SSD Special Meeting/Work Session 4-25-22 As Recorded

001good we're just waiting on an internet issue want to just wait i'll just wait what is this okay i think we're ready to start i'd like to call to order our holiday april 25th 2022 special meeting for general purposes please stand for the pledge of allegiance [Music] one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all president mr holmes president this human president mr mckandra this is president thank you this special meeting is for general purposes and has been duly advertised we'll start with public comment our first speaker this evening is mrs vivian williams good evening some contacts to my questions that i'll leave you with tonight my leadership style has always been from the gut led by passion and practice practicality i have three kids one with special needs in a career and

002need to make a difference in my community policy has never been a key focus of mine though i'm aware that to objectively lead and to be your go-to in situations such as we find ourselves in occur policy serves as that backbone and while it took me some time to understand yes policy overrides emotion and feelings and what often brings me in if you would at times when i do get emotional that is what led to my leadership success and that i make sure to keep those close to me whose strengths are my weaknesses following policy and procedures is what enables my son to not only participate but to receive a quality education with the support of united key have you given thought disgust of how bringing a new council affects the districts open cases that

003now have to be postponed or continued so that new council can be briefed on each of those cases each that represent a student in this district when a director referred to putting policy before the district and the students and what the public wants it made me realize that personal opinions and feelings are overshadowing policy right now and why tonight i asked president yani that a new chair of the special ed committee be named i have two middle school-each daughters one who is already 13. the hardest thing as a parent is when they are left out intentionally and when they are being teased or friend drama insurers i hope that after this we can all remain friends on social media but with already being blocked by one director's public age and unfriended by another i'm not

004quite sure i can't tell you how many people feel the same as myself where have reached out to me privately the word feel fearful to publicly state their thoughts and i get it the fact that those you serve are not comfortable with given opinions that may not align with the team that sits in front of me and have their comments removed or even blocked should be concerning to you all as you're a representative of not only teachers parents and students but their taxpayers as a whole in the past and even ahead of this meeting many have referenced the sunshine law and being transparent about decision making though i don't recall communication on how the decision was made on seeking new council which is what you are formally voting on tonight or even how the interim

005firm was selected ahead of my question questions i leave you with this information i shared with some of you that pete's garage buses are serving both this school you stinton and isaac tripp ahead of the lawsuit that they stated they have no contact with our current bus provider i have photos my direct questions i hope you consider tonight are what is the process or rfp to hire a permanent replacement firm a solicitor does serve at the will of the board though for transparency and to break the ssd stigma i suggest an rfp preface how many of the decisions reach to how is the decision reached to vote on the current firm that will be used during the interim is the firm you're about to appoint currently advising the district now as to me that would

006be a huge conflict of interest to have any attorney advise you on a decision that is beneficial for them lastly as some board members ask what is more pressing than this may i suggest the four or five physical altercations my daughter tells me about daily students being physically ex assaulted on their way home from this school the deteriorating physical conditions have left west intermediate to go virtual at least once already the fact that our schools are drastically under staff the lack of communication that continues between admin and board and parents and last but not certainly not least the fact that an official mental health plan has still not been shared with the public thank you thank you mrs williams hi my name is holly mead at northeast school i would like to thank the board

007for temporarily hiring a new legal firm i think if you look back at every mistake that was made over the last three years it was because of poor legal advice that you followed i know you are putting the district's legal services out to bid soon and i would strongly recommend that going someone local who has knowledge of scranton's history many of our current problems have stemmed from out-of-town council and out-of-town leadership a local solicitor is truly what this district needs on april 14th we have an in-service entitled three trains running cultural youth and pedagogy by dr lisa pickett it was outstanding i was on the equity committee zoom with many of you here last spring calling for change as how this district needed equity and diversity training last thursday only 30 of the 900 staff

008members were present at this training 30 people when i originally asked for it to be mandatory all for all staff i was told that large speakers have been unsuccessful in the past we're going to allow teachers to sign up for the training literally while i was at the training 15 people asked me where everyone was i experienced the district did not feel it was mandatory this district and its staff will never change unless you as a board commit to professionally developing them on diversity i understand it's easier to avoid the issue due to your fears of the backlash from critical race theory enthusiasts so instead of stepping up and supporting our students and staff of all different races you ignore the training we vitally meet finally each month a teacher has come to you with

009the continued behavior problems in our intermediate schools teachers and parents tonight spoke at problems at south western immediate and northeast the only solution to this chronic problem is to revise the middle school schedule that has not been done due to the cost how much exactly would this cost we are investing in many initiatives across the district but avoiding the one that would have the most positive impact on one third of our student population what steps will this board take to have this resolved by september currently the plan is just to leave it alone until 2023-2024 why i'm not sure again a plan of inaction is not a plan i really think choosing a correct solicitor is important because the issue of diversity and the issue of behavior problems in our schools can very easily end

010up in litigation and that's critically important [Applause] is good evening directors uh i would like to echo the remarks that holly be just made regarding finding yourself a wonderful solicitor that gives you good guidance and tempers his remarks you may or may not understand the fact that or maybe you do every time agreements is filed in this district that's usually step one and when the agreements cannot be resolved here it goes to grievance arbitration movement's arbitration costs a lot of money i have to pay a lawyer i have to sit for hours and hours preparing myself for that arbitration and the district has to do likewise and at the end of the day the district generally loses not sometimes most of the time and the reason you're losing is because a you're getting bad advice

011on what to do you're dragging out the process which it only makes the money go higher and higher because you're paying secretaries you're paying paralegals and you're paying lawyers the bills just keep going up and up and up when i filed my first right to no request on this situation i was floored better than 750 000 came back to the union in the regional request the next right to follow up the right to no request to follow up the first one the bills were over 350 000 am i wrong in knowing that this district is in financial recovery and that we didn't sit down and negotiate the way you did with me that took five years and you nickeled and dimed every teacher and paraprofessional in this district because you had no money you had

012no money you paid over a million dollars for legal fees and this isn't my current number you have no money to pay the people who are in your buildings every day of the week working with the students in this district every day of the week working with their parents every day of the week calming them down every day of the week and we have no money you have no money you don't have any paper in the schools you have no pencils in the schools teachers are ordering pencils from amazon by the gross for their kids people are buying paper for their classes because we have no money this is a school district we're going to give the state exams starting today where are the products for the middle school people why aren't they ready to

013go and don't give me any salt and pepper nonsense about where they are i know where they are slowing you but they're not where they belong where's the paper where's the pencil so the kids can do their pre-write for their exam before entering the data into that computer where's the paper and pencil so they can figure out their map before they enter it into that computer system this is nuts there is no other word for it other than hubris somebody better start paying attention to this situation in this district and i need all of you everybody in this room for that matter to get a really good copy of webster's dictionary i looked up the word drip what happened in this building was no drip it was a waterfall but it wasn't a drip and

