001[Music] Well, wait, Dave. We are. Didn't he say that? Yeah. Special meeting, Joseph. Okay. Yep. You want to confirm? Good evening. Today is August 6. This is a rescheduled workshop committee meeting. We'll start out with a silent prayer. Dr. Schwarz, would you lead us in the pledge? Absolutely. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there any public speaking? Don't see. Okay. Are you later? I know you can come. Okay. Item number one, committee of the whole informal youth workshop summer program. Now I read two set. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Board of Ed commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Um, I'm just going to give you a really quick
002overview of the youth workforce summer programs that we have going on in the district. Okay. So, first we have in partnership with the city, we have 26 students who will finish participating in a six-week program this Friday. On the right, you will see the city departments that were willing to take on an intern or two this summer. Is that me? Okay. Next, we have our health healthcare internship programs. We have 35 students who participated in various healthcare facilities such as St. Mary's Waterberry Hospital and call behavioral students participated in a oneweek rotation at the facility of their choice where they gained gained hands-on experience the week that they participated. Next, we partnered with the literacy volunteers of Greater Waterberry. We had six students who volunteered to work with them. However, that was placed on hold
003at the moment because the director has since resigned and we hope to pick that back up once I connect with someone again. And lastly, this is just uh to show that we do offer our students the opportunity to apply to the Northwest Regional Workforce Board and we offer whatever the city parks and rec department has out there. Once these applications come out, this is sent to the schools. It's given to students on Google Classroom as well as advertised on parent square for students and families to be able to apply to any questions. And Na, can you just talk a little bit more about the internships our students have taken part in with the different city departments? I think you had that on there earlier, but just a little bit more depth about what that is
004because I it's been such a positive program. Well, the different uh city departments, some of them are the finance department, human resource, IT, public works. They just get the hands-on experience of what our actual city departments are going through. It's not that they're just sitting at a desk. They are in the trenches with them, learning, seeing if they have the opportunity to do some sort of hands-on. The departments are allowing them to do so as well. [Music] Commissioner Lopez. Yeah, I think it's great. I actually had some kids over at Waterberry Hospital, so it was a lot of fun. Um, just curious, how many slots are usually available? Because I know we it says 26 students, but how many that we had 26 slots available this year? Yeah. Okay. And then how often I know
005that you send it out on Parent Square, but how often does it get promoted? Like so the city internships or all of them? All of them. So we do we do career interest inventories with the students in school. So a lot of times we try and you know reach out to those kids who have the interest in certain fields. Some students if they're not, you know, filling those slots, we would just make sure we put it out there on Google Classroom and Parent Square saying first come first serve. But again, if we know of students that are showing an interest in a certain field from freshman year on up, then we want to make sure we tap into them and say, "Hey, there's this opportunity." All right. So, but it's promoted on parents career a
006couple times. Yes, schools should be uh promoting it on parents where in Google Classroom as well. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, cuz kids say, "Oh, I didn't see it. I didn't see it." Yes, it's there. The unfortunate piece is that, you know, for the healthc care facilities, 35 students and, you know, the the facilities only allow a certain number of slots. You know, we have tons of students that want to participate, especially in the healthcare facilities, and with 35 slots, it definitely is. Yeah. Rough. Yeah. I had 12 slots available. I had six students come this year. So, it was a little disappointing, but we had a great time. Um and then the other question I had was um we have that teaching track right where we're kids that are looking to become teachers are educators
007rising. Yes. Educators rising. Um how many of them are involved in like after school program to kind of like help kids and tutoring or anything? Are are they participating in that? So I don't have that information right now but I can get that to you. Okay. I'll look into that. All right. Thank you. Mhm. Commissioner Lopez, you said you had 12 slots and only six participants. Did you guys reach out? I have to be honest. I don't know what we did internally to promote that. Um, so I definitely will be doing better next year internally for our or you know the organization. But definitely with the parent square like most of the kids were saying, "Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know." So I was just curious. So we did have all slots filled and
008once school ends then the WHIB takes over because this is in collaboration with the WHIB with all the paperwork. So once school ends we had the 12 students the WHIB takes over and then the WHIB finishes all the paperwork with them. So at that point if the WHIB needs us then they reach out. But if they don't reach out to say, "Hey, we're missing this paperwork or whatever it may be." Sometimes it might be they need a social security card or birth certificate. And some that's something we can't help with, but we could help with a transcript, uh, address, anything like that. Anything that we could help school related, we definitely do to help get that student's file complete. I would agree with that. There was a couple students that couldn't join because they didn't
009get their paperwork in on time. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Miss Tuset. You're welcome. [Music] Request approval of a facilities use agreement with the University of Connecticut at no cost. Miss Francis Frenis, I got I got what's her name on my brain? We're good. I see Adam. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. The education department respectfully requests approval of a nocost facilities use agreement between the city and Yukon Waterberry. Under this agreement, Water Public Schools robotics teams will have access to the Yukon Waterberry Robotics Institute to practice and collaborate for upcoming competitions. The agreement expires on December 31st, 2026. Are there any questions? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. I thought we signed this already back a while ago. Um I did see
010one notation for a change, but I thought we signed this. I didn't think we did a facilities use. I thought that had to do with the grant that we brought we brought that through. Maybe it was. Okay. Because we've already used this. We've been using it for months. We Yes, we have been. We haven't using it used it as much as we should. That is true. But um I believe Yukon was really looking for this facilities use. Okay, that makes sense. I maybe it was the grant. I just knew we signed up to something a while back and in fact we've been using it. So yeah. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions? I apologize, Miss Furnace. No worries. In terms superintendent update, Dr. Schwarz, thank you. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown,
011and esteemed commissioners. Uh, quick update tonight. Uh, we had a wonderful summer school graduation on August 4th. Six of our high school students uh comprising of Kennedy High and Waterberry Arts Magnet School received their high school diploma because they took the extra initiative to graduate this summer taking additional courses. So we want to congratulate them. I know that Commissioner Lopez and uh President Hernandez were able to to join us there along with the mayor's office and there was an amazing speaker there from Williams who talked about her own journey and like many times an adult ed or enlightenment or state street you know you have all these amazing students doing amazing have who who who come overcome some tremendous things in their lives just to get to that finish line of the graduation and um
012I want to highlight a video of that of that student. Maybe we can try that again from audio. School had always been very hard for me. I struggled a lot once my grandmother passed away. I almost dropped out because originally I was only going I couldn't even finish summer school and I wouldn't have enough credits. But I ended up getting Ingenuity. I went to two ingenuities and then I came to summer school and then I ended up passing. My father, he didn't graduate high school so he pushed me very hard to actually graduate. It's hard but it is worth it. [Music] Wow. Nice. She was a great speaker and um that video came courtesy of our new communication specialist uh Hector Molina who uh is on the next slide there and he's sitting right over
013here. Um Hector uh joins us from uh he has a a vast array of experiences, eight years of experience as a TV news reporter, most recently at WFSB Channel 3 here in Connecticut. He also has done uh has experience freelancing with educational officials. Uh he was born and raised in Meridan, Connecticut. We won't hold that against you. And graduated from the University of Connecticut with degrees in both journalism and communications. Uh and he just wants to remind anyone if you have a good story about Waterberry, Waterberry students, teachers, faculty, um or anything to do with the Waterberry public schools, please let him know. and he's going to really up our game on our social media feeds and also tell the great stories that I know the board is aware of but not necessarily the general
014public is. And he is um he is uh really excited about joining us. And um I don't know if we if we if we're okay with him maybe saying a few words and having him come up. Sure. I don't know if you're ready for that, but I Yeah, you're you Yeah, you're a communication specialist. You got to deal with it. Yeah, Sarah, excuse me. Y I did have the honor of meeting him this afternoon, but I just want to let you know it's his birthday today. It is his birthday today. It is his birthday. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. We are going to let him go right after this. So, I'm sorry. Shut my mouth. No, no worries. Uh thank you. Uh, good evening, uh, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, commissioners, uh, superintendent. Nice to see
015you. Uh, even though I saw you all day, but it's okay. Um, uh, well, thank you guys for giving me a couple minutes here to talk. I mean, not even going to take a couple minutes. It'll be very quick. Uh, basically what I just wanted to say is, you know, in speaking with super interimm superintendent Schwarz about this position and something I even said in the application process, you know, I think with this district specifically uh, in this role, I want to promote that the success of Waterberry Schools speaks louder than the challenges that we face. And a video like that and the TV reporter in me is looking at it like, "Oh man, the audio could have been a lot tighter. I could have shot it this way. I could have done this way."
016But, you know, I wanted to get something out and and you know, hearing that student speak, it spoke to me and I wanted to act on I was like, there's a story here. Let's let's do something with it. And that's and that video right there, that's something I just put together in about a half hour. So, imagine what we could do in a a planned event where, you know, we kind of have students highlighted and, you know, some teachers or faculty give me a little bit of background on the students. we could do that times 10 and create a lot more content that looks just like that promoting positivity and not just students, faculty, teachers. So, you know, just like I said in the meeting the other day, if you guys have a story uh
017of anything, you know, no matter how big or small, uh please let me know. And I mean, that video right there is about 40 seconds. And you know that short concise content uh that's what really drives numbers on social media not only with uh parents and teachers but with specifically students and if I mean if students are looking at the social media pages than their parents will so you know students we get the get the student audience then you'll just see more parents and more followers on the social media page which will be great and you know more interest in Waterberry Public Schools and you know more positivity. So, uh that's just kind of my plan going forward. Obviously, you know, there's going to be a lot of changes and road bumps along the way,
018but I'm here for it. So, uh if you guys have a good story or event or any way I could help you guys do your jobs, uh just you know where to find me. Thank you. And happy birthday. Thank you. Okay, so you saw some of this earlier, but we did have some high school students from various schools throughout the district participate in a oneweek paid shadowing experience at Waterberry Hospital where they had the opportunity to observe hospital staff across a wide range of departments, including pharmacy, food, nutrition, cardiology, and surgical labs. In addition to clinical exposure, students completed a stop thebleleed course and gained insight into emergency medical services and EMT operations. Similarly, we also had students at the McCall uh behavioral uh health network at St. Mary's. Uh four students took part in
019that program while 18 students were at the St. Mary's program, 14 of whom participated actively throughout the week. Students represented Crosby, Waterberry Arts Magnet, and Guadberry Career. Two of our students, Janelle Morris and Chanel Patterson, were selected to speak on behalf of the group and share their experiences from the week. It was an amazing opportunity for our students. I want to send out a quick congratulations to an administrator on the move. Miss Hannah Sam, principal of Kingsbury Elementary School, has successfully completed the 093 Superintendent Program at Central Connecticut State University. As part of our work during the program, Miss Sam collaborated with the Waterberry Public Schools and our uh our cabinet members and myself to bring new opportunities to students to the greater uh Bridgeport Partnership. A true reflection of our dedication to educational growth
020and community partnerships. Well done, Miss Sam. We are incredibly proud of you. happy to announce that 25 of our schools have been selected again for the fresh fruit and vegetable program for the upcoming school year. Um we we put in for all of our schools to to receive this and 25 were selected. This wonderful program enables us to continue offering our students fresh fruits and vegetables as a healthy snack option uh during the school day. Nice. Septto, that's our uh special education parent teacher organization is getting off the ground and running. And so, as you notice, if you follow our social media, that's a plug. If you follow our social media feeds, you'll know that we do we do post um their SepTo events on there, and they did have a feed your soul event
021on July 29th where several community partners attended providing uh providing vital resources and guidance to families seeking services for both their children and them and themselves. And they've done a um they also did an additional um event at Rotella which they were doing yoga on the lawn as well. And last, no, not last but not least, that's next. On August 2nd, Madre Latina also hosted their scholarship lunchon at Amalfi where they honored uh four students, recent graduates with their achiever scholarship. this remarkable uh these remarkable students were recognized for the dedication, perseverance and academic excellence. Congratulations and best of luck on your adventures. Uh and we are very proud and happy to be great partners with Madre Latina. They offer amazing scholarships for our students. And finally, we have an announcement to make for we
022are going to be out with uh attorney Joseph Britain for approximately six weeks here because he is entering into the Jag Corps as first lieutenant Joseph Britain. Uh we're proud to share that uh attorney Joe Britain um is recent has recently been commissioned as a first lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps. This new role reflects his deep commitment to public service and helping others both in our schools and now in our service to our country. Well done. And I will will not say GI Joe. Come say a few words. Come say yeah. Say GI Joe. GI Joe. Gita. He can handle the truth. I used to like that TV show. Me too. We'll see if he can live up to Thank you. Uh, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, commissioners, and
023superintendent. Um, so it was a few years ago, uh, that this board took a shot on a 26-year-old kid out of law school to come be the board of ed attorney here in Waterberry and um, hope I've been making you guys proud. But I am hoping that with this new honor, I can make continue to make the city of Waterbury proud um and come back with some new skills and hopefully uh keep protecting the city and uh and our district. But I want to thank you all for your support and Dr. Schwarz, President Hernandez, everybody. Um you know, the cabinet, you guys have been great and um you know, happy to take this uh next step. It's going to be a quick six weeks. Um just don't get in a lot of trouble while I'm
024away. uh don't know what to do there, but uh I'll be down in Fort Benning, Georgia um for the direct commission officers course. So, it'll be boot camp. So, we'll see uh we'll see how that goes, but I'll keep you guys updated. But, thank you again for all your support. It's been an honor to serve this district and to serve this board. So, thank you all very much. Great. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Good luck. And last but not least, I apologize, President. Just one last shout out to keep following us on social media. As we mentioned earlier, um, a lot of these, just so you know, my reports are usually spread apart every two weeks. um with our new communications specialists working closely with Zakai who's phenomenal also in the communications department.
