001[Music] good evening everyone welcome to the september 1st 2021 mount vernon school board meeting did we say the pledge i'm sorry i didn't hear your question made a pledge we haven't done that traditionally on the zoom because it was it was awkward again if you like okay roll call all right uh trusty sorenson president trustee redd president trustee turnquist president trustee mitchell president trustee patterson trustee mick owen trustee white president trustee miller president trustee saunders president a quorum is present at this time we will go into executive session to discuss the employment history i'm sorry the employment history of a particular person or persons and we will return in approximately 15. let's say 30. okay all right um you want them uh is there a second link for this rig no we'll kick it we'll
002um we'll ask jeff and i to remove people to the waiting room and you'll use this link okay all right thank you we need a motion in a second madam president ocean all those in favor opposed sustained the mission carries the board stands in recess in executive session still to return to um public session yes ma'am motion second trustee miller all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries do we have any communications from there are no communications this evening madam president thank you do we have a superintendent's report ma'am you said no no do we have any committee reports i have an update i just have to make one statement we have a special education um meeting on september september 11th uh from 10 to 2. it's going to be at i believe steam steam
003is it steam is it steam yes at the same time from yeah from ten to two and we're going to have more speakers and it's going to be all day mr paul would you like to elaborate on that yes it's the special education forum right now it is scheduled for september 11th 10 30 a.m it'll begin with a breakfast reception in the steam cafeteria the steam academy's cafeteria then we will proceed to a whole group forum where we'll be providing updates and the new vision for the special education department once that whole group forum is over we will be breaking we will allow parents to visit breakout rooms and they will be able to you know gain knowledge and resources on the very topics related to special education and uh their students programming and services
004and such and it's going to commence at about 2 p.m okay and so how have we informed the public of what's going on there's a save the date out and we are in the process of finalizing the formal invitation and we are meeting as a subcommittee tomorrow afternoon right okay yeah to kind of iron out some of the uh details about the event okay all right thank you all right that's all for my committee report does anyone else have anything i can only mention that uh recently you know you know i was working with uh michael coluccio regarding the building survey reports um we're still moving forward with that um uh mike is helping out a lot getting everything together and we're going to be moving forward with uh reviewing those and hopefully we'll be
005back with some new information in the next few meetings coming up are we going to get a copy of the bcs you already know i'm pushing pressing and mike can tell you right now thank you just that that's his email okay anything else any other committee reports go ahead tj so i've got an update about williams elementary uh everyone knows that i'm working along with michael palicio and the library uh the furniture right now for the library is on back order um as we know because of colby that there's been a backlog and back order of many different things but as soon as uh the furniture gets there we'll let everyone know thank you do they have furniture right now no they didn't discard what they have but classroom furniture is different from library furniture
006if we gonna do it right we gonna do it right who they have they have library furniture correct so they never really had library furniture so they have library furniture they have classroom furniture in there classroom furniture looks totally different from library furniture okay but they have something there right now put it on correct right there's classroom furniture in there right now and they're waiting for the order of the library furniture to be uh delivered but it's on backlog because of covid and things being at a standstill wonderful what's the eta on that do you know early october the first week of october that it should be yeah um and so madam president the new yeah the library has been renovated it's a beautiful space who's there i was there all right any other committee
007reports yeah two things audit committee i met with um i didn't give the update last time because time was short but i'll be brief i met with mr silver and mr tobin about um what's going on in audit we are working on our main audit it's been very hard everyone's had to chip in amy has been great boces has helped um because of the you know with saji gone but that's moving along and we plan to commence a special ed audit in october and i will circle back with you to make sure we are you know have our ducks in a row as to what we want to look into sure on communications we had a a an inaugural meeting of the committee yesterday we were minus uh so uh kim smith and gail white
008wallace were there and mr mccormick and um i'm very excited that sandra o'connor who's one of our parent liaisons is going to join the committee as well which is really helpful since she is definitely doing a lot of communicating with parents in the community um so we uh set some uh priorities in motion and i will be uh sent ascending uh the notes from that committee meeting probably by friday so so is there any updates on the um parent resource center uh there's a meeting tomorrow uh friday morning at ten o'clock okay uh bc which is going to be with the initial stakeholders do you want to say something about that bc or it's just a meeting at 10 o'clock friday right or is it 11 o'clock i think it's 10 o'clock i'm invited to