014then i might even think about your stem program and maybe you better start the science portion of that stem with electrical energy because when water cascades through that roof into a light fixture and sits in top of the in that light fixture and the power was left on what do you suppose do you think electricity goes along with water how about the day had happened over here and we had a thunder lightning storm as well third stem science energy electrical energy third grade and we did that people's lives were put in danger the kids were put in danger and there's no reason for anybody to explain it to me because i do understand electric literature and i can get guys out of local 81 the idw people to come in here and give you a

015lecture on it because everybody knows that and then the other thing i want to take issue with before i stop is this business of this was all along a summer project i have a list of silver projects i have to do but if my house is linking from the outside in through my roof that's not going to wait for summer time i'm on that right now i'm going to call for help and get that repaired cracked up all of this baloney that everything is just hunky-dory and we should be thrilled about all of this stuff is also hubris when things work then we'll talk about how great things are around here but when things are not working when teachers are told to cover classes this week and they don't even know what they're going to

016use to cover those classes that's nothing to applaud that means sit down and figure it out with the people who work in your schools and who know what the issues are and how to solve them i thank you for your attention [Applause] superintendent is there anything you'd like to address uh yes thank you president first first of all we did get a report of paper and when our maintenance staff went into the buildings we were told that there is paper in the buildings we also have paper in the supply room the bid for paper went out and nobody bid on it and we we did rebid that and paper hopefully will be awarded may 2nd at the board meeting so i believe that is the timetable but as far as the principals are reporting out

017that there is paper in the building so again we will check tomorrow but that's not the report that we are getting as far as pencils that's the first i've heard of anything like that so mr schultz you can ask tomorrow about pencils because i have not heard anything regarding that and as far as the situation here nobody's thinking it's hunky-dory um that's for sure we want the roof fixed yes it was a summer project yes this is a roof that should have been fixed along with many other things in this district that we now have the funding because of our essay funds to take care of some of those situations that have been left go for many many years so as far as the projects are going it is a summer project it will be

018taken care of in two phases with the first phase happening this summer and um i am told by the operations department that as soon as the water was coming in the electricians cut the electricity correct mr rucker correct and so again no one is excited about that situation but to say that students and staff were in harm's way at no time was that reported to me or reported to the board by the people that take care of that so thank you that's all i have at this time madam chair point of personal privilege a video was taken up that day here at this building and the power news worker certainly was not cut off i saw the power [Music] and no i did not give a and if any of you did not see that

019video the union will supply it the power was on and the water was in the light fixtures while the power was on so enough of this nonsense is enough pour up or shut [Applause] we'll now move on to our motion um director cleary we have motion 6.01 a motion to discontinue the services of sweet stevens katzen williams as solicitor and general counsel and to appoint the firm of king spry hermann point and paul llc as interim solicitor and general counsel until such time as the board completes the rfp process for permanent legal counsel per policy zero zero five dash b zero j dash three motion to be effective immediately see yes i'd like to make a statement following two executive sessions is customer services an individual i reached out to the president of the board

020and the superintendent for guidance on to answer questions and employment procedures in terminating our services i did request a meeting with our legal counsel because i wanted to ensure as a new board member i would follow the proper policy the meeting was set up by the superintendent i did intend and i was given guidance so anything further on the question yes i i may have several questions uh but there are two in particular that i would like to ask one regarding the work king sprite is currently doing and one pertaining to the recovery plan and then dealing with the work that's currently being done in a january 25th letter from sweet stevens cass williams to pose an o'connor attorney montaigne advised that attorney leary had not been authorized to have direct contact with their client

021and ask that he refrained from continuing to copy school board members and district employees on further communications if a recent article is accurate president young youth contacted representatives of peacefulized directly may i ask if you were advised to make that call i've answered that question to the newspaper but i'm certainly okay to answer it to you i i did contact pete's garage i think all nine board members here were made aware that there was a meeting set up with all of the parties all of the vendors that were involved in the rfp process so i did make that call to try to facilitate communication i care about the kids at this district i worry about how these kids are going to get to school i worry about how they're going to be educated if they

022can't get to school i worry about if they're going to be able to eat if they don't get to school i worry about their social and emotional health if they can't get to school so yes i did contact pete's garage and ask them to please reconsider attending the meeting that all my board members here were aware of and i am by no means questioning your dedication it appears that you are a question if someone advised you personally to make that call and if so who did that because you are correct i was not advised to make that call i made that decision on my own to make that call thank you and you are absolutely right we were all aware that this process was ongoing i was under the impression that that is why we

023had brought king's pride to the table that they were doing that but i i know that you're independent and they were doing that and my intention was simply to try to facilitate that communication thank you and my second question as it pertains to the recovery plan i did share this with dr feinen earlier today so that she would have the information in front of her but initiative po3 states continue to execute the current cycle of soliciting requests for proposals for services provided to the district upon reaching the end begin the cycle again so dr fein i guess my question to you is do you feel as though putting interim counsel in place before we execute the rfp process is in line not only with the bidding process that ford established prior to recovery but in

024line with your reference to it here in the recovery yeah i think um let me just go back to the purpose of this this initiative in 2018 as a result of some of the auditor general's findings it was discussed that we should have a solid bidding or rfp process for all the services that are conducted um that we hire for in this district um and and that listing does exist in with uh mr laffy in the business office the interim piece is a really difficult question for me to answer because i i it's not an rfp and it's not a bid so i don't think the question about whether interim fits with this particular initiative um i don't see how it does but i think [Music] doing an rfp for any process for competitive prices

025and that's again bidding and rfps are are generally being confused here some processes require bidding and some require rfps the whole point is to get competitive pricing that's what the whole point is your question about interim does that take the place of this i don't believe it does but is interim a step before you go to rfp that would be your decision i mean that's not i can't make that judgment at this point i also think maybe it's a legal question that i'm not qualified at this point that what's in the recovery plan is to just an attempt to guarantee you the best possible prices for whatever services you're requesting from copying services to solicitor services to transportation services and so you know i think the interim question is not for me to answer i

026think that's a legal question thank you sorry is that better yes okay rfps legal services rather like medical services are judged i think not only by christ but by other factors i do not believe that i would be best served by having the cheapest surgeon operate on my eyes unless i weighed in other factors and i think that one of the things that we do with an rfp where the rfp and the bid have been confused has been an over emphasis on price rather than the totality of the services the second thing is does anyone here because i do not have this institutional memory i was not attending school board meeting at the time but to my memory the replacement of the previous school so this or the anti-penultimate school solicitor john menorah by um

027sweets stephen's cats and williams was done by an interim appointment at which point yes a representative of that firm became our sensible for i think an act 55 measure and then also general council services until such time as the completion of an rfb at the time of that rfp sweet stephens cats and williams were awarded it but this seems to me i i i am a little confused on this because it seems to me that this is identical to the procedure we are following at the moment but i do not have the institutional memory [Music] you i don't um was your candidate oh you are correct uh special counsel was brought in to handle the act uh 55 that is correct and i would just like to re-emphasize to everyone who has concerns about following