025A lot of these stories are going to be out in real time um because that's the point of social media is to get out in real time. So unfortunately at our meetings they'll a lot of them are weeks or two weeks old but if you follow us on social media you'll get it um you'll get it in in the in a timely fashion. Thank you Lieutenant Britain. We would all like to wish you the best um safe have a safe six weeks. Committee on finance request approval to apply for the National School Lunch Program. All for Sorry. How could I miss you? I'm sure. Oh my goodness. You're short. operations department updates. Mr. Albini, I'm going to get something from your wife. I already know it. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, President Hernandez, Vice President
026Brown, Board of Education Commissioners, and Interim Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Uh I'm glad um and proud to present some of the accomplishments uh the operations and facilities have uh performed, undertaken, and succeeded with in trying to help our schools in a variety of ways. So I'll have each one um uh present on their particular departments and and offer uh these points of success and then uh welcome some questions as well. Uh to start off, we'll have um uh interim food service director Adam Shabin uh regarding some of the progress uh this past year. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Um I have the uh the button. Thank you. Yeah. So just to go over our the programs that we that we that we have here, we have the uh our breakfast program, our lunch
027our national school lunch program, our summer programs which provide uh meals at various camps, parks and summer school programs. Uh, Superintendent uh, Schwarz mentioned our fresh fruit and vegetable program which has been a great success in introducing different fresh vegetables to think it might be a bad guy uh, to the different students. We have an afterchool snack program and a supper program um, which services the 21st century the STE and other approved programs. We do various catering and field trips. [Music] Uh this year we have served approximately on average 5,300 breakfasts which is an overall increase of about 100 meals per day and approximately 13,500 lunches which uh has shown to be about a 500 meal per day increase. Unfortunately, however, given um unforeseen equipment failures, we had three walk-in freezers fail this year that
028needed to be replaced at approximately $50,000 each, plus higher than expected uh inflation costs that affected not only our food costs, but also um repairs and all these and other uh supplies that we have. We did have a uh loss. We did show a loss this year of $400,000. Um however, all of that money is covered by our fund balance which was $2.5 million. Um going looking forward, however, we have our central kitchen has improved increasing uh has improved over the last few years and we're seeing some of the benefits of that. we're able to pivot easier with our with the meals that we're serving, with our production, and with our and keeping our costs under control as much as we can. Uh we've utilized student surveys so that we can adjust to the various
029preferences that the students have. uh with the diverse community that we have, it's tough to please everybody all the time, but we do our best and and we're moving towards that with those surveys. Um, again with our central kitchen, the fact that we prepare it at our central facility means that we don't have an outside company putting our food together, which means we have control over the presentation, the freshness, and the quality of the meal of the product that's going into each individual meal for the pre-plate schools. Looking forward, we have various goals and initiatives that we'd like to implement. Um we'd like to increase participation through various through various aspects including um uh updating equipment uh expanding our salad bar program which we opened to great success to at uh General Alley Whams and
030uh Wallace oh not Wallace I'm sorry uh North End and we are looking to expand it at least to two more schools and and more as as we find the availability in terms of space at the different locations. Uh we're also looking to make those meals part of the reimburseable meal so that we can benefit from having that to the program itself. We've also uh updated um our grant our uh bidding process to include uh local bids. Uh last year we had ausive yogurt being uh showcased at in our salad bars and in the meals themselves. And this year we are doing a Connecticut produce bid so that when in season crops are available we'll be able to buy them from local farms. uh in order to mitigate the inflation costs we have our central
031facility also gives us the ability to buy in higher quantity to keep the costs down to to attempt to mitigate some of the inflation issues. We also have had the benefit this year on our regular uh commercial bids. Uh there's a new distributor who's opened up in Waterberry itself and has become very competitive with the pricing which has driven the pricing down to counteract some of that. So we should see a significant decrease in our food cost for next year. Thank you very much. ask any questions. Are there any questions? Commissioner Vance Stone. Well, let me tell you with this agenda tonight, if you're paying the babysitter by the hour, it's going to be expensive night. Um the slide you gave us with your fiscal standing. Yes. And you do three numbers and then tell
032us you're in the hole. A half a million dollars. you did some explaining, but on that slide, I'll tell you, I almost fell off my chair. You got you these slides really need to be able to tell us more. It's it's what we take away from the meeting. Um, and what is this $2 million you're talking about that offsets this? So, we over the years, the food service department, every every meal that we serve is reimbursed by the federal government at over four and a half dollars per meal. Um so our cost of that of that the cost of that meal including all of our labor and all all of that um is subtracted from that and what we are left over is what we make. Over the years we have been able to run
033in the black to a level where we've been able to have money on hand in the event we run into situations like this. Okay. telling us about an offset like that is very significant and we really need to have that information in front of us because that changes that entire slide. Okay, I saw that and I couldn't believe it. We see it during the year but I didn't realize that it had reached a half million dollars. Um the offset does help. Uh the next thing I had for you was what is a pre pre-plate school? I have no idea what that is. So this the city has two types of schools that that we as far as the lunch program is concerned. We have full operating kitchens which will take the meal and and cook
034it completely. A pre-plate school is usually our smaller schools for example uh a a um a you know a hope a hopefuller kitchens they don't have the room for for the for the equipment that is required to make an entire meal. So, we give them unitized meals that they just have to warm up and then put some of the sides along with it. Okay. And it's saying you're going to um try some variations. What What because I know it the kids aren't eating the food. It's the bottom line. So, what are these variations that you're talking about on student preferences? Well, yes, they're preferences that that might appeal more to especially with with what we consider a side, a vegetable or something of that nature, spicing them up a little bit in terms of adding
035a flavor profile that might be more appealing to to the student to get them more interested in actually trying it. And you also mentioned outside vendors. So, prior to the central kitchen, we had outside vendors that that created these meals for us. So that's that's behind us, you know. Okay. Uh see, okay. The last thing I had for you is the last time you were here talking to us, I had uh asked a question about how much food is getting tossed in the garbage. And and we had no idea how much is in there. And I asked if there's any means to try to get a handle and make that tangible for us. And and the reason I asked that is because there are some school districts that actually recycle the food waste and they're
036actually making money off food waste by selling it off to be recycled. And we're we have a lot we have a lot. That's all I hear about is the kids tossing them. I mean, I know kids that don't even bother with the cafeteria. They just bring a lunch every day. Uh but not all kids can do that. And we really need to start taking a look at that. I asked about that whenever you were here six, eight months ago and I didn't didn't hear a thing back. Um, but there's real good reasons why I'm asking this. One, we need to know and two, there's a potential that we could have it recycled and make money off it. So, we really need to start looking. I I'm glad you're going to to outside bids and that
037sort of thing. we've been hearing for years on this board. There is no bidding process in in in Waterberry, but it's we can in certain cases we definitely can start looking around. We showed it with some curriculum a couple months ago. Uh so we really need to, you know, utilize that as well. But I really need you to start looking into this waste, sir. And you know, especially if we could do something about it that the kids don't waste, but if they are going to waste, at least maybe we could do something uh good for the Yeah. in terms of environment in terms of of that's what what I'm speaking to of the to making more palatable is to reduce that waste cost. Okay, great. Thank you. Y and just uh you know just to
038add on to that uh thank you Adam. I think also when there is equipment within the the um the lunchrooms, the tables when we need new tables, we're able to use the funding from uh the the food that fund balance to be able to pay for if you've seen like the new tables at um you know, for example, with the Wildcat logo, things like that. So, uh that fund balance isn't just for the the food preparation, it's also for the entire cafeteria and the ambiance with it. And just I know it's not a the presentation. I know we have five of them, so make it quick. Nick, do you want to just say just a brief conversation? I know you have um on the docket, you're talking to a food waste company. Um but just
039I know this isn't about tonight, but briefly because I know commissioner, you did ask about it. We did look into it and Nick has made, you know, some contact just so you know. Um part of that is about legislation that actually has happened and occurred, but some of it is also could eventually result in what you've talked about. So, um I don't know if we need to talk about it tonight, but I want to let you know we have looked into it and maybe we'll just leave it at that and we'll move on. Commissioner Orsel and then Commissioner Ireland. Just to clarify something, Tom, every year we went out to bid for everything for the food service department. We went from vegetables. We had so much stuff that we went out to bid for, we
040did it in two days. So everything that those food food service department bought was always went out to bid. There was nothing that ever never went out to bid. And and getting back to the pre-plate stuff, all the pre-plate stuff was all bid for years and years until the the kitchen came up. And it's, you know, it's nice to have that control, too. Absolutely. Thank you, Commissioner Arley. Thank you, Madam President. Just a quick question about the uh surveys. I just wanted to know if do you get a lot of feedback from the students cuz um Commissioner Van Stone did um ask one of my questions but as far as Taylor the foods cuz the some children aren't eating and just wondering are they effective? We we we did get we did get feedback from
041a a decent amount of feedback from them which which uh which directed us towards the types of changes that we made on the fly this past year to try it was in direct a lot of those changes were in direct result to the surveys. So once the surveys came back and we said that they, you know, they said that the vegetables they needed something else, we started adding things like a little bit of garlic, a little bit of peppers and things like that this to to sort of to sort of appeal to the to the students a little bit more. That is directly from the survey. And just so you know that um it's been very effective the school health and wellness advisory committee that President Hernandez uh and Secretary Srano Dorno and Vice President
042O'Brien have sat on. Uh I think we had a very productive year where we actually um uh food services was we talked about three strands of the district and health and wellness. Food services was one strand that had a standing agenda item and these surveys uh the design of the surveys, the implementation of the surveys and the adjustment of what we were providing to students was all discussed throughout the year. Um you saw the increase of 500 per at lunch. I I' I've got to believe a lot of it has to do with the addition of the salad bars. We were able to put in some of the things that we learned through the school health and wellness advisory, how much restriction they have on what they can serve and how it is probably very
043um bland. It's it I hate to say, but yeah, it's in some cases bland compared to the foods that we may experience at home. Even the amount of salt they can use in their foods and things like that that most of us would possibly use at home. And so they are restricted a little. So they're trying to adjust as best as possible on student surveys. Um I know we made some great progress this year and in adding those salad bars and different options for students. We're pretty pretty effective according to the numbers, but it's not something we're going to stop looking at. And you know, we we obviously we've got a lot of feedback from the students. We're going to keep trying to do the best we can to offer as many options and choices
044that they seem to like um and and try to get rid of the things that they just seem to not like. And that actually happened this year. There were there were lunches that they just completely got rid of according to the surveys. And we we wiped completely off off the menu. Students said they didn't like it. So we said, you know what? If if threearters of the student population doesn't like it, why do we why are we putting it on there? Exactly. You know, so Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Lopez. Um when are the surveys done? So this past year, I believe they were done in January. So, um, we give them a little bit of time to to get back into the swing of of school and and things like that and then and then
045we use the beginning of the year. We have to remember that as Commissioner Orso was saying, you know, our bids go out the end of last year and now we have new vendors with new product and things like that. So, we want to show them what we have first and then see what it is cuz it does change based off of off of it. For for example, this year our longtime pizza vendor uh Nardone's Pizza did not win. So, now we have a brand new pizza for for Pizza Friday. So, you know, I'm hoping that I'm hoping that they will appreciate this new this new vendor a little bit better. Um it's it's a high quality pizza. You know, it was one that we were always interested in, but they never won the bid. So
046this year they won the bid. So we're going to hopefully hopefully the students will will notice the difference as well. And then um one follow-up question. Um I know that the food is very bland because of restrictions that we have. Um but we know that the kids are not eating it. They're complaining. Actually every time we see a kid that's the first thing when you say what can we do to improve schools they say better lunch. Yeah. You know um so can we provide spices so that they can add to that? And again again Yes. state jurisdiction. Okay. We we try to the spices that we add are the ones that we can based off of the USDA guidelines and only in the amount we can. Okay. So, you know, it's there. We try we
047try our best, but again, we have to remain in compliance with the regulations. Thank you. [Music] Any other questions? Thank you. Oh boy. Next we have Mr. Hunter with the transportation update. President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Intern Superintendent Dr. Schwarz, Commissioner. Good evening. Good evening. Waterbury public schools 202526 status you change transportation Durham school services waterberry public school transport over 70% of all regular education student approximately 15,300 students durm transport 2,100 non-public school students the bus route total 25 bus driver total 126. The staffing all routes are covered by a driver. No second run is needed for any schools. Four transfer driver yard on premises available. All drivers will be background and fingerprinted checked. New activity buses. There are four buses designated for activity sports only. CDO with passenger endorsement can transport parent hotline. Two
048direct numbers and 203455490 will be activated throughout the year. The hotline hour will be open from 5:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Students are returned to school if a parent or guardian is not at the bus stop to pick up K and grade 1 student for the first two weeks of school. All buses are equipped with interior exterior recording cameras with audio, bus tracker, GPS, and a child safety check mechanism. All in incident can be reviewed by the bus company and the principal the school and the school principal. Regular meeting are held with education department and the durm staff. This year the startup meeting will be was meeting will be set for August 13, 2025. transportation our allstar uh this is our sped busing water public school transport over 100% of all special education student approximately
0492,000 bus route total 60 bus driver total of 64 and all buses have monitor on board all buses are equipped with safety harness some with five-point harness integrated car seats all specialized student are met at their home for the ease of a pickup and drop off with door-to-door service. Parent hotline. Allstar Waterbury phone number will serve as your hotline. 203753 8366. Two roller lines, two additional lines. Hotlines will be 5:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Allstar for this year is transporting um student from Than Plymouth as you know. And these numbers for uh Thomasson will be uh 860283 0922 from 6:15 to 9:00 2:45 to 2:00 1:30 to 5:00. Allstar Plymouth phone number would be 8605850011 from 5:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Transportation State private public parochio magnet. Waterbury public school also transport students to state
050and private parochio school, state school, kater technical school. The private schools are brass city charter school and children community school. Parochio is Catholic Academy of of Waterberry and Our Lady of Mount Carmel School and also public aces at Chase Out of District Magna School. This year will be Thomas Plymouth and Terryville. Are there any questions? Commissioner Lopez. All right. I just had uh just a couple and probably some really weird ones, so bear with me. All right. Um did we get the activity buses? Are are any of those for whams at all? All of all the high schools? Yes. It's five. Um so we wouldn't have to take the regular buses off the road to do a trip a sports trip. Those buses will transport the student to their activities. So, is there a bus
051that goes from WHAMS to their district school for sports? Oh, yes. Our regular buses. We have we have um the buses the regular bus to get off at the school to play sports in the afternoons. But there's no additional bus cuz I know some of the students had mentioned that they get kicked off the bus if there's, you know, um there's no room for the WHAM's kids. If there's an overload, uh, Durham will send another bus to pick up the exit overload. I think the confusion with that was the communication from the school of Williams, not necessarily the bus transportation. So, in that situation, there was some miscommunication from the school itself, the students do have access to a bus to get to their schools, which was a little different than what we were told.
