Our task is to assume it comes because that's what's there now, and how do we cope? Alan Levine: I don't completely agree. If this group thinks it's going to become a problem, it's not our job to solve the zoning problem; it's our job to just sound an alert that says,This is going to be a problem, and it needs to be addressed. Mike Cronin: I think that is the solution.What can this group do to absorb the flow of students who are coming in with these options, as we did five years ago? We list all the options,from low, medium, and high costs. It might be we need to build an addition or an additional school. It might be that we're just going to have to tough it out with students of 24 kids in the classroom for a couple of years without building anything. So I think this group has to have that conversation and then present on it.Then the other boards and committees determine the right step for Lexington. Julie Hackett: We were anticipating over 2,60o kids.We have 24,19 now. So, not that we would have wanted to have started with 2,600,but the reality is that we have fewer than we anticipated, and the numbers that we're getting don't even bring us to the peak of what we expected originally. Mark Sandeen: Just to follow up on Dr Hackett's comments, I really hope that we're going to be looking at this in the context of the larger demographic changes that are going on in our town, in our state, and in our society.We see that Lexington has been getting older.We see that in Massachusetts, in general,the number of kids per family decreases. I would love to ensure we look at the larger demographic changes explicitly and not just solely on the one thing that everybody's focused on right now. Mark Sandeen: To me, it looks like we still have a COVID-19 hangover in terms of the number of people left in 2021 and 2022. So, I'm wondering whether a bunch of those people who wouldn't normally have left are coming back to the schools. Maureen Kavanaugh: One thing that I have started to look at, and we'll share in later presentations as this data gets firmed up, is our central registration data. Where are the kids coming from? For the last three years at the high school level,just about two-thirds, maybe a little less than that, are international arrivals. I do wonder if those could have been families that had planned to come but then were delayed and are now coming. Joe Pato: I just wanted to add that one of the things about these cohort survival models is it's easy to think that this is just the existing population. There's a significant amount of in-and-out migration, so these don't necessarily represent the same kids from year to year. Christina Boutwell: Regarding your kindergarten trend, I would suggest that you look at where your decline started after the 448 since that 306 now almost looks linear. So I'm not sure it's a low outlier. I would just throw that in as an interpretation that if you got rid of the noise of COVID,that could be where the trend line would have ended up. So maybe it's just a reason not to fully discount it as a blip. Deepika Sawhney: To Mr. Boutwell's point,what I've been hearing is that the demand for the LCP has been increasing, and the LCP is funneled into our kindergarten classes. So that's a point to just think about. The point I wanted to ask is not to do with this Committee but for Dr. Hackett and Mr. Baker to reply to me offline if I look at the number of cohorts,we are losing kids at the loth to lith-grade level. I just want to know offline that this is not economic distress because I know that at age 16 plus,kids can go to work. Alan Levine: Since the kind of data and the methodologies are somewhat different, I think, especially for the data,that in terms of making projections, it'd be good to present projections without the new housing included,then a separate projection that says,here's just the contribution from the new housing, and then a total so that one can see what the different effects are. Maureen Kavanaugh: If housing is one variable that has the potential to add more students, that's one thing you need to also take into account the base, so the overall trend is eventual decline. So it's not adding the 20 to our current 2400,versus six, seven years out,when we're looking at 2300 or lower, you would do the add on that number, not the current 2400. Andrew Baker explained that an over-projection at a high school level feels much safer to me. Julie Hackett shared the MSBA enrollment reconsideration reeluest letter that she sent to the Massachusetts School Building Authority(MSBA).They gave us a design enrollment of 2395 students when we are currently at 2419.The design enrollment initially was 275 fewer than the 2395 students. It is in our best interest to get that number up as our grant number goes up when enrollment does.At the bottom of the letter, I tried to give them many options. The first suggestion is that we want a meeting. I've mentioned some of the things that Maureen mentioned already,but our multi-family zoning is much higher than other communities. I've asked them to give us more students or more credit for students and one way to think about this is we have built in additional possibilities for expansion already. So one is what we've been talking about with the Central Office,which I wish we would stop calling it Central Office space, and we would start calling it extra space for kids because that's really what it is. But that gives us about 250 to 300 more spots for students.Another way is pushing on our utilization rate,which is 85%. If we were to bring that up to a higher level or approach it differently,we would have another 50o kids in that regard. Then, a third way is to build on to the school itself. So if the MSBA chose to increase our design enrollment, I have no idea how they will respond to this or what that means for the process because it could mean we go all the way back to the beginning, which would not be an outcome we would want. But if they were to choose to participate more fully and increase that design enrollment number,that would mean more money for Lexington. Alan Levine: If you went to the MSBA and they increased the number,but we decided it would be more expensive to build a bigger building, so we just stuck with our plan.Would we still get more reimbursement from them? Julie Hackett:You don't have to go with the maximum size.They make recommendations. The classroom size is a good example.They recommend a 950-square-foot classroom size, and we chose an 850-square-foot one. So I think there's flexibility on that. Julie Hackett: Number four,we respectfully request that you consider applying the 32% reimbursement rate to the 20,000 gross square feet designed for the central office student overcrowding space. So we're asking them to participate in funding those spaces that they currently don't. The fifth item is to consider applying that reimbursement rate to the field house, which is a large space.That would help us. We are currently not getting any reimbursement for that.The sixth item talks about the lab space.You know that with our School Building Committee process,we didn't exceed square footage in almost any area. So,the MSBA gives us guidelines, and we stick to them, or we are underneath them. One place we couldn't achieve that was through special education because we needed more space. So we went over by about 9,000 square feet, and we're saying we are part of the LABBB Collaborative. We service 62 communities, and many of these communities get