028policy we intend to follow the policy of the board operating guideline number five that was in there without question it was never a question that the board would not follow the correct procedure the the um board was in agreement to the appointment of um king's cry as special counsel for the transportation matters which was something i think we all felt comfortable with um situations develop from there but i cannot for the life of me and i wish there were someone here with institutional memory who could explain to me why what we are doing now appointing interim council in anticipation of doing the policy dictated rfp is different yeah well as luck would have it i was there and to my memory i believe sweet stevens katz williams was brought in to guide us through the

029act 55 curling process and after that point an rfp was put for general legal services for special education services and for labor council and i recently watched a recording of a meeting where many of those firms came before the board for an interview and mr minor was in the room so i do think the process is a little bit different than i don't recall why all three of those if i'm correct i believe it was in early december that sweet stephen's kaz williams was appointed as solicitor and general counsel i believe it was a meeting after that into the following year that we dealt with labor council and i don't recall why the timing was what it was but i think the situation of appointing king spry as special counsel to deal with similar to

030this specific matter and then putting out an rfp would be similar to my previous experience i think what we are doing right now with this additional step is not the same i think one thing is we just hired kings fry as a special counsel to help us with an rfp why why would we in my opinion if we can't we didn't have faith in them to redo the rfp why would we keep them around for a few months to have them do a legal rfp i mean i think when people make people make mistakes or fighting and they made a few like a lot of mistakes you have to fire some people and i think right now [Applause] there's no point for a couple months fighting we put another rfp out and we just asked

031them not to do the transportation rpg again because we don't trust them at least i don't trust you so i have a few questions um i understand sorry um because i have a few questions i'll just jump off of what sean just said for my first um no point to keep them around for a couple months can someone discuss what the potential increase in charges the district will experience for bringing this council in for i think until such a time the rfp is finished i believe that we received some information in our packet i don't think we received too much information on this firm can someone explain um they're going to have to take down all the open cases especially cases are there travel fees included um i think that the emotion isn't very clear

032i wish we were going about it but um so we're going to my first concern is if we're going to bring this firm in for a very short period of time just to get the rfp out the amount of money that is going to cost our children in this district just because we're angry and mad and want to work off emotions rather than just working off policy and procedure let's just get the policy procedure done and save the potential tens of thousands of dollars is it less is it more i'm not sure about a professional here in this if someone could explain to me the potential increase i think the information from mr laffy stated that using the new firm for a few months would actually be cheaper that we would actually be safe yeah

033my understanding is the same amount of time six months from the previous year for all legal services it was more expensive if we were going through sweet sleeping cats to answer your question regarding travel no i believe travel has not been not going to charge we do have on our work session um this the opportunity to discuss all this further so we're making a decision for you to usually discuss that okay so i guess you're just clear here but no i'm happy to try to try to yeah so let me just clarify really quick so um the freights are similar but um obviously to bring affirmative for just a couple of months there's going to be much much more time built to us because they have to learn the cases that we have open and

034then to potentially just transfer to another firm in a very short period of time and then have to pay those fees all over again how many open special excuses did we say we have at the moment may i address that today sure um i have discussed this with coincidentally with the house for the exact same thank you i ask the same question and it is and i have been informed that it is normal practice with special education um cases that there is a handover period where a case is well advanced where there have been statements taken where people are doing that it would stay with sweet statements until it was resolved where it was just simply at the beginning of the thing it would be taken over and shepherded until such time as the rsp

035was done and anything that was needed to be done would be done but as we all know the law rides very slowly but as i have understood that this is normal practice and it is the goal of mo of any firm taking over from this this is not changing solicitors on the short-term motors is not an extraordinarily unusual thing i think that i have heard anecdotally that sweet stephen's cats and williams have a time taken over from king spry in certain districts and that king spry have taken over from sweden's cats and williams and other firms there is a well-established protocol for doing this because there is professional responsibility that says we are all working in the same thing you don't go into education law to run up bills for the district so there will

036be i understand uh if the normal protocol is followed minimal additional expense in the special education area all right question superintendent just wanted to speak for a moment oh yeah just to answer your question director fox because that's something with the last transition we did have transition so the one thing that i found with the last time we did this was the lawyers work on that together as far as at what at what point should they pass over a case to another or does the current firm keep that and see it through and it all depends on where they are in that process and the last transition we had with our legal they were able in fact we still have a current legal firm working on a case from for at least two years now

037but wasn't that different like are we just cutting off ssk tonight but that was the transition i do not i mean there are certain cases they're going to have to keep that's that's not so when you say cut off i i you know that word i think we go back to tonight my understanding is from now on if the board approves this motion king spry would be handling anything from now on as far as current cases again that's analyzing what is where and then making the best decisions so to not put the district into in into any position that's going to get us further in trouble so with all due respect i don't think this motion says that this motion says motion to be effective immediately that is i mean believe me whatever i'm thinking

038goes right across my forehead i know everyone here is very clear about the way i feel and i am very clear about what's going to transpire i've made my opinion without process crystal clear i have made my devotion to policy apparent to everyone but i am deeply concerned and not to put too fine a point on it but i believe it was a turning flowing to use the word the language could have been more strategic which is something i am going to keep in mind for the rest of my life those words have been running in my ear but i'm worried that this language is not as precise or perhaps it is strategic and i am very worried that we are in a position here where we are making very definitive black and white choices

039rather than referencing anything about a transition plan about attorneys working together to transition cases i don't see any of that here i see motion effective immediately and that seems very very strong i understand but that's not how i you know again i understand what you're saying on the paper but that's not how it was explained to me that's not possible what you're saying is that it just got cut out there are like i said where we are far along in lawsuits where that wouldn't be possible and not in the best interest of the district so that's not my understanding i agree with you superintendent but what you're saying and what was explained to us in both the executive sessions is not what is written on this function this quotient says motion to be effective immediately

040so if this is passed then what you said in terms of certain cases that i have that are well progressed continuing is there anything else on the question yes um i just had two more questions my first question is um could you please could somebody um clarify what information that we have received as board members on this firm that is about to be voted on i'm sorry i didn't hear that i just wanted to clarify what information that my score members we have received on this forum as i i know i mean i've just publicly just explained so um everyone's aware of the information and debt that we have received on the firm we got that package i'm just asking the first report to answer from someone okay about the information yeah so the in

041the packet there was a scope of services and compensation agreement for scranton school district interim solicitor there was a response to requests for information uh for legal services and there was an educational legal services packet and then all all of the board members received from mr laffy on saturday via email and analysis again comparing going over the legal fees going over what a retainer fee would mean this is a general summary that i'm giving everybody right now and again i just want to remind everybody that when you're comparing legal you're you're looking at the cost analysis from the last several months but understand that that can change based on what comes up in each month so that's not necessarily can we say this is what we're going to spend next month we don't know what

042we're going to foresee in legal services so what mr laffy tried to do was take the information that was in the scope of services and compensation agreement and summarize it for the board as far as what we are paying now and what we will pay for equivalent services i don't know if that was what you wanted but that's that's the summary of what the board has received thank you anything i just care had the comprehensive handbook of their legal services in the education field and the information that was in there is very impressive education law is i am learning to migrate sugaring an incredibly specialised area and i think that if one is wishes to i think we would be hard-pressed to find a more credentialed firm in this way this does not mean that