052But maybe Jeeoff, you can go into that. The bus that were that was Northeast Transportation bus that was overcrowded. They were they were put off. Not our regular bus because uh some of the kids walked downtown to the green and you know and try to get on the bus to go somewhere else but that bus was full the city buses not the school buses. All right. And then um I have a random kind of question. So there's a parent in the district um their their students are not enrolled with us um but they were looking for busing outside. Do you ever do anything for those that are unconventional like educational like homeschooling kind of parents who need transportation for kids home? No. No. Okay. Just curious. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you,
053Madam President. for you. Um Jeff, there's one of the slides where it talks about the uh prek and grade one students with if there's not a parent at the stop that you know they'll return to the school. Is there a particular reason why it says for the first two weeks of school after that we just leave the kid to go? No, no, no, no, no. It's just the first two weeks of school they return back to their their home school. After that, right now the student is come I mean after two weeks kids would come down to the welcome center. Wow. If they're left over, they come to us and Okay, I read that sentence and I was like, they're on their own. Um, do we get any reimbursement for the private schools that we
054transport for? That's a question for Dorene. No, no, it's we're required to pay to to transport them. Wow. Pay for special ed. You transportation. I know special ed and I know the special ed is a big chunk of our budget. wire to play the private. I didn't realize that we didn't get any sort of uh any money back for this. That's interesting. Especially in Brass City wants to sue us, but we're going to give them free buzzing. Yeah. Thank you. I have one question. Oh, go ahead. She was first. She was first. Just just one question for the parent hotline. I noticed that there's two direct phone numbers and then hotline hours are from 5:15. Okay, now that I read it, I see it now. But those are two different lines. One one line is
055one is line is for Durham and there's a line for Allstar. Is that what she commissioner the Durham? Those are two lines that are active and uh they're 5:30 in the A.M. in the morning till um 5 5:15 in the morning to 5:30 at night. Okay. And then Allstar has their uh hours and numbers as well. And this year we added the Thomas and Plymouth Tville numbers because we're transporting the Magna School kids to Rotell and Maloney and Whams. I see. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Vice President Brown. Yes. Good evening. Uh thank you for the presentation. Uh two questions really. I'm interested in exactly how many schools provide uh transportation for preschool students and the second question I have is uh how are we the parents know about these phone numbers? Uh are they in
056English, Spanish? I mean do we do we give them in different languages? Where are they posted? So two questions. First one, they're going to be posted on our website. We do that every year. We put those numbers out there. We'll send out parent square messages as well, social media. So, we'll continue to do that this year as well. Okay. Preschool, we we don't uh Well, there's there are busing for preschools, I believe, in the preK to 8 schools. That's what I'm I'm trying to get get at. So, how do we provide prek busing just for the prek to 8 schools? the um when it come to pre most of the prekates are walking schools actually. So, so they actually most of them don't have the pre-k busing, but off the top of my head um
057unless it's special education, of course, but but if um off the top of my head, uh the programs that still had busing were Career Academy and possibly Sprag, but I will and Kingsberry Kingsberry as well. And I will double check that one more Bergen. We'll write it down in our notes and we'll email the group. Uh, I'll email the group by Friday the actual answer, but off the top, those are the the three that come to mind that have pre-k busing because I just reiterate, I've said this before at meetings. That is a barrier for many parents getting their children to preschool. And if the state wants universal preschool and we're pouring a lot of money into it, I think we should really consider some options for transportation for our preschool programs because I know
058many parents who don't who are not able to provide that transportation. So, I mean, I've heard of parents, you know, having a a baby, getting on a bus, crossing town. I mean, it really is a hardship for many parents. So, I'm going to say that again. I think if we can look at even get a cost estimate of what it might cost to start the ball rolling so that we could seek for some transportation funds include it in the early childhood system. I I just think it would help our parents. So I would I would really appreciate that. Thank you. Jeeoff, how much does it cost to add one bus? Is it about It's over 50,000 now, right? Yeah. So it's about 75 close to that. Close to 75,000. So, as we, you know, commissioner,
059as we go through the new budgeting process, because we're going to start early, I mean, it's really right around the corner for the upcoming year anyways. You know, we start in early December, January. And so, as we not just look for our our new funding for the for the not this school year, but the next school year, and as we look at grants and what the Office of Early Childhood is providing, I think we'll keep our eyes out for any uh any opportunities to increase those costs. I know over the years some of those transportation opportunities have been um have been cut. They weren't cut for this year, but they've been cut over the years as I remember because of the the 75,000 a bus. And um and so you're right, it does it is
060a barrier, but it's if it's something we want to prioritize, we get through that through the budget process. Well, and it also gives us an opportunity to advocate on the state level, you know, uh because I think if they want you they want this program, they're going to have to understand that transportation should be included. So, it's a it's a it's a lobbying tool as well. Thank you, Commissioner Orsel. And then Commissioner Arland. Hi, Jeff. Quick question. I saw on on the report that we have enough bus drivers, but how has it been during the year? Is it a large turnover back and forth? I get a kick out of these little signs on the side of the road. Bus drivers, school bus drivers. You flying, Roco. So, you flying? Yeah. Right. It's they stay
061um consistent all year. Last year was one of our best years. So, they stay uh consistent. Well, you know, driver coming depend, you know, it's a big market now. So, if Allstar want to steal a durm driver, they offer more money. So, it's like a bidding war right now. And maybe I will apply Thanks D. That's a probably a good time to introduce Nick. We we kind of lined things up for this last this year to be the last year for all contracts. So can you just say something briefly about that so the board is aware of what what this year means for us? Sure. Um, so, uh, Durham's contract ends, uh, 2026, June 31st, 2020, June 30th, 2026, um, and Allstar. And we're going for an extension, if you remember, an amendment for Ambassador
062uh, to go and they'll all expire at the same time. We're hoping that we get some activity u, and some new biders here. It's a big market. uh some may only bid on one whether it's the wheelchair uh transportation the uh very fragile with ambassador it may only be allstar for sped or only for sped I should say and then there may be only for regular transportation but that is a problem and we're hoping that when some companies and Durham was just purchased by someone um so they're bought out by I squared um we're hoping And that proves good for us. We don't know if they're bidders. Uh it is an investment group, so that does concern me a bit. But um drivers has always been our issue, Commissioner Orso, is just just can't get
063enough drivers and they don't last. And um and we have a lot of late run buses, we have activity buses, we have club buses, we have tardy buses, we have uh detention buses, we have sports. It just is difficult to get drivers out of different runs, if you will. It is very difficult. One other quick thing and good luck, as Jeff knows, good luck at getting other biders because it's been hell for the last 30 years when I was in there. We had nobody to bid and I was even questioned by the the state uh about bid rigging because they they all had their certain areas and they weren't going. And then Durham's the one that broke that years ago. Let's not discourage biders. Let's No, but I'm just saying I just hope it's a
064great market. And I just hope I just hope you get them. I really do. Yeah. I think this year we will. Good. I think it'll be more than more than one or two biders this year. Good. Arling, just really fast. I know I asked this question again and I'll before and I'm going to ask it again. I believe it's important. the response time for parents, how how can is there a way that you monitor the response time to get back to parents? And if so, has it gotten better? Yes, it's gotten a lot better. My my sister and my and myself, we respond some well, the first two weeks of school, we just can't respond right away to all parents, but as uh September rolls along, we get to every um we turn every phone
065call up to to the parents. Okay. Thank you. We try to stay on top of that, but we know how important it is and parent one information. Sure. Thank you, Commissioner. To your point, I certainly like to see better response on the bus company's part as well. Yeah. Um I I do I I don't like when a parent calls me and and says they're not answering there. Um so that's very frustrating. Um and I do want them to send emails out, parent square messages, something telling everyone a bus broke down. we're going to be 20 minutes late. I I it's always been something we advocate for and it's certainly something that's going to come up in our interview when we get our biders and certainly look at all those what we want in this next
066contract, not just transportation, but what we want when you can't provide. So, we're going to be we're going to be very vigilant with that. [Music] Are there any other questions? Thank you. Now we have Mr. Barry. Dan Barry with our safety here. Oh, Dan. I know we're both bald, but I'm vindicating some hair there. That's right. In that case, we'll have Mr. Zuda right with computers. [Music] Good evening, President Hernandez. I'd like to wish you a belated happy birthday, Vice President Brown, Commissioners, Dr. Schwarz. Um, tonight I'd like to talk to you guys about the computer technology center and what our mission is. Our mission is to empower students and staff through exceptional technology support and training. Our objective is to enhance learning and operations with reliable, secure, modern technology. Some of the key initiatives
067that we undertook this year was a Chromebook and laptop distribution change. Uh we put in a resilient fiber network and we upgraded the wide area network. We put in a Cisco switch replacement project. Um current projects we're working on is a document scanning project. The copier and print management that's coming up for bid at the end of the year and always continues to do to work on security with um Dr. uh Mr. Barry over there. Um uh voiceover IP is coming up for bid and some classroom audio upgrades. Um some of the challenges that we always have is identifying securing funding to sustain student Chromebooks and network infrastructure. Some of the core functions of the department um is project management where we plan and execute technology initiatives. Um the infrastructure we manage servers, databases and
068the network. network security which we have to protect all of our equipment against malware and unauthorized access. Um software support to assist with educational and administrative software operational management is regarding ensuring device security maintenance and backups and um and then support classrooms the back office and front office operations. This is just a list of all the core technology functions that the department's responsible for. I won't read them just for the sake of time tonight but you guys have them in your presentation if you wanted to review them. some of the um responsibilities of the department um IT services have become almost a utility right so it's essential for um infrastructure supporting student learning the business operations and security uh you know we're integral to all departments we uh we power the classrooms the back office
069functions the front office functions um all front office interactions um we we simplify employee access and critical tools to systems we talk about multi- channelannel communications we enable staff and students to connect through software as a service pro uh platforms and portals. Uh we responsible for web, email, personal devices and the water all water public school devices that are on the network and we're always driving digital initiatives like keeping pace with evolving technologies the needs and innovation. So this is the Chromebook and laptop distribution. So the over last year we shifted from a classroombased model from a onetoone program. Um, schools now manage the 20,000 device Chromebooks and 18,900 students and 2,600 staff members. This was driven by the reduction in the federal and state funding. If you look at the picture on the right
070hand side, those were students that we had interning. They were there repairing Chromebooks for us um that were damaged in the classroom and put them back out into production. The interns repaired over 1500 Chromebooks last year. Over the last three years, they repaired 9,100. That's in cost savings accountability. I work uh I work uh a fire. Somebody shot once the fiber out in the street, you know, and and severed it and and we were down for two days at one of our schools. So now with the resilient fiber network, all that traffic would be automatically rerouted and we don't have to worry about it and keep the school up. Um, this was funded 90% by so very little cost to the district to keep to do this. It's scalable. It's ready for AI virtual reality.