009that meeting i just wanted to know if there was any other updates okay that's it okay sounds good any other committee reports so we want to move on to the hr resolution in a motion to approve h.r 6.1 of the approval of human resources memorandum 42a certified and 42b non-certified did it september 1st 2021. motion second trustee miller trustee turnquest all right um we still have technology links in here are we supposed to have those in here okay all right so i i um motion we have a motion and a second madame president uh do you want to call for questions or comments i think i just asked the question any other questions are we voting on the entire resolution on individual personnel on the entire resolution because i have a person i have a
010problem with other personnel so then you might need to abstain so just abstain that's okay okay okay so you went upstairs yes we haven't voted yeah we have been asked for the vote yet no yeah we'll i'll take the vote all those in favor aye aye aye opposed abstain abstain i see trustee sorenson of his name and trustee read abstained correct is that correct yep correct motion carries we need a motion to approve the appointment of technology links human resources resolution 6.2 motion promotion trustee miller second second trustee saunders questions comments or concerns seeing none all those in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries i need a motion to approve uh human resources number 6.3 the approval to establish temporary september 1 through 2 september 1 2021 through june 30 2022 pay for certified and
011uncertified substitutes motion second saunders and trustee white mike i have one question the question is um for i guess is for miss tiggs and that is um do we prioritize certified subs over uncertified subs like like if we have a list of subs that we've approved do we do we prefer the certified do you know how does that work just curious we never have enough certified working on any given day that there's a distinction the distinction is made that a not an uncertified or a non-certified substitute may only work a maximum of 40 days within a school year whereas a certified substitute can work an unlimited number of days if it's long-term absence that we're aware of where a teacher might be out for a week or two the principal typically calls a certified sub
012and to set it up and it's usually a retired teacher from the district if we know that the teacher will be out for two or three weeks or a month so when it's a long-term continuous absence it's usually a certified sub thank you you're welcome any other questions [Music] all those in favor aye aye aye opposed abstain motion carries you know motion to approve the business office memorandum number 67 dated seven point um dated september 1st 2021 please motion trustee saunders trustee sorensen questions seeing none all those in favor aye aye aye aye opposed abstain motion carries in a motion to approve business office 7.2 awarding bid number 21-22-02 for student athletic and field trip transportation motion being none all those in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries motion to approve 7.3 the secret resolution
013for district wide window repairs i have a question uh we i'm sorry we need a motion and a second motion trustee saunders you have a second all right questions yes i just have a question are we are they repairing all the windows in every school question that's what it says in my question yeah it says we're going to repair all the windows in every school because it's like an emergency because of covet i want to know um so is this going to go out to bid and um right did they give a name so michael michael let me take the first part of this sure so by declaring this an emergency we do not have to go out to bid and it makes us eligible for state aid where if we did not declare this
014an emergency we would have to have had it already voted as part of the budget uh back in march but we didn't know that we were going to need these repairs so fast we thought we could stagger them over a longer period of time so this enables us to do whatever we want to do submit everything to the state after it's done and get state aid on it how many windows how many windows michael there's five schools in this particular um part of the project and it's every window in all of those five schools what happens is when the repair system is the industry standard they have a proprietary balance called a turbo two so each window in every building that we've done so far and we've done five as well so this is this
015will be six through ten um what happens is each window is tested with weight so each window has an individual weight adjustment on on the balance balance is a sole source from window repair system industry standard the whole region uses every district uses this particular proprietary piece of equipment it's the best in the business the term the term district-wide is not meant to be every single building but if we didn't call it that we would have to have a separate project approved by the state for each building but this way it's like an i.t project that's district-wide it can be in a number of buildings and it qualifies as one project the company that's going to do the window yeah i didn't see that it's called window repair system it should be on the backup