043they will not hopefully there will be an rfp according to our board policy i think that some a majority of the board expressed that they had lost confidence in our current previous current at the moment but previously we vote on this motion law for them and having been around the law all my life not a lawyer but having worked with them and known them and produced legal shows and have many many lawyers as friends once you have lost confidence in your legal firm you cannot proceed to conduct business and whatever individual board members feel i believe there is a majority of this board that feels that their confidence in our current legal provider does not make it possible to proceed i'm delighted to hear that the board's confidence in mr menorah was confident was strong

044enough for him to proceed through and to be there as part of it but this is something that i feel we have the the was discussed extensively in executive session which is wonderful because this is where we as individuals get to put our point of view but um if a majority feels that a change is needed um i feel that we have to abide by the training and i don't believe that as a board it would be possible for us or the district to function i don't think anybody here is looking to disparage anyone we are speaking about process but i i do take exception to the notion that we've discussed this at length in executive session i'm not going to rehash what went on and try to figure out how we got from one

045statement to another version of the statement to a plan from may 2nd to now well that was right that was my next question katie i was wondering if a timeline could please be explained um because on april 8th it was approved by the board to put on a statement that said the scranton school district believes um that an award of transportation contracts will always pass carries okay so throughout the process sorry i'm sorry i was reading the wrong statement but the statement that we put out most recently um stated that um we were awarding our special counsel to king spread and that we were keeping ssk as our legal servant for all other legal services and we didn't have another meeting from then until our last committee meeting um where this information came out so

046i would like a timeline of from the last statement that was approved by the board and point out that david khan would be our solicitor um if they've come here this evening so was this decision made before this evening since david khan isn't here we spoke about this at the last committee meeting this this is the process that we need to follow did would you like to have attorney khan here to put him through with any kind of humiliation i'm trying to this board i believe is trying to follow the correctness i just wanted to um so because i you know it was a little difficult our last meeting we were virtual and so it was really hard to get thoughts and points across um tara if you could please provide a timeline from that

047statement that was released that the board approved um to our last commit to the phone call you gave to me katie and sarah saying your decision was already made to our committee meeting can you please tell us board members reached out to me individually so there was no no private meetings board members reached out to me following executive sessions at which time we did discuss all of this to say that they had lost confidence in sweet stevens and cats and that they wanted to switch legal services so as board president i then took that to the superintendent so i did i did call you because i felt that that was being transparent i thought calling you and explaining to you that i had been contacted by board members i think you did that several times

048during your presidency katie you called me there were actually times when you would call me and say i've reached consensus but i just want to give my process was to always call the vice president of the board and then if possible reach out to the chair of the committee and you know i'm not aware that that was your process i think many other people i i wasn't aware of that i'm actually aware i always challenged myself to grow i'm actually aware of a consensus that was taken behind my back [Applause] [Music] previously [Music] oh [Music] there's a motion in a second on the floor please vote no mr holmes yes miss you yes mr mckander yes this is yani yes six affirmative three negatives portable recess for ten minutes [Music] all right right here [Music]

049where's [Music] you too kevin [Music] okay [Music] mom oh [Music] um [Music] oh my gosh [Music] oh um [Music] i um i my very clear recollection from that session was that no formal consensus was taken but it was very clear from the statements that were made that a majority of the board were not happy with swing statements i drafted that statement of the rule of least and i'm sure it will acknowledge directly i am extremely clever and can extremely completely wrong word i apologize please not clever i am extremely precise with my language and that is why that statement reads at this time because i had read the consensus of the meeting and i knew it was only a matter of time until the actions play down and that is why the nation reads the

050way it does there was a clear division in that room between those who wish to immediately sever relations with sweden those who and i will count myself among them felt that this was probably something that was in the interest of the district but deferred to a better time partly so that we would not look like partly i wouldn't quite crack on my part so it didn't look like we were reacting to something that had differently rather than proactively making decisions and there were those who didn't want to make the change at all but it was very clear to me and i would be happy to do a poll of the other directors at this table that the majority of the daughter directors who sat in that room have made that decision that they wish to

051move on now i do not think there is anything wrong that individual directors who wish to make an immediate move reached out to the direct to the president i don't think anything that we have had all these discussions um the fact of the timing had done it perhaps our error was not taking a formal consensus at that time we didn't but the president did reach out later and take a present a formal consensus as it happened the uh consensus was reached early on as the board members foothold soccer and that's what the change would be but do not say that the statement uh was anything other than extraordinarily precise at this time because i knew that the majority of the board wished to move on and i do not believe that anyone who was in

052that room could have reached any other conclusion but that a majority of the members felt that it was time in the interest of the district to several times and i do not think this is any reflection on the work that sweet students have done up to that time but it is in the nature of an industry of school solicitors it's in the nature of the industry with school districts that the biennial addition of new members to boards and other members can change um people's confidence can change people's attitudes through people's desires and it is not at all unusual for school boards to move on from their legal advisors in this context so i just wanted to clarify that and as long as that is true and it was absolutely apparent that we would be making

053a different decision in terms of our legal services but the question i have been asking is why do we have to take this internal step why can't we simply initiate the process that is defined in policy as we will do with our next function okay that's what i've been trying to get at for this entire conversation here and i don't i don't think we're going to get an answer to that question the the only possible explanation i could put forward director vermont is that when you have a majority of people who have lost confidence in the legal advice they are getting it may not you know i'm a little bit concerned about the comments that mr holmes made earlier and unless i'm misunderstanding forgive me if i am but mr holmes you said you reached

054out and requested a meeting with legal counsel is that your own legal counsel or i reached out to the president of the war because first law allow me to finish this a client has a right to discharge a lawyer at any time with or without cause subject to liability for payment for the lawyer services where future disputes about the withdrawal may be anticipated it may be advisable to prepare a written statement silent reciting the circumstances that is quoted directly from the pa rules professional conduct of attorneys stated under 1.16 declining or termination representation discharge number four i after two sessions you're reading what the judge had provided was extremely uncomfortable moving forward with the legal representation so therefore i personally reached out to the president to make a motion on the floor because it was

055apparent to me that we could not come to consensus or any agreement in executive sessions so therefore yes i did reach out to president ghani for guidance i apologize that's not the question i'm asking that you are meeting with legal so did you have a conversation with the representatives to determine the path forward [Music] you took a meeting with the council that is sitting here this evening to determine how to replace the current council no i took a meeting so that i could find out my actions going forward so that i can get the correct terminology so that i can make a motion from me because that's how i as an individual board member and the new board member i wanted to see exactly what the process was and to get guidance so that i