071It's ready for cloud applications and, you know, equitable access. So uh, we just completed a Cisco switch project total cost of 1.86 million. If you look at some of those pictures, we had, you know, a rat's nest of wires. We've kind of cleaned all that up. We've colorcoded all the fibers. So, for all of our different virtual lands, we have, you know, white for security, blue for students, green for admin, yellow for cameras. So, you know, we've been able to organize that and do all 88 data closets in 33 schools. Like I said, 1.67 million was funded by 186,000 was covered by um 10% by the federal um local budget. Um, we are working on a scanning project right now. So, the timeline is to launch in early fall of 2025. That that's really going
072to be just to get the contract in place. We're going to take and digitize over 8 million copies of paper that we have stacked everywhere in these file cabinets. So, we have rooms and rooms all these files, digitize them, index them, and this way uh you could easily search. So, if you're looking for a document on an employee or student, you search in their last name, date of birth, any key index field, and you'll be able to find that information on them really quickly. Email it out. It's very secure. It's going to be user based, so people who need access will have access. People who don't need access will not have access to any of the documents. Some of the departments we're covering are special education, human resources, human capital, the records department, grants, and
073a few other department, school inspectors. Um, so and the benefits again are just that rapid record retrieval and this reduces the storage costs. And will that's part of the bonding? Yes, that is being funded by the certain people around here might be interested to know how much we're paying for that if anything. So why don't you just briefly talk about that? Yeah, the project's going to be about close to a million dollars. It's going to be covered by the Chase bond, the res u renovation bond. So okay, because we there's no room to move all those file cabinets over to the exchange place when we move. So this it was something that we we we we looked at a few years ago. We didn't have the funding for, but now we're at least we'll get
074it started and then we can always scale it up. So that's the beautiful thing about it. So more funding becomes available, we find out there's cost savings in this, then we can just start rolling other departments, other schools into it. So I think there'll be a lot of benefit there. Uh once people start using it and seeing it, they're going to really love this project. Um I talked about the copier and print management that is coming up for bid. We have 186 copiers, 230 printers that are under management right now. we are due for an RFP or maybe hopefully maybe an amendment to see if we can renew that. Uh we've printed over 100 million copies in the last 5 years. So the software tells us there's a lot of printing that's happening. We're trying
075to reduce that cost. Talked to Dr. Schwarz the other day. We're looking at removing the 230 printers in the classroom where we can to reduce cost a little more. Print have everybody print to the copers because printing to the copiers you're saving a ton of money. It's like 0.07 07 cents to print a copy versus printing to a small printer. It's like 30 cents or 35 cents per copy that you print. So, we're trying to drive everybody to that. We have secure printing. It's follow me printing. So, you badge in whatever school you go to and you'll be able to print release a pew. Nobody can see your documents unless you've badged in. They're not released to the public. So, if there's anything important or private, it's still protected. So, you don't really have to
076worry about it. So, that's the key is to trying to get this. And as I talked about the cost savings and streamlining operations and the enhanced security that comes along with it, it's the visibility that we have into the document production, the cost controls with follow me printing and eliminating those local printers. I think we could save some money, especially and use for other purposes in in the district where we actually really really need them. Some of the challenges and solutions, I talk to you guys every year about this, but I'll reiterate again, is that the, you know, we do have limited resources for Chromebooks, network upgrades, and maintenance. Um, Dr. Schwarz, uh, Miss Bolo have been really great in providing me funding wherever they can to, you know, sustain this program. But, you know,
077the amount of Chromebooks we have and the amount of students, the amount of breakage that we have, I mean, it's going to take millions and millions of dollars to sustain a program like that. So, um, so I'm always asking for money and we're just and uh, you know, growing demand of tech support from staff and now now we're not only supporting the 3,500 staff members, we're also supporting 19,000 students because every one of those has a Chromebook, who's using it in the classroom that needs support. if it goes down, we got to be able to help them, you know. So, that's it's a it's a huge re tap on resources in the schools, especially the elementary schools where we don't have a dedicated tech makes it a little more difficult, but we know we try
078to navigate and get out to, you know, um troubleshoot those issues as soon as possible. Some of the solutions would be to continue to leverage -ate, the federal grants, um, state grants, implement a device replacement program for regular updates, try to do a refresh cycle of, you know, every year or so we do 25% of it, you know, and over four years we're able to do 100 or if we double that out to eight years, you know, we we do 1/8 a year and then we we kind of at least continue to get new devices into the system because, you know, these devices are being used, a lot of them are being damaged, we're trying to repair them, we're trying to take care of them, but it's it's a um to do uh always asking
079for to increase technology support in the budget um and enhance staff training and technology because I mean you know training the staff members on what to look for making sure these devices are not damaged how to check them back in it's a challenge you know we're working with staff we have 1500 teachers we have a lot of grade of them that follow it and there's some that don't so we're continue just to kind of you know revi re reinforce the process and the protocols that we have in place to make sure these devices don't not get damaged um upcoming projects I talked about some of these again. So do the document scanning um the voiceover IP system that's coming on it five years. So we're going to have to renew that for maintenance and support
080some software assurance licenses for that. The copier contract 180 or copiers I think we could try to get that red reduced a little bit. We probably don't need 180 because now we're I'm going through and identifying which ones have been used a lot which ones have not and the ones that have not really been used even though they've had them in the past. We did a one for one replacement in the past but there you know just to see where they are but now we we can monitor usage on them. Some of them don't need. Some bigger schools might have five or six. They don't need them. We don't even know. We noticed that only three are being used. We're going to just put three back in there and not going to give them their
081five. They might be up here screaming to you guys that, you know, we'll took my copier, but you know, I told you guys ahead of time. So, uh, the data closet cooling is one of the projects that we would like to do is get some air conditioners in our data closets. We have a lot of equipment in there. Millions of dollars worth of equipment that we don't want to fail because of the heat that is is being put off by this equipment. storage upgrades, improved storage and backup, and then ongoing maintenance. I mean, we're managing 50,000 plus assets. We we're do about 25,000 repair tickets a year. Um, so, you know, enhancing user training, as I talked about earlier, on the Chromebooks, the VoIP system, and the and the print management systems. Some of the
082key takeaways I'm hopefully you guys get from uh today's presentation is that we modernize our infrastructure. You know, we're talking about 99.99% uh uptime for enhances learning and solutions. We talk about cost efficiency where we we to use -ate to save millions enabling resource reallocation for the district. We talk about sustainability where you know we need to identify these funding for these classroom Chromebooks uh models and asset management to ensure long-term viability of these program of this program. Uh we are future ready. You know the recent upgrades in the switch replacement projects ensure that the network is scalable to support AI, virtual reality, cloud, any type of emergency technology that goes out there. I mean we could push as much data through the fiber as we need to as long as we have the equipment
083on the other end. Um and our commitment is is always has been to ongoing support and training for the driving that educational excellence in our school district. Um in conclusion I just like to talk about you know some of the achievements. I don't have to re reiterate what I've said to you but you know our next steps are really in our commitment is to sustain the excellence and innovation and just to monitor these projects and secure additional funding so we can continue these projects. Um, just like to thank you for your continued support. You guys have been great to me and my department and I'm here to answer any questions that you guys have. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi, Will. Hi. Um, with our Chromebooks, the older Chromebooks, are you able to maintain and keep the updating
084of the system software or are we going to at some point? Yeah, we talked about this the other day. So, we got about 8,000 that are coming end of life because Google's no longer supporting them. Okay. So um we could use them for regular classroom Google classroom and they can't do any type of testing on them. So uh because if you can't perform push out the latest updates on them the companies do not allow you to throw them on and students to test on them. So that's a challenge that we're trying to you know um you know hopefully they'll extend the timeline and give us another year that you know but can't control Google right so no thanks commissioner orel thanks for presentation well good job this is not really a question but the state
085I'm so excited about that document scanning because we've been looking at that for years and years but that's going to be that's going to be a home run for everybody I'm glad you're doing that thank you I have a Will. Yes. Because I I think I reached out to you recently about some spam email that I got. Yeah. And you told me not to open it because why? I I was kind of leerary about it. I wish because you're one of the smart ones in the district. I mean, we have so many people are just replying to those. I mean, they're not coming from inside the Waterberry. I have the header on there. It's alerting to folks that if it's not from the inside, if you're not expecting anything like this, don't click on it.
086We will never ask you for your username. We will never ask you for your password. People are providing it. And then we So, we've I think we've disabled maybe over 150 accounts in the last two weeks cuz people are just providing that information. And then what happens is now they provided their credentials are compromised. Now they're spamming out. We see an email coming from Will Zoo. You think, "Oh, that's that's legit, but I've been compromised. It's not a legitimate It's a legitimate email from my from from me, but it's not a legitimate email because I would never ask you for your username and password. And and you know, that's the whole thing. We could spend millions and millions of dollars on, you know, hardening our network, but I can't do anything about the weakest link,
087which is always the human interaction because once somebody provides it, it opens that door and every protection that we put in place has just been compromised, you know, and and if some and a lot of times we're looking at it at our phone and we're like, "Oh, Will, okay, what's he sending me?" and you click on it and you think that I'm really asking you for that and I'm not you know so u and I always tell people just when in doubt if you see that header don't or just send it to me I'll tell you like you know like we'll look at it we'll send it back to you say no this is spam um but yeah we we've been seeing a lot of it especially the last couple weeks so we've been disabling
088a lot of accounts and then hopefully it'll all dissipate and go away but you know we get these cycles you know and they come and there's really not much we can do so except I just ask everybody please do your due diligence please verify before you click on any email and provide and never provide your username and password to anybody. Yeah. So, thank Commissioner Lopez. Um just curious. So, the internship program that you have with the students saved us quite a lot of money. Is that um only run during the summer? It was run all year last couple years, right? Yeah. All right. Awesome. Hopefully hopefully we can get it back depending maybe I guess if I save enough money through these copers I can I can convince them to get it back. So, you
089know, it's it's the ultimate goal is to get it back because it was a great program, but you know, funding is so tight and I get it. I mean, but we'll try to we'll try to make do with what we can. Yeah. I think it's wonderful. It saves us money and it's great for the students. Yeah. It's a career pathway. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Have a great night, everyone. Thank you. That's amazing. And now Dan Barry for safety and security presentation. I'm ahead of myself. You get two. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Interm Superintendent Schwarz, Commissioners. Good evening. Presentation tonight on safety and security, um, we'll focus on previous projects that are now completed, um, current projects and daily duties. Um when we talk about past projects that have been completed within the
090last year, we go back four years ago um when actually four and a half years ago when we had every school building was laid out differently. In total, we had 800 cameras, limited access, we had no real AED system in place. We had no protocols, no procedures. So over the last four and a half years working with it, um Mr. Alini and every all the other stakeholders involved here. We've done a lot of work to build this up. So 2425 is a culmination of those last 4 and a half years. So within that time, all Waterbury public schools have upgraded camera and access systems. Um we are currently at 3,000 new cameras from 842 4 and a half years ago. Um the difference here is that the cameras are all uniform, the servers are all
091uniform. um we have access in the places that the schools needed them and all this footage goes back to real-time crime center where it's watched 24/7. Um that is an important aspect considering when we have emergency situations that we're able to look inside the schools and see things before even the police department gets there. They use that to their advantage to direct their their response. So that has been a monumental task to do. the uh luck that the district had was we had uh four two rounds of uh state security money that came through round four, round five. We're currently in round six, which I'll speak about in a few minutes. And we had the multimedia grant. So, we had the benefit of that um which is led us to here. Uh mutual link um
092is now in all buildings. Um every administrator has a fob. We have gateways built into those buildings. So essentially mutual link does a lot of things but the one thing it does most efficiently is it is basically a silent alarm. So if there is a situation where the building is going to go into lockdown which would be the time we use it we will get an alert at uh dispatch realtime crime center and then on our phones we know even before a 911 call is made that we have an issue in the building and response to that building is almost immediate. So, we've taken that three minutes for our 911 call and we've made it an immediate response by adding mutual link to those buildings. Um, the thing that may not seem important but actually
093has been a a huge upgrade for us is mapping. Um, four and a half years ago, if you wanted a map of a Waterberry public schools, you had to go into the school inspector's office and kind of grab all these old drawings and everything else. And then we contracted with CRG, which is a mapping company, and they basically mapped out every single building that we have, which has been a great benefit, not only for uh tactical purposes for the police department, but also for when we do walkthroughs for uh bids, um also for any type of construction things with Mr. Kabka. So, it has been a huge benefit for us and made things a lot more efficient in terms of trying to want to get around a building and then have just updated mapping for
094any type of use that we need it for. Um, one of the things I think I'm most proud of and I my partner Mr. Gizzy who's a security coordinator really did take a lead in this was, you know, two and a half years ago, uh, Dr. Schwarz came to me with the project of upgrading the AED program. And at that point, every building had two or three AED program units that worked off of just conventional batteries. So, the question then became, if you needed an AD in a building of a Waterberry public school, would it work? We had no real idea. You would check the battery life every 30 days, but after that 30-day check, it could actually not work. So we um asked for advice from the fire department as well as police and
095we came into contract with striker who and you can see the unit in the corner. That unit does a lot of things but one thing it does for us most importantly is it tells us that it's active and it's working. So we have a dashboard with um I believe now 70 AEDs that are utilized throughout the district. They're utilized in gyms. They're utilized in pools. they're utilized uh for the nurs's office and other common areas. So, we have a complete coverage of the district. So, you would think a high school uh gym would be a place you would need it. But then we looked at other possible lapses which was a lot of buildings on weekends are used for other activities and it's just not, you know, varsity games. There could be other activities where
096we would need an AED there. when that AED is open and and sends an alert to us that it's being utilized. And the pads that are in there can be used also for adult and infant. So for children, so you don't need to switch out pads and it is compatible with everything uh for emergency services in Waterberry. So when they come, they can just switch right over. There's no um there's no delay. And we were um you know fortunate enough to have one in the gym at Kennedy during this past basketball season when one was actually utilized and available in the gym at Kennedy for a student that had experienced a medical emergency. Um Everbridge um four and a half years ago if you were doing a lockdown scenario you had to make several calls
097besides 911. If you make a call to 911 now and you're a school here in Waterberry, Everbridge does a mass notification. So those calls are no longer needed. It's done by Everbridge and you can efficiently just deal with the emergency in your building which would be contact emergency services and do your own accountability and getting the building secure. Everbridge notifies probably everyone here, everyone over here as well as other stakeholders. So if there is a lockdown situation and we have let's say um school personnel, carpenters or whoever moving towards the building, they're going to get an alert and then at that point they stop and stay away from the building and then when the emergency has been cleared then we send out a rescend and then they're able to go back. But it's just another
098level of being able to let the district know what's going on in in an immediate situation. Um all the lockdown alarms are now um have been installed in all the buildings which is simply just an alarm working through a PA system or a fire alarm system that once you hit it, it sends out an audible alert to the building to let staff know. That system we train on it twice a year. We drill in October as well as in um April um because we feel that maybe once a year really isn't sufficient and that they're kind of a fade by springtime. So we want to keep that that training up. Um, portable radios are another important aspect. Um, some buildings um had limited amounts, didn't know where to get batteries. At this point, I would
099say we're we're pretty updated with all the portable radios, which are an important component for emergency situations because staff outside, staff and other radio parts of the buildings need to have those on them and they have to be working at all times. Uh, halo vape detection was something we rolled out last year to I would probably say great success. Um, so successful that we installed 70 units at the middle school, high school level and then other um, grade levels uh, pre-K through 8, the middle school components requested them. Um, and so now we are rolling out another 40 which I'll cover, but they have been um, very successful. Um the other thing uh in conjunction with Mr. Albini as well as with Mr. Kopka, it's been an ongoing um process to identify exterior doors in
100the district that are no longer um you know repairable and need to be replaced. We've done a considerable amount of uh work with that and at this point I would say we have installed man traps which is secondary entrances into the ent the front of mostly all the schools now which was um probably four and a half years ago we probably had five to six schools that still did not have them. And this is a no cost pro uh proposition at the bottom but it doesn't seem important but actually is. Um when we go back four and a half years ago again we talk about buildings administrators um whoever not knowing where to ask where to get things from. So it could be a a radio battery where do I get them from? It could
101be it could be anything related to safety and security. We've set up protocols for paperwork for radio equipment. Um, if a building is experiencing some type of issue with the door where the door is not shutting and it poses a security risk, then we do write to myself or Angelo Gizzy and then we get it to the right right place and we get the turnaround and the work done right away. That's great. Okay. And it's really doesn't seem like a lot, but a lot of people didn't know where to send stuff or ask for stuff and so we've kind of made that process and protocol for and camera issues are an ongoing issue and Mr. Zuda can speak to that where we have cameras go up, they go down. Access points don't work during the
102winter. Um, so there could be a lot of things, but I think the most important thing is they they go to one place and then from there, even if it has nothing to do with safety and security, but they're not sure, we it could be a human capital issue, it could be whatever, we take that information, get the answer they need, and get it back to them for increased efficiency. So, this brings us to where we are now for 2526, but those some of those are still ongoing. Uh, round six we're currently into right now. Um, we're still doing upgrades to um, eight schools um, including the Crosby Field for camera coverage. Um, we also are assisting with camera coverage for the stadium for Friday night games also, which is enlisted here. So, it's an
103ongoing issue. That round six is a two-year uh, grant. So, we're currently into half the year or half that time and we've pretty much completed most of the project already. We're just kind of uh rounding it out and making sure everything is done. Uh I already mentioned the round two of Halo installation. Um emergency repeater installation. So, Crosby um and Wallace had an issue with the police fire repeater had been damaged several years ago to my to my understanding during a a a roofing project. So, we are able to um allocate the money thankfully to uh Miss Bello to and Mr. Albini to have that upgraded and that's current being done now. So, when police and fire do go into the Crosby complex, they'll be able to radio back out to dispatch without any issue.