016information that's there uh that's not on this that's not on the secret resolution that's on the repair resolution all right so um that's on 7.4 i guess have they done have have they done windows for us before yes they've done all of our window repairs at least in the last five years and even when we went out to bid for thor and for mandela and for um pennington those contractors used them as well so there's no other contractors i mean because we're just going to adopt the dei policy now what type of um company is this is it what is the name of the company again window repair system the motherboard out of south carolina and they have satellite areas in all of the eastern states so they'll have to apply um comply to our
017dei policy for sure and um like every other vendor will so if they don't then they won't do business with us and we have to approve the budget for this is this coming out of the rescue fund uh this is coming out of the general fund under uh just under a general repairs budget so nothing needs to be approved in terms of the budget itself so how much is something like this going to cost i think it's 299 michael 299 so we're doing five schools hundreds and hundreds of windows i i i'll have the exact number of windows but i didn't think that we needed that for this evening we have identified um five additional schools that we're doing the work in now we've already done five plus four in west pennington plus a mandela
018so because we're on on projects i want to say one more thing and that is that there's a possibility that in the end this could come out of the bond but right now we're going to be sending it to the state is coming out of the general fund but if we find ourselves able to use the bond for this after we meet our obligations under the balance of the bond contingency we have the ability to switch it to the bond if there's money left over in the bond great i have a question isn't mandela a new building thank you thank you because that was my question why would mandela no no that's not what i'm saying we did not replace the windows during construction at mandela we all replaced the hardware in the windows and
019they were the vendor for that but we did the mandela project we only identified a certain number of necessary windows at the time and now we're coming through to finish the building so it wasn't part of the replacement for the building man thank you today well so let's so so oh so tonight let's what's the list of schools that's getting uh the their windows replaced yeah because not everyone is getting it so you said all right everybody will eventually have this but right now we're doing graham the remaining windows in mandela traphagen [Music] becca turner trap hagan williams so it's a different type of balance they in the new wing they have the sliding windows like traffic and those were all inspected so every eventually every school will have these this type of hardware in
020the windows it's safe the reason that we do this is because these windows are 60 70 80 years old and the hardware is what goes on them before the sashes actually go so we're able to to place an entire window would be five times the cost it's able to make the window safe and efficient with just changing the the mechanism inside the sashes that help the window go up and down and what they also do is they meet the new code which only allows the window to open four inches and it comes with an automatic stop on it so no windows had that so we had windows that were wide open windows that were slamming down those are all that's all remediated as part of a bigger window initiative yeah mike really quick i got
021two things first how many some of these windows are going to be repaired with this emergency these are windows that are on repair lists on those bcs reports right yeah so what we've done is we've now given this information to kg and d so they can cross-reference it from the bcs now the only other thing is we to ask that question about mandela because the public is on here listening to us say we're repairing windows and we we've been saying that that building is complete and we've done all of this work and spent all these millions of dollars for a long time now we reopened that building we said everything was perfect and beautiful we got beautiful paint walls and all kinds of handy-dandy flashy lashy but yet we didn't finish the we got windows
022on it i don't i don't think i i'll try it one more time no no no no no no i don't want you to go into like that i just wanted to explain the reason why trusty red and i just asked the question we did because the public is on and they're asking that same question so you just kind of did it just want to make sure that you that's the only reason why we're saying i want to speak to that to us for a second trustee mitchell we reached the maximum we were allowed to spend on that building in the renovation of that building now we're moving on to take care of things we could not do we would not have gotten state aid the mca for that building was 18 million dollars we
023exceeded that in the construction things had to be removed air conditioned some wind repairs and now we're circling back to tighten it up and to make sure that everything is complete that's why we're i'm sorry i'm sorry i keep on hearing can we just move on from this uh we could we're just going to vote on getting the windows but i'm not comfortable with the company now so if i say yes certain things were not comfortable i'm not comfortable with the company so so how can we move on from this but we're just doing a deck relation declaration exploration okay all right then you can pass the uh i want to be awarded anything if they didn't pass the all right because we can we can talk about windows all night all right so let's