056could ensure that we could move forward once i made a motion correctly and in full transparency when he reached out to me i immediately reached out to superintendent mctiernan to involve her in the process so i'm not sure what you're what you're asking a director may i answer a director had questions so i reached out to the superintendent to ask for guidance then on how to get those questions answered i know for a fact director go mark that you reached out to attorney audi several times when you had questions and you needed an answer okay so i'm not sure what you're asking there was there was something there was nothing done um in a malicious manner we were trying to do this in a proper way but it comes across that way we tried to

057do this well we tried to do this in the most respectful way we could to sweet stevens okay i really believe we've been hurt on this issue we have kids in the middle school we have the rfp has to go out we've done this i really i appreciate that that some of our colleagues have questions about how we got here the point that i would like to make is that this is where we are and your point that you feel disrespected that you feel your colleagues are not treated properly is noted and in the future we'll take it i move the previous question [Applause] would you please take all call on moving the previous question which would revert us back to vote on the original motion emotion has been made and seconded we need to

058take paul what's the motion the motion on the floor is to move the previous question mrs cleary yes there's cruz now there's fox no there's good morning no mr holmes yes miss hugh yes mr mckander yes this is chessy yes this is johnny yes thank you we will now take phone call on the motion this is clear would you like to read the motion again and we will go right to phone call yes okay motion to discontinue the service of sweet stevens cats and williams as solicitor and general counsel and to appoint the firm of king spry and herman freund and foul llc is interim solicitor and general counsel until such time as the board completes the rfp process for permanent legal counsel per policy 005-b 0-g-3 motion to be effective immediately you see attached

059documents for the fee agreement ms cruz no miss fox no no mr holmes yes that's you yes mr rick yes this is chessy yes this is barry yes this is johnny yes mrs clary we now have motion 6.02 motion to assess the legal needs of the scranton school district and initiate the rfp process as outlined in 005-b 0g-3 on the question question i just missed what happened was that were we a comment stopped that question aside from the previous so i wasn't allowed to explain why i'm concerned about how this decision came out in public it is an impressive use of parliamentary procedures oh so i can't explain my my thoughts and my feelings about how we got to where we are because we can judge people when you don't want to hear what really

060happened correct the questions and it's getting to the point where it's embarrassing our students are watching and you're just pointing fingers and everything okay so when people don't want the following policy procedure we should just be quiet and move along okay what you know i'm glad that that's why scranton is where it is i was elected to be here and to follow policy procedure and i'm being shushed because we want to talk about what happened here but people who were involved in it don't want to hear it they want the public to hear it but we want to shush so we'll teach our students and let's be quiet thank you director gail martin was president and you were vice president when this big break went on so let's talk about that if you want to

061point fingers because okay is there anything else on the question for this motion i should not just make it clear that about 11. i'm very pleased that we are potentially voting to start the rfp process as outlined in our policy policy governs everything every governing body us at any organization any business that is what that is what governs everything or at least it should if we don't if this isn't pass we are following lockstep with the self-serving status quo so by numerous iterations report for us thank you what is the timeline to initiate the rnp process i suspect that this community i'd like to propose a further amendment to people okay i would like to propose a friendly amendment that the motion to assess the legal need for the strength school district and initiate the

062rfp process as outlined in zero zero five dash b o g three as soon as is decided by the board that is my amendment that's a friendly amendment do i have a second i'll second that can you can you specify it so there's no no start date here because we're just appointing new legal thing to do before we did this the board is committed to doing as we said in our previous motion of going through the rfp process however we are dealing at the moment with a transportation crisis that is something that i think is a higher priority at this stage i am not saying i think there are two alternatives here either we amend this to be at an agreed timeline at the dis at the decision of the board within the specific timeline

063as you like but we need to do that alternatively as this motion is virtually identical to the previous motion we could vote to postpone it to a to a meeting in three months to put it forward then it is the intention of the board to follow the policy it is the intention of the board to initiate an rfp i do not feel that tying the board to a specific date at this time advances the position of where we are at the moment i am trying to deal with the realities of where we are at the moment i i think that we could vote to press run the motion we could go to table immersion we could make a friendlier moment director do you have an option on the table do you want to withdraw that

064friendly incentive um i will withdraw that friendly amendment if eight people um okay okay so that's withdrawn so we are back to the motion at hand is there anything further on the question for the motion at hand director hume i just like to say that when you say it is the board's intention to follow the policy no it's not because if director gilmore and i did not recommend this on wednesday night the better relationship this would not be on should have that been on this agenda session agenda since it came from a committee recommendation and that's per policy special meetings there is no work sessions we're just next meeting yes the next meeting is [Music] it wasn't going to be right about one second until director bill martin brought about i only question my concern

065with this is an attempt to um set a timeline that may not be feasible and it would put the board in breach of its own emotion were it not to happen the refusal to accept the fact that the board has a good faith intention to do what is in our policy is to use your own words directed your martin possibly cons perceivable as disrespect for your colleagues is there anything further on the question of this motion roll call please mr sword this sucks yes this good morning yes no mr mckay no this is jessica no this is spirit no this is cruz yes this is yummy no three affirmative six negative emotions at this time i'd like to ask attorney freud if he would if he would join us here since he has been appointed

066as our interim council [Applause] there's thank you for joining us this evening attorney john point is the education chair of king spry a general practice law firm with a heavy concentration in education law with offices in bethlehem and stroudsburg attorney point is well respected in his field and joins us this evening with extensive experience in the laws governing public school education the education law group is the firm's largest practice area and includes special education law the attorneys of kings fryer prepare to assist our administrators with all legal regulations and service options we appreciate you joining us this evening we look forward to your legal guidance as our board administration and staff continue to work towards our common goal of providing a quality education to meet the needs of all of our students [Applause] yeah well

067thank you thank you president yeah let me say that i appreciate the opportunity to serve the stranton school district and notwithstanding how i got here procedurally i can assure you that we'll do our best to advise the board represented and assist it in its mission to provide an efficient and thorough education for kids i've been doing this now for 42 years i can also assure you from some of the comments that were made concerning increased costs and delays in special education cases that's not going to happen director hume i think correctly uh indicated that both our firm and the sweet stevens firm have had a long history of cooperation professionalism and i can assure you that that will continue uh in our service to scranton thank you attorney freud i look forward to working with

068you thank you [Music] a plan to deal with the 40-plus open tax assessment oh certainly absolutely thank you i can say that also with me is my partner john horta and we always decide thank you for joining us we always assign um two lawyers to every district so that you know in the event that one can't um you know show up at a meeting or if there's a call from the superintendent or someone else that you can get as rapid a response as possible i will say that attorney horta is recognized as one of the leading uh employers in assessment appeal in the commonwealth things very very active and yes i mean you'll get aggressive representation from us on the assessment appeals as we move on to new business i wanted to start out by

069asking attorney freune to provide the board with an update of where we stand with the transportation rfp process yes earlier today i sent a draft of a revised rfp to superintendent and to the business manager we expect to be able to issue a new rfp by wednesday at the latest possibly even tomorrow that rfp has some modifications to add some of the some more of the aspect of an rfp i think the original rfp uh was drawn um perhaps too tightly uh to represent more of a um public bidding process which is not really appropriate to services as complicated and nuanced as transportation so we made some modifications there we've also identified about a dozen vendors in the area we'll be sending them directly as well as doing some advertising for that we have tentatively