104And we anticipate that project to finish somewhere around the end of September. And then the next two are in collaboration with Mr. Zoo's office, Mr. Albini which is the ident. We currently do use that for tardy uh issues within certain schools but we are now expanding it to ensure um that every student that comes into a waterbury public school walk through a high school or middle school is belongs in that school by identifying. Okay. We have issues in the past where we've had students bus jump from one school to the other. Um, and if you've ever been at a high school or middle school here in Waterberry during arrival, um, the amount of students that come in at one time can be overwhelming and we don't want to take chances, make sure that we don't
105have the students that come into a building belong in that building and that ident is that step towards that. Um, and the last is um, in contract with clear is going to be our next initiative which will be residency verification. other districts have been doing it. Um it'll verify that um students, families that are currently here in Waterberry are enrolled in a Waterberry public school and also residents of Waterberry public school. So we're currently undergoing that right now to kind of get that in place. And then the daily functions, I'll just kind of run through those really quick. Click it up for me. Um, and these are just a list of the things that currently go on in my office every day during the school year. I'd say my phone rings. I take about 50
106calls a day. Um, so the buildings will all have my obviously my number and there's check-ins for any various types of issues that go on, whether it's an emergency, um, an issue, um, with a student that may involve the police department, but there is an ongoing collaboration every day between my office and the schools. Um, we check, we try to get into buildings almost every day between Mr. Gizzy and myself. Um, we deal with non-emergency issues. Um, the radios, the AED systems, we oversee, camera repair. Um, the other thing, too, is we manage the the required uh reporting of drills. So, not only do we assist with fire drills, lockdown drills, shelter in place drills, but we're also responsible to manage that to make sure that every school every month hands in the paperwork, does
107a drill, and at the end of the school year, we have to hand that into the state. Um, my office also oversees workman's comp in relation to first report of injuries and the OSHA audit in January. You also work if a school calls me concerning an injury where somebody was injured due to something wrong with the building or a sidewalk was damaged and they tripped on it, then it's myself to get to Mr. Kavka and get that matter remedied as quickly as possible. Um we oversee uh building IDs um as well as fingerprinting in conjunction with human capital and then alarm repairs um for the sonet control systems that we have in the building which I'm on call for 24/7 as well as fire alarms and anything else that may go on after school hours
108or on weekends. Um we also assist the HR department with investigations both um human capital as well as civil service. Um we have ongoing project management tracking of community arrests which is another big thing. We track the arrests of Waterbury public school students outside of schools and if it's serious enough or even if it's not serious enough we still let the schools know what's going on in the community so that they can apply resources to whatever the student may be going through and try to um work to assist that student and their families. Um, and do we we do the uh lockdown drills as well as the all hazards plan which we're responsible to have adherence to which we submit every year back to the state and is kind of our guidance in terms of
109all emergency protocols and procedures for the district. And then the evaluation of Water Public School properties for for risk. We're currently doing a two-year audit um via the all hazard plan to assess any vulnerabilities at the school and then we um do obviously Mr. Straen works at the real-time crime center monitors situations for us at the schools all day long and then I'm in constant contact with Northwest Public Safety which is our Water Dispatch. So if any 911 calls go through from a school I get called right away and then we start to assess what the issue is. Oh that's awesome. Okay. So, that's basically it. Oh, that's new. Oh, sorry. You got ahead of me. So, okay. And then, uh, the 24. So, any issues that occur, I update the cabinet on. And that
110usually goes on all night, all weekend. Situations occur all the time um with the district this big. So, that's a constant um information uh channeling to the to the cabinet. And then um youth squad we're in constant convers cooperation with in terms of all sorts of issues that go on. Um and then the notification of injuries that occur on school properties. So if we do have school students or visitors that are injured on property, it then becomes an issue of of making sure that um we have the information necessary and that you know we follow up with the student and their families. And then police reports associated. We also make sure that schools get the police reports related to any issues or arrests that occur outside in the district. That was something that was lacking
111a few years ago which has since been um taken care of. And then we um essentially at the end here it's just again 15 to 40 calls. We deal with traffic issues. Walsh is a great example. Um we had parent conflict at Walsh when we looked at the traffic pattern. buses and drop off, parent drop off were all occurring in the same place. So when we looked at it, we're like, we should drop the buses down one one road down and then they had a pathway right up. We added a camera and uh and so far it's actually resolved a lot of the issues up there. So sometimes traffic especially at the start of school can be challenging as parents learn the traffic patterns but as time goes on um they usually level out the
112issue that we have or some schools it's just an ongoing issue and we do our best with parent square to kind of communicate what you know the expectation is for it to be a smooth pickup and drop off and then um summer school people ask me all summer how's your summer I don't know the difference between summer and a regular school year um we have summer school going on summer camps go on in the schools. So that's a constant um uh thing that to oversee every day. And honestly, there's a lot of preparation that goes in. So we meet individually with every school and go over emergency protocols um what their evacuation points are per school. We don't do it as a general thing. We do at school by school. So at the end of
113July until the start of school, those meetings continue to go on. And then finally um it's just staffing is I have a security coordinator, Mr. Gizzy. I have Mr. Straen that works at the real time crime center and I have Sue Silva that assists me with all the processes and protocols that we have in place. Any questions before? Amazing. I'm going to go to Commissioner Orsel first. Dan, thank you very much. Excellent report and uh of course safety for our students is a top priority. We've come a long way in the last four and a half years. I want to thank you and your department. Um, quick question. How's the yonder bags working out? The yanderbags, I think there's a lot of lessons learned in the first year. I think we came to some conclusion
114as best practice what going forward. Um, Crosby did exceptionally well. I think there's some a lot of things to be taken away from that and so did some other schools too. But in terms of the amount of when I talk about the amount of calls I got on a daily basis, the buildings that effectively used Yonder to the most poor most of them did if not all um it did have a reduction in types of behavior issues that were going on. The phones are a major problem that they kind of recirculate problems. They kind of amplify problems and with those out of the mix, it really made it for in in buildings that were sometimes challenging the year prior and years before that, it really did bring it down a lot. So there is a
115lot of value to the undervag. Thank you, Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, Dan. Thanks. that that not just the way you presented it but the way you organize these slides um almost makes it so I don't have to ask questions but wow but um no it is it's excellent and I really appreciate when you know we get information like this that we can read and know what's going on and then when you say it the way you do it just helps us greatly so um I'd like to see more of that looking over Dr. Uh, but I do have questions of course and one is the doors you and I've asked you and Nick about the doors a lot. One because we have too many. I don't know what the regulations
116are, but my goodness, some of these older schools, you have like 150 ways to get out of the building, which is why I've never been a fan of metal detectors because we would need about a gazillion of them to cover all our doors. So, um, and I'm glad you're going through and making them upgraded doors, but how close are we to actually having a handle on that because the doors are hurt? Well, the the question is probably answered two ways. One is how do you manage your building? And then two, the doors themselves. So to the first point is you know when we go building to building and we talk about you know safety and security we kind of implemented this thing where twice a day with the maintainers with staff is to one do
117door checks which Mr. Gizzy does every day and we we actually log the door checks in my office right and then the staff twice a day after arrival and after recess should be checking the doors. The other thing too is what doors should staff be using? they should be using one door out, one door in, which limits the amount of doors you have to worry about being open. So, that's really an ongoing like training thing. And before we do a lockdown drill, we'll go to a building and they they know the scheduled, but the first thing we do before we actually do the lockdown drill is we do exterior door checks. So, that's an ongoing thing. Um, the doors themselves, I think we're in better shape than we were. the the edict was to find
118the worst doors and then kind of work backwards from that. Uh unfortunately, we had quite a few, but if you go by Kennedy um and some other buildings, even Tinker Down the street, there's been serious upgrades to their doors that were before um you know, really not sufficient and had probably aged out 30 years ago. So, that's been a commitment from Mr. Alvini in conjunction with Mr. Kopk and I to kind of keep on that and that kind of goes back to the the availability and the process and procedures in place when a door does break or it's no longer can be shut and that does happen that Mr. Kafka's crew gets right to it and if it has to be replaced we do that. Great. I appreciate that because I know we like I
119said we've discussed that and the doors are just Yeah. I knew a big issue. I'm glad we we just did a project where I had to check every door for an alarm tab and I can tell you water has a lot of doors. So that took a long time. That's why I've always brought it up for safety. Yeah. Um because it's, you know, it's a small things. An open door is a major problem and we want to try to limit that and try to really work in that education to the buildings that it's just not a principal vice principal thing. If staff do go go out a door, they have to check behind them and make sure the door is secure. or if a door can't be closed, they have to let somebody know right
120away. And we and we make that a priority. So if Mr. Kopa's carpenters have certain things to do during a given day, but an emergency safety issue comes up for a door, that takes priority and that's done right away. And and I'm glad the question was brought up on the yonder bags and and we've talked about that and we we always say, "Oh, it's made things better. It's done this and that." When I look at this presentation as a whole though, if someone comes to me and say uh says, "Why is all this making our schools safer?" Is there an easy answer to give to that when we put them all together? Some of it is reaction things for reaction, right? You know, the the emergency out, you know, outcries to all the the departments
121in one step now as opposed to multiple, right? That's a reaction. But when we put all these together, how do we tell the students, the teachers, the staff that what we're doing is making them safer? I think that staff see it. I think it's a it's a when we do a lockdown or we do any type of drill, they see the the the uniformity, the response. We could do lockdown drills once a year and meet our criteria, but it's really not good enough. It's that training. It's that communication with staff. It's the staff knowing that if they are, let's say, in a lockdown scenario, not in a classroom, but let's say in a cafeteria, what's their role? We're always looking to improve that training part of it, that collaboration. And I've had teachers when we've
122done lockdown drills come up to me and give me their input or their advice. And I and I welcome that. But to me, it's an ongoing process that never really ends. You know, I appreciate that answer, but I'm more talking about we, you know, and again, I go back to the endologist. We talk about how, yeah, fights are down because maybe kids aren't wanting to video it, you know, and they weren't staged. Um, so that's making it safer. So, that's what I'm trying to get at is how, you know, hey, we have a lot of cameras, you know, we record things, we could see things, we have monitors 24/7, but when I'm walking down the hall of a school, if I'm a student or a teacher, why am I safer? I I I think it's
123a feeling that you have inside the school when you're in it. You know, you can walk into a school and have a point where they've made their buildings safer. We've assisted them with the technology, but in the end, it's their efforts that have made these buildings safer. And it's a collaboration, too. It's definitely and even with Waterbury PD, you know, you know, knowing what the students do outside of school sometimes is as important knowing as what they do inside. And that's been a collaboration with Waterbury PD that information is shared with the administrators and then strategies are put in place. And I think that's another element to it, too. Okay, last two things. If you really put a dent in a solution for traffic at Walsh, we owe him a bonus or something cuz that
124is like I don't know how how you did that. That just kind of that just kind of And you know, talking about the cameras, we I didn't have to go to Walsh. I just turn the cameras on and then it kind of I could stand at Walsh and not be able to get the perspective I saw from sitting at the camera and rewinding it and watching and I'm like there's just too much going on in one place and it's causing a conflict and the buses would have to be perfectly on time and if we had an all-star bus or a bus fall behind then you're going to have the pickup drop off start to have a conflict and we had just one street down the ability to solve the problem. Amazing. Good job on that.
125The last thing, you did not need to put your daily function slides. You don't need to validate your job to me and I appreciate what you do. And to conclude, I do feel our schools are safer with all this implementation and your guidance. So, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Hi, Dan. First of all, I want to thank you for the presentation, but I feel you've done a lot since our first meeting with the task force. It's up and beyond what I even expected. So, I congratulate you and your team for that. I have two quick questions. How is when you have a drill and safety um and you need the reports from the principles for the drill and safety drill? Drill. Thank you. I couldn't think of it. How are the
126principles? Are they doing well in their turnaround to the reports to you? Excellent. Okay. So, that's one of the the the procedures in place. We have an Excel spreadsheet. So, usually and we do safety minutes too, which are required, but twice a month I meet with Sue Silva and we go through where everyone is at in terms of submission. And by the end, I usually look and then I usually follow up. But last year was probably one of the quickest years. We were able to turn our drill reports around to the state. Um, usually they wanted somewhere in July. We were able to submit it by the end of the school year. That's how efficient it has become. Okay, great. And my other question is um I remember during our task force meetings some of
127the kids from different high schools that were there representing were saying one school was doing one thing and their other the other school was doing another. Are we finally on an equal keel where all the schools are following your protocols and not their own? it that was the challenge of those first few years and there were some habits and things that were in place but I think we've we've moved in a really good direction. So if you were to meet administrator one building and my hope is if you went to another the protocols the procedures everything would be would be uniform the same. And I think that one of the things that we do really well between my office and the administrators as a whole is there's a lot of communication that goes on every
128day. I don't mind getting those calls because those calls usually result in some type of betterment for those buildings in terms of they need something or they they're not sure where to go or the collaboration with waterberry PD which I can't say enough about. So I do believe that yes that's it's improved immensely. All right, great. Thank you. Any other questions? I just have one comment. Keep checking out Walsh. I do every day. Thank you. Uh, if I may, Commissioner Van Stone, we did put about $800,000 so far in new doors in in the city. So, that was the first wave. And now all schools have man traps except two. And the reason why they're not done yet, I'm waiting for a grant that I should hear from next month. If we get the grant,
129it's in the grant for that. If we don't, then we're just going to pay it out of our capital, but we're hoping to get a grant for that. And in that same grant is the the repeater that uh Mr. Barry talked about at Crosby Wallace. It's like a a shelter there. You can't communicate very well with the police department. We're we're putting it's in the same grant for Willby North End and that estimate is almost $300,000. So that's part of that same grant. [Music] Last but not least. Okay. So a little bit on the facilities. Uh we do have several uh folky if you will. Safety is always the most important but we do like to make sure that uh there's comfort. Uh certainly efficiency in operations and aesthetics. It all plays a part in
130uh wanting uh staff to come to our schools and work in our district, but also uh safety and want our students to have that culture in our schools. Some of the things that we've done with the cooling centers, um all 13 schools now have heating and cooling centers and their caftoriiums, if you will. So, they all have that uh uh going right now. just one more school um Bunker Hill to complete and uh and they will all have the cooling centers. Oh, that's great. Um we had to upgrade the electrical service. So, we right now have a an RFP out for five elementary school air conditioning. If we get good numbers on our RFP contractors, the heat the electrical is already put in place so that we could put the air conditioning in right away.