a much higher reimbursement rate than Lexington. So what we are saying is,why don't you take those 62 communities and give us the average,that would be more money for Lexington. So I will keep you posted on the response to this,but I just wanted you to see that there are different kinds of conversations and outreach happening. Michael Schanbacher: The timing is unfortunate,to say the least,but we did what the state required us to do, and there are other communities that are pushing back on that. This is an opportunity, at least from my perspective, for us to push back on the state and say we did our job, and it's time for you to do your job and give us the money that we need to again do the things that you asked us to do. Julie Hackett's understanding that the letter is in the hands of the Governor's Office. Julie Hackett shared the MBIA Zonin Bvlaw I I Strategies in All Design Orations. This document discusses the three ways that we can make this high school bigger already,without expanding or changing the design. (1)Maximizing the utilization rate to 95%yields space for approximately 500 more students. (2) Expansion into the 20,000 SF space designated for the Central Office yields space for approximately 300 more students. (3)Additional building expansion yields space for approximately 500 more students. The Master Planning Committee did small group work. Group 1: Deepika Sawhney explained that they discussed the immediate and short-term needs at the high school. Dan Voss added that they discussed the concept of sliding grades from the high school to the middle school, or the middle school to the elementary school, or both,just to accommodate a shift in population to the areas where we have a little bit more flexibility and space. The point was made that the middle schools are already at capacity and are a pinch point, so just moving a grade into the middle school population would not seem to work and would probably necessitate a cascade shift of grades or student populations, or alternatively, considering building a third Middle School. So that was the concept around moving student populations down the facilities map. Sandy Beebee: Our group also considered the possibility of having a small, more specialized high school that served particular needs,like how to strengthen a particular area, and would be for students who might want a smaller, more personalized high school experience. It may not have all the same clubs and activities or athletic opportunities as the 300o-student high school,but it would serve the needs of these students better and could be in a smaller footprint. Deepika Sawhney: We also talked briefly about the MBTA communities as a Master Planning group requesting a slowdown or a pause so that we could possibly cap it or push it out or to see what we would learn in three or five years which would make any of the final outcomes different? I thought that maybe if we requested time from Town Meeting Members to put a pause,then we could absorb as more houses came online, as a Town and more students came online, so that would just slow down the process of all these communities coming online. Group 2: Mike Cronin explained that they had conversations similar to those in group i.We thought that the waterfall of having one of the grades of the high school move into the middle school,leaving the two larger middle schools, and having the next grade slide back down into the elementary schools.We know we have a Bridge and Bowman project coming up in the near future, so the thinking was to maybe right size that elementary school on a second location and take the existing,for example, Bridge site as a potential third middle school space, may not be the exact same size given the footprint,but that same idea of water following the grades down so that the high school doesn't really exceed that 3000 students.The Bridge site would be more centrally located for a middle school. Kathleen Lenihan explained that group 2 also discussed having a smaller second high school for 9th grade,but no one wants to keep one grade alone.We also discussed the capacity issues at the middle school,like group 1. Group 3: Mark Sandeen explained that they had similar conversations as well. One of the things that we suggested we might want to look at is, in light of the underlying demographics,whether this is a temporary shift as opposed to a permanent shift.Whether we just do it for a few years until that demographic change kicks in,we can go back to a four-grade high school.The other thing we discussed was things that you've already presented in community meetings, such as increasing the class size. Still,we were interested in understanding what that meant for cafeteria spaces, auditorium spaces, and other infrastructure spaces that would still be stressed. Alan Levine: We also talked about the Town considering acquiring properties that might be suitable for an elementary school.We talked about the ninth grade moving to the middle schools.Then maybe you want to make the middle schools junior high and the elementary schools K through 6, in which case, to provide more elementary schools.And none of these are particularly palatable. Melissa Battite: We also discussed that as larger properties or open spaces come up for sale,we could consider them as forward-thinking rather than reactive. Julie Hackett explained that we discussed that during the Master Planning process and didn't land on a good solution for acting quickly.What's the mechanism or the lever of change? Obviously,you have a planning process, and people are in the lineup, but you have to strike while the iron is hot. Group 4: Maureen Kavanaugh explained that they discussed how we effectively upped the utilization rate at Diamond. Clarke had already done this when they were super crowded. They were at max we built a new space,but they've kept their higher utilization rate for sure at Clarke. I am unsure if they've maxed out their utilization at Diamond.There might actually be a little bit more room. That also might not be true at all,but it's a base we should cover when we talk about whether the middle schools have space or not. If we continue to increase that population,we'll probably start maxing out the core spaces if we haven't already, so that was one thing we discussed.We talked about proactively looking for land opportunities. I also wondered what we need to do to get ourselves set up to act as fast as we need to when these opportunities show up. One of the more radical ideas we discussed was the field house as a space. Do we knock it down? Leave it open? Do we build and design it so it can be modified? Joe Pato added that the field house could be used as a hybrid structure with multiple functions. Julie Hackett asked if the field house needed to be on the high school site. Kathleen Lenihan explained that we need to consider where it is in relation to the students who need to use it and can access it on foot. Julie Hackett: I'm thinking about all the possibilities and what you could do if it were relocated to a different place. Obviously,this is just a brainstorming exercise.You could take the land where it used to sit, and then that could become a smaller high school, alternative school, personalized learning space, or a ninth-grade academy. Julie Hackett explained that the next meeting would be to determine the right enrollment number and the trigger to activate the plans.We will send a Doodle Poll for another meeting in three weeks. The meeting adjourned at 12:13 p.m.