070here but tentatively we hope that we will be able to have responses to the r to an rfp by may the 20th that's that's the objective and do you feel that with this rfp process we are meeting all of the judges um requested him in his order are we following the judge's board it will be a competitive process and be a fair process but it'll also be a process that respects the prerogative of the school board to choose a vendor but not necessarily exclusively on price but on service price and integrity do any directors have any additional questions regarding this process for attorneys it's more for directive finding is our chief recovery officer the member of the transportation rfp committee are you able to provide this board with insight into the department of education's recommendations

071or resources available for our district moving forward to ensure we have transportation in the fall as our chief recovery officer and a member of the transportation rfp committee are you able to provide this board with insight into the department of education's recommendations or resources available for our district moving forward to ensure we have transportation in place for the fall i can't guarantee anything um if you're asking me to guarantee transportation for the fall i can't guarantee that i'm hoping that this rfp process as mr attorney freud just described will provide competitive pricing and some options for the fall but if you're asking the department of education to provide busing that's up to the local school district um i just have one query yes ma'am um there's been some questions raised that the decision of the

072board to ask you to explore other options for the rf for solution to this issue rather than doing that while we were preparing the rfp which i think you will agree needed to be carefully revised in order to avoid a potential reaping um the decision to explore all options was somehow rather contrary to the judge's order my reading of that is that it wasn't it was a good fake attempt to resolve the issue but we were not in compliance we were not in contravention of the judge's order as i understand it no i don't i don't believe that the district was close to any kind of a violation let me say that in my view now with regard to the transportation issue there is nothing more important than ensuring that scranton school children will have

073transportation in the fall and one way or another we're going to help you achieve that let me say also that when regarding several matters the overwhelming number of civil matters in fact in the 90s some percentile are resolved through negotiation resolution not not through court decision so if there were a possibility of resolving the issue that would certainly have been done with the idea of ending that litigation so that we would not be in violation however that avenue uh it's no longer being pursued but there are there's certainly a thoughts being given to um a backup contingency plans uh if this doesn't work but i have every confidence that you will be successful in uh in getting a candidate and let me say it on set to the newspaper as well i've been talking to

074quite a number of vendors in fact i've got a list here of um oh gee uh nine nine different possible vendors who are served the general area uh asking them you know whether if they got an rp would they respond and i think that that's you know an essential uh you know thing that needs to be done to ensure that we have people who are actually interested in capable providing service uh as i also said uh to the reporter uh the procurement of transportation services uh is uh different and much more complicated and nuanced than purchasing pencils or paper and um speaking to the vendors directly um to see what the possibilities are and their capabilities are i think it's an essential part of that thank you very much is there anything further in your

075business may i have a motion to insure okay so we're going to move right on to our work session i'd like to call the work session of monday april 25th at scranton school board um mrs where should we stand for the pledge of allegiance again mr holmes president [Music] under the consent agenda we will have motions to approve the bill list the exception bill list of the bill lists the capital improvement failures delinquent tax reports treasury reports repository sales budget transfers if any disposal of assets we have a discussion for the possible motion assessment approvals at this point mr laffy has reported that if there is anything to come before us he will provide that information in our packets for our consideration yes start uh that's correct thank you we have nothing i did check

076with him nothing to report today i'm sure he appreciates two phone calls that's all right yes uh and a contract update would you i have it or you can you yeah i have it or you can it doesn't matter okay i'll read uh the month of april mr laffy would like to report two items the first is a one month contract with direct energy natural gas contract for 14 of the district's building as previously reported in a board memo dated march 24th 2022 the district gas contracts were expiring as of march 31st 2022. the district secured a rate of 0.6281 per third for the month of april without contract rating determined based on the monthly index rates based on the average cost per month the current 12 day average national natural gas spot rate for

077the month of april is 0.64416 per thermal so just a few scans more the second item to report is the approval of a quote for the stem academy painting one of what was received from jay's painting an email to sixty dollars this includes the painting of the walls in the area designated for the stem program and when mr buffy reviewed this to me with me i did ask him about our own painters doing the work and he said he had never appropriately had communicated and then actually they felt that they needed the additional support to the political project thank you for that update under education director cruz thank you um under consent we will have a motion to approve a donation from the chris long foundation slash water boys racquet solutions a motion to approve

078permission to attend if there are any a motion to approve out-of-state field trips including west high structure canada new jersey and scranton heights washington d.c we will have um under not consent you will have a motion to approve the 2223 career technology center budget um do you have anything significant to share about that i think you've all received i believe it came to us in the mail if you have any questions i am happy to get you the answers to them if i can't provide them but i i do believe there was an increase to the districts of course ctc's budget is significantly impacted by the supply chain issues we're all facing inflation costs materials and supplies that the students use but as dr bailey is committed to doing he held the increase to the

079districts overall at two percent the increase for our district i believe is about ninety seven thousand dollars yeah i do have some i just have to if you'd like to share the adm yes that's correct it would be an increase of 94 522 uh dollars a year our adm went from 247 and 21 22 to 257 and 22-23 our tuition to the ctc is about 1.7 million over that and that's approximately 6733 per adm so we have budgeted 2 million and based on the current ctc tuition of 1.7 million a little over 1.7 million and the debt service in 22 as 357 3703 we will total over 2 million 87 000 approximately i feel like mr laffy tonight but yes so that's where we are that kind of explains overall and just to clarify it

080i want to be confusing the 2 increase is representative of the overall increase to all districts our share of that is beyond 2 because of what you just described correct um and then lastly we'll have a motion to approve educational an educational consultant for title two services agreement with kimberly wallick um mrs abdallah mrs greenberg will you speak to the benefit of having um letter thank you very much for considering this kim walk is a pde department of education monitor who does work with other districts not ours and that's why she's able to um to consult for us the main purpose of title ii is to train and give professional development to teachers and principals and sometimes a little bit of administration and this the purpose of this we know after recently going to the

081pafpc conference that there's going to be changes in the upcoming monitoring and we really wanted to be able to prepare be proactive and help our principals to be ready for those monitoring changes and part of that change is the school-wide plans are going to be more in-depth and the state is going to be looking for more specific information on budgets and things like that that i believe this will help the principles to build their capacities to understand how to make those schoolwide plans thank you [Music] we will have emotional approve the 2022 lackawanna babe ruth contract and we will have a discussion on the east ground from little league dirt which i understand is actual dirt not gossip i'm sorry um but uh mr rucker could you fill us in on east little league baseball

082player i'll just uh start before uh mr record gets up mr rocker you can come up and explain the rest of it uh where we are with this right now is uh we have found that a lot of fun obviously we when we use these fields uh there are no contracts no paperwork uh to show what we're responsible for what the city is responsible for what the partner is responsible for so right now where we are with this is uh nobody is saying no to the dirt but we're trying to do the proper way of handling this so mr genelez i believe will have a meeting this week with the individuals pertaining to this scranton little league to get the details and then we will have a formal contract so the school district knows exactly