131Uh we did put new ear new ventilation in Dugen Gil Martin and State Street. The State Street system while it sounds like it was kind of new, it it was a a system that was from out of this country, Venmar, and we couldn't get any more parts for it. we just had to switch it out for a a domestic brand. We we just couldn't repair it anymore. Um Westside, we just are in the middle of a first phase right now of replacing some coils. Uh but we will be entering phase two very soon and trying to get that school up and running with uh HVAC as well. Uh obviously the big projects uh in the high schools, they're big buildings. uh Crosby, Kennedy, and Wilby. And when I say Crosby, Kennedy, Wilby, I also mean
132Wallace um and and North End as well. That's part of it because it's part of the same complex. Gymnasium floors. Uh this is when we do our stripping of gymnasium floors and putting a wax down and get them relined so that they're uh more player friendly and safe and look better. So, uh, uh, we're doing that in all the gymnasiums. And right now, I know we talked about the tinker. They stripped all that down. They put, uh, vapor barrier down. There was a lot of wet material in there. It was all taken out. We put a u a cushion in there. We put plywood in there. And now we're putting in the the We did put in the u the tile, and they're using it now. So, it's a great uh great gym. I hope
133to take a look at it. Uh hope some of you take get a chance to take a look at it. We did Washington as well, the cafeteria and the gym. That's the same room. I already talked about the floor maintenance and some flooring projects. Um we've done a good job of painting. We've done a good job of putting new ceiling tiles in. Um but it's always the floors that we never get a chance to get to. So, we started new floors. Uh, we did some at Rotella, we did some at Westside, we did some at Carrington, um, we did some at Walsh, we're doing Washington now, uh, we're doing Wilson. Uh, so we're doing a bunch of different schools trying to replace those floors. And we put in a new, they're excavating right now that'll
134be done before the first day of school, the prek playscape. They go through their NYAK accreditation this year. that'll be ready for the first day of school. The district-wide painting, we have three or four really, really dedicated painters and they just go through a building, they just do a lot of painting and then they move on to another building. So, they're really going um obviously we know you know about the Kennedy Spra and Tinker um roofs and I'm trying to get our I'm trying to get us on a schedule. So, we're doing roofs every summer. So, we have 33 schools so that when we get to the end we're doing one a year and we're replacing them instead of trying to do three or four at a time. Uh we're trying to take care of
135this envelope first and get this sealed up. Uh later on uh you'll see there is one for Crosby Wallace and hopefully uh the next one beh will be in North End. Uh we had to put a new electrical system at Rean. You remember that rodent situation there that took up a lot of money that was uninsured. No, the deductible was very high and the insurance company deni denied us. It was $190,000. Um Wilson, we took down the portables. They were very unhealthy, unsafe. We moved all the buildings, all the classrooms into the regular building. We took them down and just yesterday they finished putting up two new doors in the back. Um and now it's um a much better facility right now. uh specialized learning spaces. We put in a new culinary in Wallace Middle
136School. Uh we're just finishing that up now that'll be ready for the first day of school. Um they have to do some asbestous removal, but new equipment, new floor, and so they'll have a culinary that'll feed into the Crosby culinary program. And we put um uh two new culinary programs at uh Crosby and we put just um did us the music room at Wallace. We put in new sound barriers, new rug. It's a it's a great also will transition into the music program at at Crosby. We did the music room at Westside Middle School. We did the main office. And if you come to um any of the PD at at what used to be called the um al uh auxiliary gym at Westside is now an auditorium, a new stage, curtains, a lift, chairs,
137a giant screen, and we just are doing the floors now. There'll be a new floor in west side as well. And the last page or two are just a lot of things that we're doing. Multiply that times a 100 and there's so many things that we're doing that are may seem small that you just can't list them. Uh but what happens to some of these projects is they get kind of pushed back sometimes when we have an emergency. So if we have an emergency, we don't scrap it. We just delay it a bit. But these are all the things that we have done this year. Bunker Hill Library, Crosby High School Library, uh new bathroom at Chase, just to give you an example, uh new um electrical theater lighting at uh Waterberry Arts Magnus School,
138uh hot water tanks at Rotella. I'm just on and on and and that's what we've accomplished on a laundry list, if you will. And then some of our upcoming projects, these are some of the things that we're going to work on now. um is the Crosby Wallace roof replacement. Uh Driggs and Wilson. Um we are going out to RFP in um early spring and that will start excavation right in June at the end of school for Driggs and Wilson elevators. Uh Driggs and Washington paving will be next year as well. uh the alarm moni mon monitoring at all schools right now we do have s uh securitas which used to be sonatrol um and we're going out to an RFP tried to reduce our monitoring cost so uh we just sent everything over to procurement
139to purchasing and we're waiting for that to go out to RFP uh also part of a um uh grant uh request that we fire panel upgrades, uh, ident, which is the, um, finger scanning that we're going to use in the high schools and the middle schools, excuse me, the high schools. Uh, clear ID for residency verification to make sure you're in the right school and in the right town. So, um, that's what, uh, will go into effect this year as well. We do have to replace a sewer line at Driggs. So, that is getting ready to be done. Uh I spoke about the Westside HVAC phase two. Um we did get our return uh bid. We only uh received our bids for our Kennedy High School pool deck. So, now we'll work on that for
140building that up and supporting it because that is uh compromised right now. the man trap doors at Driggs and Wilson. Uh the main entrance flooring at Driggs and Washington. Uh Enlightenment right now does not have an intercom system. So when they have a fire alarm, they have to use a radio walkie-talkies. Not very efficient. Call a room not very efficient. That is also part of a grant that we should know next month. If we don't get it then we will be be putting in an intercom system at enlightenment. Uh state mandate mandated indoor air quality surveys. We have to do surveys on all our schools. We started um two weeks ago. We have to do 20% a year over a five-year period. So we're going to do seven schools this year. We started with that.
141Those uh results will be sent to the board of ed and posted. So, they have to be posted on our results. um with bringing back our Friday night football at Municipal Stadium, we are putting in we're installing four new cameras there uh that will show to the walking areas, to the parking lot, Watertown Avenue, and we also we met with the police department, Dan Barry, uh parks department, um uh DPW, we're coordinating off a lot of areas where students and the public cannot go to make it safe. We're going to have uh police officers, SRO's there. We're going to hopefully use the identics there for our own students to identify who's there for uh a safe Friday night games. And I just like to thank all our operations team uh that presented tonight for the
142great job that they're doing uh within the departments. I couldn't ask for a better group of people that I work with. Um, in October, uh, Sandra Romero will make her presentation on the welcome center because I wanted to get October 1st numbers which will talk tell the the true story about summer registration. Good. Thank you. Wow. Are there any questions? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. through you. Um, thank you, Nick. This uh this passes the Van Stone metric for presentation. So, you did did a nice job. Thank you. Um, but you probably know where I'm going because I called you about Driggs and if you look on upcoming projects, they're almost on every line. uh and that community is not feeling very welcomed when it comes to upgrades to the building. In fact,
143I asked you if I could even take a walk through because I want to see some of the things people are calling me about. Uh and look look at coming upcoming projects. You got elevator additions, you got paving, you got man trap doors, you got main entrance flooring. I mean, Driggs is on almost every line. Yeah, we we we just can't pave unless it's the summer and we just could not get a paving company and a bid to do it in the summer. So that's why the paving, which is budgeted, it's in my budget for now, it's going to have to be next summer. It's unfortunate. The elevators, it was just a long process. Uh, but that's going to start um it's going to go out to bid early uh late late winter and that'll
144start in uh June along with Wilson. The flooring, I ordered the flooring today. Um and that will be going in before school begins. Um and the sewer line, I'm I'm dependent on on the city for that. That has to be done by DPW or excuse me, um, Jacobs. And so we are moving. Watch out for what you find when they open that up. Well, this is Waterberry. Yeah. And we get a new sign. We uh negotiated a new sign for for Driggs once they dig up for the new sewer line. So, we'll get a new sign. But Driggs, uh, we did s do some work there. We put up uh a tree. Uh, they wanted a tree replaced. We put up a tree. We put up a gate. Um, we did do some painting, but
145we intend to do more. There's a a a bathroom that just needs to be We just need that sewer work done and we can remedy that as well. I think we need to give them a little love. They're definitely family left out. Um, not intended though. I know. But let's do that walk through because I want to see some of the things because there's things that were brought to my attention that are not on your list. Okay. So, and I've mentioned a couple of them to you before, but um I just want to go back and see what's going on over there. Certainly. Um you know, we're doing all this construction around the city and and Driggs is like, "Wait a minute." And and and that's why my first slide, if you remember, it is
146about aesthetics. It is about comfort. It isn't just safety. It isn't just functionality. It has to be the whole package because we want everybody to be happy in that school. So, we we're trying to get to everybody as we can and and Driggs is on that list for sure. I just want to make sure that between the the board and the Chase building that we we let them know that they're not forgotten. The things are in the works. Not everyone goes first on a project, you know, just let's so they know we're here and we're not forgetting about it. Absolutely. Point taken. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you for Thank you. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Albini. Thank you, everyone. Mr. Mr. Almeid, I just want to say before you leave, I just appreciate
147everything you've done in the operations department over the last year or so uh under, you know, as the interim and now as the superintendent. It you could tell by the presentations tonight, everybody in that department is working extremely hard on behalf of students of Waterberry and it's a lot of those things that people don't see, hear about, read about, uh under Mr. Albini's leadership. Uh I think we've we're definitely on the right right track. So, thank you for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Committee on finance. Adam Shaben Shaven Shaven. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, honorable commissioners, and the Superintendent uh Schwarz. The Connecticut State Department of Education announced a grant for the 2526 school year released by the USDA through the National School Launch Program aimed at assisting
148participating districts with the purchase of equipment. This this is a competitive grant, not an entitlement grant. The CSDE will award $18,255 to participating Connecticut districts. Districts may apply for up to $15,000. No matching funds are required. I respectfully request permission to apply for this grant. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Shaven. [Music] Item number six, Miss Romero. Greetings and good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, a board of education commissioner and interim superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Request for approval um to include Roberto Clemente International Dual Language School in the existing nocost agreement with vision to learn. Vision to learn will be providing on-site um vision screenings performed by optto opto optrist. Sorry. Are there any questions? Great program. Yes, it is. Thank you, Miss Morero. Item number seven, Miss Frenice. Good evening again. Um, the education department
149respectfully requests approval to enter into a contract with Rubicon West LLC to purchase licensing to continue to house Waterberry Public Schools curriculum. The agreement was initiated under a request for Soul Source. The term of the contract is 3 years for a total of $137,940 and is funded through alliance. Are there any questions? Number eight. The education department respectfully requests approval of amendment two to the agreement between the city of Waterberry and Benchmark Education Company LLC. The purpose of the amendment is to purchase instructional materials for Roberto Clemente International Dual Language Schools new classes. The amendment will adjust the total number of books and licenses needed for the life of the contract. The total cost of the amendment is $34,14758 and is payable in two equal installments in years four and five of the contract. Are
150there any questions? Number [Music] nine, Miss Furnace. Pretty easy. The education department respectfully requests approval of a contract with Curriculum Associates LLC for core mathematics program for kindergarten through grade 8 students. The program is new for middle school students and a continuing updated version for kindergarten through grade 5. The program includes diagnostic testing for all students three times per year using an assessment that has predictive value for smarter balance performance. The program also includes I ready my path which provides students with an individual individualized pathway based on the diagnostic test that addresses both intervention and enrichment. Commissioner Van Stone, she said it was too easy. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, you always ask me about math. Actually, it's not this. It's actually all three. What I want to say is this is the exact
151perfect use of the alliance grant. This is like perfect even 10 years ago when they used to give us a hard time. So, I'm so glad that we're we're really utilizing this grant. Uh it's important that we do it to basically Alliance Grant is used to be to make your schools better. That was what the original concept was. Uh it's gone all kinds of ways now, but u this is perfect use of it and I appreciate it. One that you go out and find these things and the fact that we could utilize the alliance grant is is really really a great thing. So thanks for doing all the research on all three of those. Sure. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Dr. Johnson. [Music] Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown. Good evening, commissioners,
152superintendent Schwarz. I'm here before you to respectfully request to enter in a contractual agreement between school mint and the waterberry public schools to market and promote out of district enrollment at our magnet schools which are Maloney Battella and whams per state mandates at least 25% of our students at our magnet schools must be from outside of Waterberry in order to reduce economic racial and ethnic isolation. School is a comprehensive K12 enrollment management platform that helps schools and districts with various aspects of the enrollment process from attracting new students to managing applications and registrations and even improving student retention. It offers a suite for um a suite of tools for attracting families, managing applications and lotteryies, streamlining streamlining registration, and fostering positive school environments. This one-year contract was secured through a sole source approval from the
153purchasing department. The total cost for the project is $42,750 for all three schools, which brings it to about $14,250 each for each building and will be funded through the magnet school grant. Commissioner Van Stone, then Commissioner Lopez. Told you it was going to be a long night. When I first saw this, I was like, are you kidding me? But then I was like, $42,000 and what we can either gain or lose by not filling those out of town seats, it more than pays for itself. I'm just concerned about an outside company though doing this. I mean, what happened to the great old take a few students in their uniform, go to these schools, promote it, have the kids, tell the kids what the, you know, it's all about. But we're gonna get a company that
154actually in their scope of services in their paperwork, they have something that worries me greatly. Uh and it's under uh section four scope of services from their paperwork. And I make it bigger so my eyes can see it. Visiting schools in a secret shopper capacity in order to provide you with feedback about the school. What are they doing? They sneaking in the back door to try to talk to I mean visiting schools in a secret and they even quote it in quote secret shopper, right? Can you please check with them on what they mean by that? Cuz that worries me greatly. Understood. Um, you know, and this is the first one that is on that I will talk about that's also on our agenda in another half hour or so to vote on. And I