024move on from this we're going to get the windows done but we need to we need to move on from this yeah but what's the conclusion look if we're talking about dei right now every every vendor once the dei policy is in place will have to comply or they will no longer be allowed to do business in our district that's been made clear by the superintendent and you folks and so we're prepared to do that with everything but mike it's not just the dei i think it's the it's for the opportunity for some of the community to have work for the district i think that's the bigger picture i think that what what a lot of people in the community want is the opportunity to do some work in the district so it's not only
025yeah so we use this company in the past that doesn't say we have to use them all the time for sure thank you for sure we don't have to use them ever again yeah i'm not saying we're not going to i'm just saying we need to talk about it so let's just move on from that okay so we're going to put on the windows are we going to vote on the windows on the secret resolutions for the for the wall and for the windows okay and and then the the to tell us to go ahead with the project to get these windows done so the windows can be open which is what we're trying to do to provide more airflow and in a coveted environment right right okay so i'm fine with that but we
026need to talk about who's going to do it okay so we can separate that but once we tonight we already know who's doing it correct well you know who's doing these five schools there's still other window work and if the board so desires that we go out to bid again we will do that well that's a good chance we will but i think that's good move on let's move forward well we didn't vote on this so but you know what we're saying is that these windows have to be able to open because of colby these classrooms have to have some sort of ventilation going through correct uh we if we don't vote on at least the windows getting repaired so they can get some ventilation i know in my daughter's classroom there's about two windows
027that can open i'm not i'm not arguing about the windows being fixed i'm arguing about who's gonna how did we come about this company fixing them that's my question so the question to answer that trustee is this is the company that um has this proprietary piece of equipment nobody else sells it so this is the one that the industry meaning the entire region if you go to all of our neighboring districts both some like ours some in different parts of the county and they use this company because of this proprietary communication is that is that you i'm sorry my phone yeah okay all right so all right let's go ahead and vote on this all right so we have a motion and a second to approve the secret resolution for the district-wide window repairs um
028all those in favor hi opposed abstain i'm gonna abstain okay trusty saunders is abstaining the motion carries that brings us to 7.4 this is an emergency declaration for window repairs district-wide is there a motion motion i'm sorry rick i thought we just did that that was a secret so that was the environmental part of it oh right i did what i've seen before i bought it i it was madame president of sustain you abstained i'm sorry no i've what did i i saw on on 7.3 i have one abstention hold on give me one second let me go back on 7.3 i have six years and one abstention and the extension went to trustee saunders is that correct sounders yeah all right yeah okay sorry i said before i was like i'm sorry all right
029now we're at 7.4 emergency declaration windows district wide we have a motion by trustee miller and we're waiting on a second second trustee saunders venom president do you want to call for questions and comments and discussion here and i don't want to comments any discussions when we say district-wide once again will these this include our beautiful wonderful what brand new building pennington so pennington trustee was was completed partially during the renovation and then directly after the renovation the rest of the windows were done yes anything is complete okay so plannington is the only one that's been complete there's many schools that have been completely completed already this is complete the team academy is complete some market benjamin turner that's completely doesn't work it's complete so a lot of the schools are done parker i believe
030is either complete or that's the next one mount vernon high school has all new windows from the internet performance contract right so the windows after this these five there'll be a another couple of schools that we have to attack and and do um window repair but we'll do it any way you say we'll go out to bid again we'll we'll challenge their dei whatever whatever it is that the board desires will do excuse me miss podesia what is this piece of equipment that they have that nobody else has it's called the turbo to balance so it's it's just their proprietary balance that creates a weight distribution in the bottom sash of the window that makes it you know some of these windows like in thornton for instance they are a hundred pounds the bottom section
031they're so large so a young kid can actually move the up and down with just one finger both ways and it stops at four inches and it has an upper upper sash um mechanism that locks the upper stash session stops it from dropping so there are other pieces of equipment that can do window repair nobody's saying that they're saying that we're saying that this particular piece of equipment is the industry standard we went along with it we've been doing it for a couple years now with window repair systems and it's a great product and we've had great success with it that that's the bottom line of it well miss felicio i have a question because in the past you know there are certain pieces of equipment say an elevator or even windows where they get