083what they're responsible for the city is going to be responsible for i'm assuming and then there's no questions because what ends up happening is individuals within my staff come to me and say we need dirt at east grant and little league and i say okay what's our obligation and there is nothing in writing so we're trying to clean all of those contracts up and that's where we're at with regards to that mr roger do you have any other details oh you said everything i was gonna say i'm sorry [Music] what is your meaning with these individuals um okay so let's get to the chase will we get will we have something to vote remember last year we had a dispute with one of the other little leagues where we did have a contract that was

084am i right process in place it is baseball season and if they need the dirt problem you know is it going to generalize if yes as long as as long as we've done [Music] mr jealous do we have a dollar amount that they're asking [Music] my only concern was that we didn't want to have kids playing on fields where the lack of dirt might feel painful if that's the case let's let the process play out but i think we can we can probably reassure the eastern spring ultimately yes we want to be good partners we just want to do it the right way in the process and we want to have it in writing what our expectation is so would we be able to do a motion then i guess that's my question how can

085we um do this the right way well i think it would just be at this point it would be the board which we're we are doing the board get making a motion to have us follow through to get a contract to work with these individuals um so that we come to a solution so that the fields are taken care of for our kids i just made that up but that's that's always very good yes all right thank you thank you mr journalism now the next the next item is a little bit but um report from the environmental task force the environmental task force was formed in 2019 2020 just in 2020 just when we discovered that our asbestos situation district was not perhaps as ideal as it could have been the task force was comprised

086of myself as president uh co-president or chairman co-chair co-chair was a member of the public and we had teachers we had staff members we had administrators and all of that the idea was that at the time we as a newborn took over at the january meeting there was the revelation that we had really serious issues with asbestos with the lead report and with other environmental actions as people will recall that led to the closure of north east intermediate school for some time so in the two years and three months since the environmental task force was formed it was a forum for [Music] me for ideas for meetings for a report the most radical members were our own maintenance people kind of like lisey no thanks paul dougherty and the rocco the pietro from the chinese

087i've written a report it will be posted on the website so i'm not going to give you all that we but on our meeting on april 20th rocco from now pennoni some sort of italian placement but nonetheless um presented a powerpoint um report which is going up on the website it will be under the environmental task force button uh including the management plan summer abatement plans and the minor abatement works of neil armstrong the led in the water report for 2021 2020 to 2021 we had 16 points which had marginally over 15 parts per million 14 were rectified by mr rucker's during the pandemic a series of i think was 180 bipolar ionization units these were not in the old buildings where the ventilation was great nor in the new building where the model systems

088could handle the federation but in the middle aged buildings where it was more difficult to get adequate air replacement and ventilation during covert um only ran tests on these several classrooms and they showed that there were improvements in many of the areas that they tested they were found safe to use there was no increasing enzyme they were an extraordinarily effective use of our things i think they're the new arms and what happens but that is going to be updated but the decision of the district to install those bipolar ionization units was a good one uh finally the environmental monitoring we authorized the purchase of 10 mobile monitoring devices that get moved around and they're like little teeny tiny blackberries really if anyone remembers blackberries and they measure both carbon dioxide levels and relative humidity the

089effectiveness of that they can be read by an apple smartphone they are very efficient they were five hundred dollars each a great investment um i tried to ask rocco if we needed any more he said five more would be great but we don't really need them um but we may look at doing that at some point the task force will come out of the recommendation but the level of carbon dioxide in a room is a very great indicator of air refresh rate and we can tell when we're refreshing the air enough to keep minimized time there is a school clean out program which is covering a revive program which will help us get rid of those chemicals that just accumulate and that will be at no cost to the district all of this is posted

090to the website we also discussed the upcoming hvac improvements um both funded by sr and ar funds and our own capital funds which are going to make a huge difference to the environmental air quality of all of our buildings which has been shown to lead to improved academic outcomes so after we patted ourselves on the back in the fact that we were extremely proud that we've done three decades worth of asbestos remediation in two years and three months which is an extraordinary thing and that is congratulations to everybody who worked on that from darwin to kacharis to pinonis to love to carl and his maintenance people it was extraordinary effort i can now tell you that we removed over 100 tons of asbestos containing material we're now in a here of compliance we had no

091management plan for any buildings but we now have management plans for all our buildings which i think mr are accessible on our website uh they're accessible each one of the buildings and they'll be on accessible websites yeah so that they are accessible on each of the websites we have seven buildings that no longer require management plans and our goal is to get all of our schools into that situation but as of now there are no medium or high risk acm incidents anywhere near any students or staff and we really did we turned a tiger into a kitten because when we were there in january 2020 and we found out where we were with asbestos we are now so squeaky clean we are so in compliance with everything and most importantly of all uh students of

092our staff are incredibly straight and i just like to note with that um much of that work almost i mean all of that work was done under director kim martin's guidance so i think it's important to know that you put countless hours and energy so the last thing that i really want to talk about was that the environmental task force has been an extraordinarily productive way of improving communications between the public the school community and the professionals but what we've got left to do isn't much the track systems are all being worked on so what we thought we would do we had two choices either to recess the environmental task force or to refocus it and the decision was made by the committee to refocus our efforts to a more proactive approach and look for

093ways that we can positively improve the students environment so that we can improve air quality we can improve recreational spaces we can improve the general environment for our students in the districts and and do some data measurement as to whether this helps us with our academic outcomes so we have planned our next meeting for september because there isn't much we need to do between now and september when we will be looking for expressions of interest from members of the public professionals in environmental areas parents taxpayers administrators students anyone who would like to join us there will be a link i haven't told you this this is all but there will be a link under the environmental task force button on the website we can just put a link there please um but also you could

094email virginia.org at ssdedu.org just saying please contact me i'd like to be on the environmental task force um i was so proud to be a part of this task force to see it cope with the crisis to see it monitor to see the input from our professional partners the value that they found in it uh and i'm very proud to leave it further into the future if that is the wish of the board thank you for all of your work as well director here you put in a lot of time and energy on that so thank you thank you i apologize for being someone okay so moving on from that long and boring story which told you more about penguins than you wish to know uh we will have a discussion and a motion to

095approve the scranton high fire suppression system replacement project bids um mr rocket uh yeah we're gonna be opening up bids for the fire expression system the last time we went out and correct the what was well over our budget and uh we tightened up the scope uh limited to a couple of different areas and put it back out we'll be opening those business 27th on which day is the record this week the 27th of april this week we'll just be victory opening for the replacement thank you um how long do will the bit will be to be open so you can see that again how long will the bids be open uh the bids have been out this will be the end of the third week it's been publicly announced for three weeks uh they'll