155have questions on these things that worry me, but we're going to vote on them in another half hour. Um, and you're just the first one to be in that seat when I go off like this. Understand? Not personal. Understand. We're looking at these things that I have serious questions about that in an hour or so. We're going to vote and probably vote yes. Uh, to put these in place when I have no opportunity for you to come back to me and be able to answer my questions. And this is going to happen on a bunch more coming up. Well, definitely get clarity for you about the the secrecy piece and um in regard to just the oldfashioned approach. Um just really tough to go out and solicit um in some of the suburbs. Uh we
156obviously in the schools is super tough because we need the cooperation from the we don't get cooperation from a lot of these districts. So I already know that cuz I had one superintendent attacked me at a meeting one time about these schools and uh she lost in the end, trust me. But um yeah, I know the I know the difficulties of going out there, but I'm just a little concerned about an outside company doing this work. So, I really need to understand what they're they're saying they're going to do in their scope of service. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Lopez. Well, my question probably should have been before Tom went. Um I was just curious what we currently do and why we need this. So what we currently do, obviously we advertise on our social media
157platforms, our district platforms, but it's become obvious we need a little bit more targeted approach. Uh and so hopefully school mint could kind of help us with that. Um and maybe that they can give us some strategies that we could replicate and and you know do the work in-house from here on out. Um that is the plan and the hope. Uh so right now we just do a myriad of things. We we do some mailings, but obviously mailings are expensive. Uh and so you know that's kind of also the issue that we're kind of run running up against. uh kind of having limited resources as far as to really kind of push our message and reach out to the suburbs. Thank you. I have a question. Vice President Brown, you know, now I'm thinking after
158these questions, what is the organizational structure? Who is in charge of our magnet schools? Is that your belly wack? Uh well, I definitely, you know, jump in and help out whenever the state is looking for things. Uh but ultimately the schools do a great job of managing their magnet affairs. each everyone has a uh a magnet school like a grant manager in the building who uh manages all their magnet affairs and the principles obviously are are very knowledgeable as well. Okay. So I I think after this discussion I think a more strategic outreach needs to be put in place. I mean what you're you're outlining and I'm hoping it's it's a deeper dive than what you just outlined. I mean it just sounds we we it just sounds like we're not really doing anything. I
159mean, it just sounds like we're just doing mailings. Oh, maybe we'll put it on Facebook. But we need to be in those schools recruiting. And I'm sure that given given, you know, the limitations of some of these surrounding school districts, losing, you know, losing population and so forth. I I can understand there's some push back about sending their students to magnet schools, but I I just think, you know, maybe with our new communicator uh with um on on board, maybe there's more we can do because I think somebody had said, you know, it's studentto student, you know, selling that needs to go on. So, I I just think we need a strategic plan. It sounds like it's catch catchers can right now. So, I I would like to see a more of a plan involved
160by the administrators of what they're actually doing. Definitely. Um, well, one thing that we're doing, we discussed it a little bit earlier, is uh, you know, pre-K is our biggest carrot. And here in this building, Rotella, we actually opened another pre-K classroom to attract more suburban students. So, they're doing something right. Right. Oh, definitely. Definitely. Okay. Commissioner Orsel and then Commissioner Vanstone. Now, this these people, we expect them to go into schools and and recruit. I mean, if I was that school system, I wouldn't want anybody in my building to recruit my students. So, I I don't know how what's the benefit of these people except, you know, I I don't know. I other school systems are required by law to let us in. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. That's I like that law. Commissioner Vance
161Stone. Sorry to go a second time, Madam President, but thank you. No, you're fine. But that's Commissioner, so that's where the secret shopper comes in. But actually, what I wanted to say was I spent on this board as and I'm not no longer I had to call it up quick to see who currently is. I was the magnet school intergovernmental committee representative for this board for almost three years. And although I called the principles and asked in that three-year period, there was never one meeting between the schools. uh even though I believe it's part of our state requirements that this intergovernment and I couldn't get them. Uh Commissioner Anthony Ireland is currently the representative. Um three years and I I there was no meetings and I went back because before me actually was uh former
162president Stango was on was assigned to this and he said yeah I never had a meeting either. So, we did conduct an out of district stakeholder meeting like two years ago. We invited um our current partners and we actually extended, you know, out into further suburbs. Unfortunately, only one attended. Well, I didn't attend because I wasn't invited and I was the representative two years ago. So, Madam President, I think we need to make some corrections here and force these people to get together. It's just because I do know that some are not happy with us. I don't want to say the towns Thomas Town Thomas. Um but um yeah, I think this this board right here needs to be aware of what's going on and we have an assigned person and I'm almost certain it's
163in the magnet school laws that this has to happen. Um don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure of it. Well, outreach. Sorry to go a second time, Madam President. I just thought it was important to bring this up. You're fine. Thank you, Commissioner Vanto. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Item number 11, Tracy Ann Menz. Good evening, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, board commissioners, and superintendent Dr. Schwarz. The special ed department requests the approval of the agreement between the city of Waterberry and St. Vincent's special needs, Inc. out of district special ed placement. The purpose of this agreement is to provide a special education program including instruction and related services suitable for those children to be served in accordance with individual disability education act IDA and each individual students IEP as developed by the city
164and the planning and placement team PPT. The original contract was voted and approved by the board of education on May 15, 2025. The board of alderman voted and approved the original document. on May 19, 2025. The contract, however, could not be fully executed because St. Vincent's Special Needs, Inc. continued to make significant changes to the draft and would not sign until recent negotiations. Therefore, the new executive summary is being resubmitted for approval and considered of the new draft contract. The agreement shall commence from July 1, 2025 and will terminate on June 30, 2026. The city shall have the sole option to extend this contract for an additional fiscal year from July 1, 2026 through June 30 July 30th, 2027. The agreement is at a cost of $383,778 based upon a rates scheduled for each student
165at the facility for a one-year term. The purpose of this agreement is to provide services to special students at St. Vincent special needs out of district placement and will be paid through general funds. Are there any questions? Commissioner O'Brien, very simple. Where is this located? St. Vincent in Waterburg. Saints Vincent out of district placement is in Trumble. Okay. The program. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Where is it? Trumble. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Mrs. Menses. Thank you. You got it. Item number 12, Mr. Mendoza and Jean. Good evening, President Hernandez. Vice President Brown, Commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Tonight, I'm joined by Director of Human Capital, Jean Tasant Palace, who's going to take the lead tonight. Good evening. I was tempted to introduce myself as Dan Barry, but uh you got the right, but
166uh President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, uh commissioners, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. On behalf of Human Capital, we respectfully request approval to enter into a three-year agreement for substitute teacher staffing services with ESS. It's our current vendor, effective November 1st of this year through June 30th of 2028 with the option for two additional one-year extensions, which will come back to you for approval in subsequent years. The contract total is for 12 million 12.6 $6 million over three years with annual costs not to exceed $4.2 million. Uh funding certification has been requested from the general fund for each of each year of the agreement. The current contract does expire on October 31st of this year. Um so we're requesting timely approval to ensure un uninterrupted coverage across our school district for a variety of uh staffing needs.
167Happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. For you, it's a big number. Big number. Uh what's our current daily rate for subs? Uh we're currently filling about 65% of our uh of our request. Um to put in perspective, last year we have 46,848 total requests. Out of those requests, we filled 20 they filled 29,000 of them. But in that big number, you have to consider that some of those requests are maybe for an hour here, an hour there. They're they're running late or uh they have to go to an appointment, so we need coverage. And usually we don't cover those partial assignments. I like that answer. It wasn't really what I was asked when I'm asking because that even makes another question come in. But um I was talking about
168what is our pay each day to subs. I don't have the cost of the breakdown, the actual pay, but I can give you the breakdown of each position. I know a couple years ago we raised it. A daily sub makes uh 110 110 a day and then if they're building they're a building sub they make125 and then if they're certified and they're a long-term assignment they make $231 a day. Wow. Okay. Are we still competitive with those numbers? Cuz we raised it because we were not. We are competitive with those numbers. Okay. So we're holding ground there. The only thing this tells me is that uh we have a serious attendance problem, right? But there are full-time teachers. Um and that's not going against all teachers because most teachers come to work every day. But
169when we're doing this kind of contract for $12 million for substitutes, um 4.2 per year, it's a serious problem. Serious problem. And I've brought this up, I think, every year I've been on this board that we need to do something about chronic absenteeism. The the Friday Mondays, the all of a sudden the spring day is going to be 85° and you know, we can't get enough subs. So, one thing that kind of hurt us last year was the the legislation with the Connecticut paid sick leave where uh employees were allowed to have 40 hours of sick time consecutively without us without us actually questioning them for any absences. We couldn't question any of the absences. Well, yeah, that's that's part of it, but I don't think that really covers needing $12 million to get substitutes.
170In uh in past years, we're averaging about 4.5 million a year to 5 million a year. So this is actually uh down from where we were and what we're factoring in is that we have a lot more of our positions filled currently. So that's something else that we got to uh consider. We had a lot of vacancies and at this time we've been able to fill a lot of those. So we've gone a little lower than we did in past years when we've negotiated the teacher contract. I have tried for 12 years to get some clauses in there about absenteeism. And we have one coming up. We do have one coming up. And uh you're going to hear me loud because $12 million. We we that's ridiculous. There's an absentee chronic absentee problem in our
171district and we don't do anything about it. One thing that we've noticed too is there's a big a big increase ever since co now anytime anyone has a cold or anything they you know they've taken that to heart where they just stay home. They're sick and they don't want to come to work and spread anything. I can weigh the difference between excuse and reason. And that's an excuse. We got to get to all the reasons because this is a 12.6 million because people aren't coming to work. Oh, and by the way, we're paying them to stay home and we're paying the sub to come in. Even the term, I know there's certain exceptions, but the term permanent sub. It's like a contradiction. We got to get a handle on this. And I'm telling you, I'm
172coming after this very strong in the next negotiation because it never came out of our room. And I brought policies that we have that I saw where I used to work. Mhm. And at first I was told, "Well, unions never go for that." Well, guess what? The policy I brought was an agreement with a teamster union. Okay. So, it can be done and I will be fighting for it this time. Very heavy hard because this is crazy. Absolutely crazy. Thank you. And so, we do have teacher negotiations coming up for the upcoming year. So I know Commissioner Vanstone, you're typically on that committee. So depending on how that works out, we'll have that opportunity to have different language in the contract hopefully through that process. Obviously the you know, right now we're we're bound by
173the contract in terms of what teachers can and cannot do. Um, one number I also wanted to just make sure that we were clear on, I think Mr. from when we were looking at it. Interestingly enough, when we were trying to figure out um some of the comparisons between the last few years um inexplicably, you know, we couldn't get our finger on exactly why, but FMLA FMA there's a huge increase. Yeah, it was was like it's almost tripled has almost tripled. Yeah, we looked at those numbers over the last 5 years, which you know, we've you know, sometimes you go through cycles, you know, births and things like that, but and and that's fine. I mean, those are real legitimate reasons why people need to need to be out and um and so there are
174some anomalies in the data that we've we've been looking at and tracking and like you said, you've done a fantastic job. Our numbers even right now are better than they have been in the last 5 years in terms of hiring going into the school year. So you know you we share your you know everyone from you know uh other teachers in in the building to administrators the central office you know constantly looking at it you know unfortunately bound by contracts and you know uh many of the absences are legit but in the cases where they're questionable you know it it it impacts not just the students in the classroom but the whole the whole building you know because people are covering uh for those students and like we said most Most of the most of
175the absences are are legitimate to obviously a large a large group here, but we certainly uh are continuing to look at it and uh look forward to having those conversations at the negotiation table this year as well. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Albany. Good evening. Once again, the Waterberry Education Department respectfully requests your approval of amendment one to the contract with Ambassador Wheelchair Services, bus transportation for medically fragile students and/or students with disabilities and the McKini Vento students of Waterberry Public Schools. The education department and ambassador negotiated a 3% increase from September 1, 2025 through August 31, 2026. This is an effort to uh have our transportation contracts coincide with each other, hoping hoping that it creates some uh leverage on our part uh making it very fruitful to a company or
176companies coming in to bid for services. Are there any questions? Thank you, Mr. Albini. Oh, number 15. 14 14 14. Mr. Albini. Thank you, Madam President. The education department respect respectfully requests your review and approval of the first amendment to the architectural engineering design services contract for elevator additions to Driggs Tinker Generali Wilson. The original final contract date is August 31st, 2025 and we're respectfully requesting to extend Frier's contract to 2030, excuse me, August 31, 2030. They have held their prices. So, we are uh finishing up the Wilson Driggs. Right behind it is Generali and Tinker and they've held their prices. Um so, we will be able to go right into once we get the RFP out and we name a company uh contractor for those two, then we could do Wilson, excuse me, um
177General Alley and Tinker. Are there any questions? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, you knew I was going to ask you about this one. Driggs is on this and we already talked about it a lot. Someone has to go last, someone has to go first. What is the actual reason for the delay and and the request for extension? It takes a while to get a response back from DAS whether they'll approve the the plan, the request for the uh for the project and then the architect has to design this and then because you go from a schematic design to No, I don't mean that part, but there's there's got to be we're at in five years. I actually saw one I saw 2030. I thought it was a typo. No, truthfully, I
178don't think we have to go that far, but because they're holding the price, I'm hoping next year we will be able to do uh tinker in general. There's actually no such thing as a no cost extension. There's a cause here because we're delaying of all things an elevator at two schools, which is doesn't even meet, you know, with disability acts. So, it there's no such thing as a no cost. I I get it. they're holding their prices at this and that, but we're not getting our work done that we thought was going to all be done by the end of this month and now we're talking about 2030. So there's no saying there's no cost. Well, there's no additional cost. What I'm saying is I we can't afford to do too many at one time.