032they break and we can't find the replacement because the company's out of business or they they're the only ones that make it well are we going to have that problem with this company no so that's the thing they've been in business for a very long time and like i said there's an abundance of this now because of the uh because of everybody using them like the school system uses them or shall use them it's just a lie are you saying that the they're the only ones they're the only one that makes the turbo two balance and other balances out there for sure nobody's saying it's the only thing that makes a window if it breaks we have to use them is that correct or we have to change the balance mechanism in that window to
033something else well they hold you hostage to that is that right i don't believe they hold us hostage to it i think it's just there's many things that we have that are proprietary like my sanitizing equipment is proprietary so you know um our apple products are proprietary you know there's proprietary stuff out there that we use that's good all right any other question all right uh mr mccormick you wanted to yes all those in favor trustee saunders abstains okay all right motion carries we need a motion to approve resolution 7.5 from the business office an emergency declaration for the mount vernon high school retaining wall motion second trustee miller and trustee saunders questions comments let's see senior i'm sorry go ahead sorry i'm president no i'm just so we're going to do the retaining well
034who's going to do this did this go out to bid no this is a repair of a retaining wall we used fmd they are our mason they are procured been winning mason and i believe their contract goes until september 30th in order for them to comply with the ei okay all right is this the wall that collapsed with the auditorium no no no thank the lord no this is an entertaining wall in the rear of mount vernon that keeps water from entering the stuyvesant um stuyvesant parkway driver madison plaza stavison plaza i'm sorry stuyvesant plaza neighborhood so and this wall was built it was part of a a lawsuit back in 2000 right that made the school district create this 200 linear foot um retention wall whoever did it back then with the wrong size
035block no footings and it just wow and so we're doing it a well much heavier wall in the piece that collapse we're doing 12-inch block solid block rebar and footings down to the frost line okay any other questions at 7.5 [Music] seeing none all those in favor opposed abstain the motion carries brings us up to school improvement number 88.1 authorization to approve school improvement service memorandum s22-6 dated september 1st 2021 trustee saunders second second trustee sorenson second oh okay i can't see everybody while i'm i'm i'm pulling this stuff up so i'm trying to get voices questions yeah so it's quite my question i think is 42 people are counted on there and what's the total to send 42 people out different uh citizens what are you talking about are you talking about the second
036one i'm talking maybe i'm talking about the that's nine point one you're on nine one we're in eight one right now i'm sorry all right what's the other resolution i had it written down wrong okay i'm sorry go ahead i do have one question um dr bc is this um the the um the consulting on the cte this is this is in addition to the person that we're having who's going to be administering the cte programs yes right okay thank you for the licenses that we want by october doctor to do that and we need thank you that's great thank you very much you got that all right great news okay rick all those in favor opposed abstain the motion carries all right that brings us to 9.1 student services approval student services memorandum number
037four dated september 1st 2021. do we have a motion promotion trustee white questions i think uh trustee red had a question no i'm cool i i figured it out yes sir do it positive opposed abstain the motion carries that brings us to superintendent resolution 11.1 approval of superintendent memorandum native 9121 ocean trustee saunders second trusted i'm sorry questions comments concerns all right seeing none all those in favor aye opposed abstain emotion carries all right up next is board of education resolution acceptance of minutes from the august 24 21 meeting trustee miller second sector second trustee saunders all those in favor opposed abstain hi sorry i i forgot to say i i was then i i i i i yes [Music] sorry roger that all right uh motion carries uh acceptance of minutes from the reorganizational
038meeting dated seven six position trustee red i mean second school trustee mitchell i trust you right i'm sorry all those in favor hi i i opposed abstain motion carries uh and 12.3 this is the policy adoption of our diversity equity and inclusion dei policy uh there have been no changes made since the second reading of last week trustee turquist trustee saunders comments concerns being done all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries madame president that concludes the resolutions for this evening's board meeting okay a motion to adjourn i'm madam madam president um may i ask for your indulgence and ask for the board to return to exec for a very brief conversation okay so we won't be coming back to public no ma'am and i'd uh just need jeff with me on on this one
039okay all right so um we can adjourn public session please motion we don't need to adjourn we need to a motion to enter executive session motion second miller trustee saunders and uh what is the purpose sir uh to discuss the employment history of a person of persons thank you all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries the board stands in recess for executive session you