096be opened in 27th i'll they'll be over yeah exactly sorry i apologize i completely misunderstood that rob i'm sorry that's okay so so you hope to have a motion for us at that meeting next week yes ma'am thank you okay now we will have a discussion of the west high roof replacement project center of tower relocation and resetting cost uh yes so t-mobile t-mobile leases an area of the roof on top of west grant high school currently we have an agreement with them that we would never happen to pay for any type of resetting we're going to be looking to speak with legal counsel just to see our current options and we look to have a motion for you next monday yeah so just to uh clarify this this will be one of the first

097tasks that we asked king sprite to take a look at in reading the over the contract we pay approximately 1500 we get 1500 a month from t-mobile but in order to relocate it would cost us what's 165 000 math to me doesn't work so we're gonna we are going to pass the contract over to king's pride to take a look at it to see exactly what our next steps would be so at this point that's really all we have to report we hope to get more information but we do need to do this and ethan i i don't know rob i don't know if you want to explain but in doing the roof we have no option we have to move this correct correct and this leasing memo that i was given today by mr

098laffy is from february 19th of 2017. so i'm going to pass it forward and ethan i don't know if you have anything else that you'd like to say now you pretty much covered it t-mobile has a communication antenna that's on the top of that roof where the school district does have a lease agreement with and in order to replace the roof the equipment has to move and relocate and to me the relocation fee is outrageous so want we want to even see if this is something that we even want to continue is that t-mobile is charging that fee to us it's t-mobile city yes so they give us fifteen hundred dollars to have the the t-mobile what would you call an antenna on the top of the parking antenna but it is used for emergency

099communications important piece of equipment fifteen hundred dollars actually they give us what is it going to cost to just remove it because obviously there's a phase you pay that fee here is that so that was part of the discussion that we hope that mr flynn could help ascertain we will be discussing that one that will be 10 years before we even got back into the mountain with the black so that looks a bad deal and then informationally we will have a change order for the memorial stadium bleacher upgrades to approve 3048.78 for permits and for the west grant an intermediate school temporary parking lot change order two thousand and ninety two dollars and two cents for permits and this is per our usual process of not including permit fees within our bids but adding them

100as change orders and that is all i have okay mrs orr um would you pull the motion to approve the 2022 lackawanna babe ruth contact contract from the consent agenda um i would need to vote on that and abstain as my husband is a volunteer with that organization well sure it's not even better than okay great thank you okay under personnel director mcandrew yes thanks uh we're gonna have a motion to approve the personnel report the motion to approve the human resource director contract policy director fox yes sorry i'm on the consent agenda we'll have a motion to free first-rate updates zero zero four b-o-g zero statement of financial interest 218 student discipline 220 student expression dissemination materials 227 controlled substances and paraphernalia 237 electronic devices and 808 home services thank you director chez special

101education under special education under consent agenda you will have a motion to approve settlement agreements if any thank you and director cleary vendor relations okay so the first one says discussion possible motion legal services are people because of that in our previous meeting so i'm not sure why that was listed there well i know there are questions regarding fees so i think if if those questions are there we have attorney ford seated so [Music] sure sure as i understand it we've received in our package to create alternative fees which fairly clearly set out what the thing is for the interim period i think it's just a question of the board to make this to make a motion at our meeting next week as to which of those two proposals we wish to adopt um we

102can either i'm not sure how well i think if there's questions regarding the two options would were there questions or would you like attorney trying to explain those two options okay motion to approve mom-and-pop contracts if any and motion to approve the duplicate paper bit yes may i just add i did get a little bit information because there was a statement made that we don't have any paper and i was just told there are 2.6 million sheets of paper in the supply room and that does not include what is in the schools so that's the information i just received i will definitely check on pencils i have not pencils today was the first day that i heard that so i just wanted to make sure that i stated that also with regards to the bid

103i did state that the first time we bid paper and maybe that's where there's uh confusion that we did not get any bidders so we did put that back out we do i believe have one i don't know who that is but i do there's one that i believe mr laffy will be preparing for the meeting on monday is he always the process for people is that the principal gets it from me so um basically what happens is the the building principle um puts in a request like all of the requests during the summer and then those are fulfilled and then there's obviously we ordered more paper because we always go over and we look i know mr laffy does a really good job looking at the trend data as far as what we ordered

104from year to year and then as far as paper in schools again i'm going to have to ask one of the want either mrs greyback or mr shoulders to help me because i haven't been a principal in a while um but i i i'm assuming it's the same as teachers go to the copy room there's paper there to use as far as uh what like what's your request when they want to make a copy or so if there are certain teachers who are saying they can't locate paper and they're building or such they should i guess go to principal if they're not getting the answer from the principal correctly then go to correct and then the principal would go to uh mr schultes or mrs greyback as far as what their concern is i don't

105know i i know there was an email that was sent out and again i don't know if this was the confusion but there was an email that was sent out basically saying stating that we did not get any bids on paper so obviously when we sent that out to the principals to let them know that just just beware if you have paper in your building beware we didn't get a bid on it and i think that caused panic a little because what i understand is the next day mr clark connor clark in the supply room got several requests for a lot of paper all of a sudden because i think people panicked but again maybe mrs greenbeck you have more information on exactly what happened but if we have 2.6 million sheets in the supply

106room i'm not really sure whether it's being reported that we have no paper what what superintendent mckinnon said is actually true typically the paper is stored in a central location and due to covert we have had an overabundance i don't know what this current situation with this the remarks of not having paper or but the process she explains is what happens um the purchase orders are created in the fall they come from the general pegboard paper pencils crayons the basics and then those orders are fulfilled and arriving at the schools before the year starts and should we have any kind of a shortage during the year just as superintendent mctiernan said the teacher would report to the principal materials would be designated to those schools and there is a stockpile of materials at least there

107was when covet was here of various materials that are held in central supply that would be sent to those schools and in extreme emergencies some schools that have boxes of paper that they don't necessarily use um would send it to a school if it was an emergency and there was a shortage this is the first time i'm hearing of it as well but she was correcting what we usually do for the process am i correct that you just spoke to mr connor clark and the information that i gave is accurate yes ma'am thank you for your personal privilege once again as you call i'll tell you a bib you were to check the emails that the principal sent out to the faculties and also when they have to go to psychology paper in the principal's

108office there's no paper to be had this has to be done all emails have to be double checked that went up to the faculties of these in the different schools saying there's no paper also teachers have emails to say not to send anything downtown to the friendship somebody besides which the teachers have emails i don't have to call on them if they're sending emails out to the teachers to save their stall paper what are the teachers to do i understand so you know when you call me i will always investigate so you know tomorrow i'll be investigating why that i'm going to likewise because i don't like that what i can't i said i'm going to investigate tomorrow also because i'm going to get emails why are they [Music] i want to acknowledge director cleary

109and director holmes for traveling to harrisburg today i as an advocacy ambassador i was very proud to have scranton so well represented so thank you and i between us we visited with a state senator the legislative director for our own state senator and three of our representatives and we had some really great conversations and even sparked some good ideas so more to come [Music] harrisburg in regards to what our needs are because we know that we have needs and they're aware maybe we can share some updates with director fox for her pspa report thank you all for attending today and representing us yes thank you is there a motion to return thank you