179If I if we had the money to 21% match, we would be able to do all four. That's the purpose why I have to space them out a little bit. And it should have been two different contracts because these extensions for me just drive me crazy because they're not no cost. There's there's a but they're they're they're designing something that started already and it could go into two years holding that price and I'm happy with that. I I understand all that. What I'm saying is at some point in time we thought we could complete this in August of 2025. Correct. At some point in time we thought that. That's correct. So something happened to have to add five years. Several things getting RFP out. But is any of it on our suppliers, our contractors? Is
180any of this delay on them? No, this didn't even get to that. This is just the architect and DAS. But if they're causing it, they should pay us. That's my point. But they're not the only one. I'm so tired of these contractors just saying, "Oh, give me five more years. It's It's out of, you know, we got to stop doing this. I I don't know. Thank you, Mr. Albini. Number 15, uh, Department of Education, uh, respectfully requests approval for, um, agreement with on call professional services. These are professional engineering services that the board of alderman has adopted and we would just like to add them to our list as potential on call services. Um we have done business with uh three of the companies. We have done business with um AI engineers. They're the ones
181who are designing right now the pool deck at Kennedy as well as the uh other HVAC systems. Um, excuse me, two companies, three companies. HRP has done some work for us and SLR did our playscapes. We don't know if we'll ever use them. It gives us the opportunity to call them and get quotes from them so the competitive bidding process isn't circumvented. If we want to get engineering services on something, we can call them and see if they're willing to bid on certain companies, on certain projects. Commissioner Vance, in one respect, these are some of the best proposals and and responses I've ever seen. We have wage sheets from these companies. They're obviously burdened rates. I thought some were a little bit high, but that's at least you have a rate chart. That's that's fantastic.
182You know, look at commissioner. You probably we didn't get rate charts from too many too many. So, I thought this was a great package to us. Until I started looking, you know, there would be a butt. Um, and I guess you're doing all these as one item, right? We're not going. Yes. So, I'm only going to mention a couple because I got something on every one of these companies. The first company on the list, AI engineering, their services after construction administration and construction resident engineer inspection. They are their expertise is water pollution control, sanitary sewage collection systems, sanitary sewage pump systems, sanitary sewage collection systems, and I can go on. What do these guys have to do with our educational buildings? They are they have done the HVAC system at Kennedy and they're doing the
183pool deck uh engineering for support. So, they all have their specialties and some are more um geared to what you just said doesn't appear in what they say their specialties are. So, let me just go through a couple of them quickly because I already know the pages. 337 if anyone wants to follow along with me. [Music] Come on. Because the next company on the list, their specialties, I'm not going to go through them all because I'll drive everybody crazy. Same thing. water pollution control, sanitary sewage control, water pump station inspection. But I got I have to go to one in particular and I guess I could go by find a page, but I I don't know how to do that. So if we go to HRP, they're a long ways away. So anyway, they're their
184expertise I remember theirs. I'm not going to find it quick. Their expertise is construction administration of reservoirs and dam inspections. I'm not sure we have any dams or reservoirs in our schools, right? But that this contract almost sounds like it shouldn't have come to the board of ed. I understand already approved it. That's great. But they must think I'm getting thirsty. Um these expertise just make no sense. So that is their expertise. Doesn't mean that they don't have other well then they should have listed it. I I won't when I read the contracts maybe two of these companies can can offer me anything I'm looking for. Maybe two. I don't get why we're and I get it right now. It's not costing us anything. But who are we doing a favor for by adding these
185to our list of potential contractors? Because right now what I see in the contracts, they can do nothing for this school district until we have a dam or a reservoir. So this is only to put them on the list. We may never use them. Nick, the the reason I'm really frustrated tonight is again, if I ever stop talking and we get to the special meeting, um we're going to vote on this and we're going to probably I'll guarantee you we're going to accept this contract. I won't. I have outstanding questions on things that in another hour are going to be voted on and put in play. And I have questions. We almost need to go back to weekly meetings because we're too often being put on the spot to say we have to do things
186tonight. I get get it. People are moaning about that. But you know what? We are doing business without the ability to question it. Thank you, [Music] Commissioner Orsel. I don't want to pro prolong this, but I'm the one that set up the system maybe 10 years ago because every time we had to go out for a little bit of a project, we'd have to go out to an RFP and go through a process that took maybe two months. I know that, but I I know what you're saying, Tom, and I understand that. But this is the reason why these things were set up so we can call these people because they had their rate sheets and it was it was something that would help the system to to move forward quickly and like he said
187like you said we don't have to use any of these people even if we use one at least we have the opportunity to maybe use one like Tegan Bond I know you know I've dealt with all these people but that was the reason why these things were set up for for uh the city side and this is the way we developed it to help help the procedure you move quickly into and and then there was the rate seats were always involved in everything else and and I think that we're just doing this to in case we use these things. We don't you know if we can't use them for the sore thing obviously but at least we have the opportunity to use these if we need them for something else. That's that's what I wanted
188to say. Vice President Brown, thank you. Um, just so that I understand, all of these uh companies have been on a list somewhere. I mean, they're vetted. I mean, they they're approved somehow. And is that what you mean by a rate setting or Yeah. Is that the term? Yes. It was done through an RFP process and all of these people they they've already gone through the process, but they do have to send in their proposals with the rate sheets and and we could accept them and not accept them. Okay. So they have they have been followed but they've been reviewed and have qualifications. Mhm. Okay. I just have a question in terms of of the companies. How many are minorityowned? I do not know. Okay. I do not have that information. I mean because I
189I I just sat here and looked up a few and it doesn't seem like we have a lot of representation. So, I just would like to see an effort to try to reach out to some minority contractors. And I know we talked about this a long time ago, Rocco, and some for some reason we're not getting the responses that, you know, from the company. So, uh, but I I just want to put that on the radar that we really need to do a better job of that. Thank you. Are there any other questions? [Music] Item number 16, Mr. Albini. Uh, the education department respectfully requests um proceeding with a roof replacement at Crosby High School and Wallace Middle School known as uh Bergen Complex. Um, we have done the building committee meeting prior to the
190board of ed meeting this evening and respectfully request approval. Are there any questions? Latoya, do you want to tell them about our vote? The vote in the building committee. What would you like for me to say that we approved it? Aren't we supposed to Oh, yes. Just for explanation. Oh, okay. No, that's fine. Yes. So, we did have our uh buildings and facility meeting and we did um appro well vote on approving this. Here you go. Thank you. You just lost me. I'm sorry. Are there any other questions? Mr. Albini. Good evening once again. Um, the next two items I've come to realize that maybe they've been just a little bit wrote and we've just gone through them and not really uh reviewed the applications as well as we probably should have after looking at
191some of the applications that come forward. So, I'm going to present them a little bit differently this evening uh specifically on the external applications. But uh item number 17, the education department has received 17 requests for building and school facilities use by schools, school organizations, andor city departments as listed, and they request board of education approval as listed. Are there any questions? Number 18, Mr. Albini. [Music] Number 18. The education department has received four requests for building and school facilities use by outside organizations and they request a waiver of fees by the board of education. They are they are townplot sports for Dougen gym use, the AfroCaribbean Cultural Center, uh use of adult education parking lot, two classrooms, 12 tables and 50 chairs, city youth theater, the Crosby High School auditorium, and again, Town Plot
192Sports Westside Middle School gym. I thought they should all be itemized. I think everybody should get a little better idea of what's being requested, what they're looking for. I will admit uh I was reading uh from the application itself and uh probably not giving it enough justice to have give the board of education opportunity to evaluate should they receive a waiver. I'm not so concerned with building use from internal groups, but external groups that are requesting waiverss, I think you should have a little better idea of what is being requested. So, I'm being a little bit more specific, if you will. Thank you. And I will continue this process moving forward. I will. Thank you, Mr. Albini. So, very quick. Any questions? Commissioner V. I'm gonna This is a positive one. They're all positive. Commissioner,
193Vice President Brown, President Hernandez, you probably remember and I know Carrie does. I used to probably talk about this category and these requests and these waiverss for hours and hours and then I just stopped doing it. But thank you for at least checking these because this used to be like the first thing I looked at on the agenda, but I stopped. Carrie yelled at me and I stopped. Well, it's resurrected again, Commissioner for your hard work. But it only took 12 years to come back to the top. So, thank you. Um, we did notice that there were some controversies and rightfully so. They should be discussed and properly explained without rushing through it. The the board of education requests, you know, I I just thought it should be a little bit more specific and that's
194where we are with it. Thank you, Mr. Alvini. Mickey show. Item number 19, interimm superintendence notification to the board. [Music] Yes. Okay. Uh, Commissioner O'Brien. I move to add an executive session to the agenda. Second. [Music] All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. I move to convene into into executive session for discussion concerning the appointment, performance, employment, health, or dismissal of a public officer or employee. All in favor? I second. Do I get a second? Second. Okay. All in favor? I opposed. We are now in executive session. It will be brief. [Music] God drink. Oh my god, I'm so I came in half hour late. Oh, this is nothing, guys. Come on. Don't you Come on. We were here till 11 12:00. Come on. Get get some stamina. Hungry. No. Finish my coffee. [Music] Heat.
195Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I don't have it this time. Okay. Y go ahead. I move to return to the regular order of business with reflection with the record reflecting there were no votes taken. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Uh I will I need an adjournment. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I oppose. We are adjourned. Good evening. This is a special meeting of the board of education. We will start off with a silent prayer. Dr. Schwarz, do you have any remembrances? Yeah, if you give me one minute, let me pull that up. Um, I don't have Um, you know, it's one thing that I I failed to mention, I think, at the last meeting, but I just wanted to keep our thoughts and prayers on on two things, uh, moving
196forward. Number one, on the upcoming school year, uh, keep every student and staff member uh, in your mind, but also, you know, the tragedy that struck uh, Texas last month. We kind of we didn't think about that as we went through our silent prayers, and we know a lot of students were at that summer camp, and I know that hit us all hard. So just keeping those families in our prayers as well. Commissioner Lopez, will you lead us in the pledge? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Vice President Brown present. Commissioner Anthony Ireland. Commissioner Latoya Ireland here. Commissioner Jackson. Commissioner Lopez present. Commissioner O'Brien present. Commissioner Orso here. Commissioner Srano
197Adorno. Commissioner Van Stone present. President Hernandez here. Does anyone wish to remove an item from the consent calendar? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, I actually had uh when driving here tonight, I thought about removing every item, but I narrowed it down to two. So, if we could remove, please item 4.9 and 4.10. Excuse me. 4.9. Correct. Thank you. I'm surprised you didn't say. Right. Item 4.1, committee on the whole request approval of a facility use agreement with the University of Connecticut at no cost for utilization of Yukon Waterberry Robotics Institute Space 4.2 Two, committee on finance requests approval of a service agreement with Rubicon West LLC for online curriculum and lesson planning atlas management software. 4.3 Committee on Finance request approval of amendment two of the agreement with Benchmark Education Company
198LLC RFP number 7948 for Core Elementary reading and language art programs 4.4 Four, Committee on Finance requests approval of a service agreement with Curriculum Associates LLC for grades K through 8 mathematics instructional M materials curriculum. 4.5 Committee on Finance requests approval of a professional service agreement with School, Inc. to provide digital advertising and marketing service for Waterberry's magnet schools. 4.6 Six committee on finance requests approval of an agreement with St. Vincent Special Needs Center, Inc. for Special Educational Services. 4.7 Committee on Finance requests approval of an agreement with ESS Northeast LLC RFP 8298 for substitute teacher and paraprofessional staffing services 4.8 8. Committee on Finance request approval of amendment one to the agreement with Ambassador Wheelchair Services Incorporated for transportation services for medically fragile students and or students with disabilities and or McKenna Vento eligible
199students. 4.11 Committee on Building and School Facilities request approval of the SCG-042 review of final plans for the Bergen Education Complex partial roof replacement project 151 0317R. Commissioner O'Brien, may I have a motion? Skip. I motion to approve the consent calendar items 4.1 through 4.8 skipping 4.9 4.10 and also approving 4.11. Second. All in favor? I I oppose. No motion carries. Commissioner Orsel. I thought I was off duty. Committee on Finance requests approval of amendment one to RFP 7211 professional services agreement with Frier Architects Incorporated for architectural and engineering design services for elevator additions at Driggs Tinker Generali and Wilson elementary schools. Second Commissioner Vansstone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you. Um, you know, I talked a lot about this. Uh, gee, when was the last time we had a workshop? Oh, an hour ago.
200Half hour ago. You know, and I have questions. I I don't like no cost extensions because it's not true. It has a bearing on the schools and I have to keep Driggs in our conversation because as I pointed out in the workshop, it's Driggs was all over future work. They were on it like six times and I have received calls saying, "Are we forgotten?" So, let's keep talking about Driggs and make sure these contracts happen. I can't believe that we're actually extending to 2030. Um, wow. I probably won't even be here. All right. So, that that's I just want to keep that going. And again, there's no such thing as a no cost extension. [Music] Is there any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? I I oppose. No. Motion carries. [Music] Commissioner Orshel. Item 4.10.
201I move that the board of education approve a professional services agreement RFQ 8132 with the following engineering on call services. AI Engineers Incorporated, CDM Smith Incorporated, Civil One Incorporated, HRP Associates Incorporated, M&J Engineering Incorporated, SLR International Corporation, Tig Bond Incorporation Incorporated, VN Engineers, Inc. Second discussion. Commissioner Vance Stone. You know, I like I said, I almost took everything off the consent calendar. I actually pulled out my Robert's rules book today and looked how I could actually have 4.10 removed from the agenda. Um I figured it wouldn't pass anyways and it was too complicated and we would have it's you know we're almost nine o'clock. We go I want to get to 10 like the old days. Oh jeez. But um you know there I have so many questions on 4.10 that there's no way to
202get answers. I'm hearing different reasons or this or that, but for us to have someone on call that specialty is dams and reservoirs, I I just I can't I can't do this. This is just beyond me comprehending even why we're doing this. Um, you know, like I said, I looked it up to see about taking it off the agenda because it also goes back to the fact that we do a workshop, we take a breath, and we do a meeting, we vote on things. We we we need to stop doing that because there's questions I have, answers I'm not getting, and you know, this this we have to do the process the way we're supposed to do it. And again, I'll bring up if it means every week, then it means every week. But these
203special meetings to vote on things we just talked about, it it just it defeats the whole purpose of the workshop. We should have just went to the special meeting because it doesn't matter. Thank you. Any further discussion? Commissioner Arley, I just have a question because I just want to be clear for myself. Adding these uh companies to the list, there's no cost at all. Correct. Correct. Okay. I just want to just uh Thank you. And I have I just to go on that, Mr. Albini or even Commissioner Orso, just because we approve these people doesn't necessarily mean we need to use these people. Am I correct? Correct. So it's just to have the option to use them and there will be a cost if we use them. There's no cost to do this, but if
204we use them, there's a cost. Okay. But at this point, no charge. No, no cost whatsoever. All right. Are there any other questions? All in favor? I oppose. No. Motion carries. Thank you. I make a motion. Make a motion to one more. No, that that was already in consent. A motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Good night, everyone. Good night.