001This meeting of the board starts right now. Please uh stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much for being here this evening. We'll get started by approving our agenda on page two. And I would like to make a change. I don't know if anyone else has one, but I'd like to add the 2026 Northern High School trip to Japan as an action item as those students leave June 22nd, a little over 100 days. Seems like we ought to approve that tonight if we're going to approve it. Everybody good with that? Okay, then we need to approve the agenda as
002amended. Please, >> Mr. President, I move that we move the agenda. Agenda as amended. >> Thank you, Emily. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of approving the agenda as amended, please say I. I. Opposed. Uh the motion passes and we'll move forward with the superintendent's report. >> All right. Thank you, President Anwerp and members of the Portis Public Schools Board of Education. Our first of two uh reports is related to uh a trip to Japan. We have Northern High School teacher Sarah not here. Uh Sarah, if you could join us at the podium and give us a a presentation. >> All right, I'm going to turn this on and then it's going to explode. So, I got this. Thanks for letting me share this evening, guys. I really
003appreciate it. And thank you for the quicker timeline on the vote, too. My kids will be very happy. Um, I come to you with the same trip that's been run several times in the past from Northern. Um, it's a trip coming this summer. We're taking students from both Madawan Northern and this year for the first time, Cornage Central to Japan. And it's through a company called World Strides. Um, I like to talk a little bit about why I pick World Strides because students do spend their own money. I always like to make sure that parents know what what they're getting essentially. Um, they cover all our airfare. They require and cover medical insurance and travel assurance uh insurance which is not something that many student tour groups do. And I like to travel in that
004way. Um the students can do it's it's basically like a travel log. They can do a little bit of course work before and a little bit after to get three college credits if they so choose. Um this is big centrally located hotels. So other student tour groups sometimes will be like, "Hey, you're staying in Venice. You're not in Venice. You're four hours away on the mainland. You spend eight hours the day of the bus." you know these I mean like we were last time we were there we were on the same block as Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. So like you are you are where you want to be with this kind of thing. Also minimum of two meals daily daily and the meals are like amazing. They're part of the best part of the trip.
005I literally have pictures. Um and our World Strides tour director is one person and they're with us the entire time. And by that I mean they are in the same hotel like area as us. So like four doors down if I have a kid who has you know food poisoning at midnight or something like that. It's not even up to me. My my tour guide, I just knock on the door and the tour guide takes over. Bilingual, you know, anything they need. So, I always feel as a teacher and an educator, I always feel very very safe um traveling with these guys. And um we just stopped enrolling actually. So, like I think beginning of February, we had our last enrollment. Um and we're up around 32 with all three schools together. Um, and really
006the the craziest part about this is that um, a ticket to Japan is is one of the most it's an absurdly expensive air, you know, plane ticket. That's no no two ways about it. But after the price of two plane tickets, two flights, the costs of everything on that list work out to about 300 bucks a day for the kids, which I'm sorry, you couldn't do that in Grand Rapids. Like I couldn't get a hotel and two meals in Grand Rapids for that. So they have very reasonable prices. And I have for you here some pictures from past trips. Um, one of my colleagues is visible here, Colin Kilmer at Northern. We visit very amazing historic sites and have curated tours at several of them. On the right, we learned how to make our own
007sushi. I hate fish. Third time I'm going to Japan. It's worth it, though. This is one of my absolute favorite parts of the trip, and I'm so glad it's a similar itinerary every time because this is unbelievable. Um apparently when the Buddha attained enlightenment only the deer was present and as a result the deer in Buddhist tradition is cons is considered to be the most enlightened beings or the most enlightened animal. So it's a very sacred animal and there's this huge um like forest like national park forest area that has one of the largest Buddhist temples in Japan and also a very very old Shinto shrine and it has a herd of hundreds and hundreds of tamed deer and I am not making this up. The deer have been trained to come up to you
008and bow and then you feed them a cracker and then they bow again and you're like, "Well, cool. I'm Snow White today." The food is amazing. So, literally put pictures in for the food because it's not just a brown bag lunch on a bus, you know? They they really take care of us. We take lessons while we're there. So, on the left, it's not necessarily a lesson, but you can see we're wearing yukata, so we're wearing very very old school Japanese garb. the students have to wear their little slippers and everything like that. On the right, brush painting lessons. So, sumi um Japanese black brush work. I have two art degrees and I have these like little tiny tiny Japanese ladies like looking down at my brush work and I'm just like weeping like you
009know, you've never felt bad until you've seen like four feet of of mastery staring at you. And again, just some really really beautiful um spots. The Buddhist temple that I mentioned previously is the one in the upper left there. And this last slide here is Osaka, which is our starting city. Overall, we cover Osaka, Kyoto, Kon, Nara, um, Tokyo. I think that's it. Yeah, I think that's all of them. Um, and it's a very similar um, if not like word for word identical, but very similar, um, to the trips that you guys have approved in the past. So, I would love to answer questions. What questions could I answer about the trip? Logistics, anything like that? >> Thanks for the photos. >> Aren't they cute? It's so special, too. I mean, like I I love
010traveling abroad myself, but seeing teenagers experience it and seeing them open up is it's like a drug. It's so amazing. I had a student once who came to me in the hotel lobby where we were staying in this like steam bath in the mountains and she came to me and she's like, "Miss not, I can't get into my room." And she shows me a picture and there's a spider, pretty big spider on the door frame. And I'm like, "Oh, honey, it's okay. You know, just take your slipper like it's going to, you know, don't be afraid." And she's like, "No, I wasn't sure if it was sacred." And she was sincere. She was that open to like learning about this new, you know, this new place. And so, it's just very special. I'm very appreciative
011that you guys allow me to have the opportunity to do it. I mean, hopefully. >> Sorry. >> Seems like a long way to go to see deer to me. All right. You shoot a couple, bring them to me. We'll cancel the whole thing. >> All right. >> That's great. You got 32. >> Yeah, we got And I'm really excited. Um, we're delaying one more year than we usually would um for our next rotation on the trip because I really want to push the Northern Central thing. So, I only just started recruiting at Central this year and we have teachers from Central going with us this year and I kind of want to like really cement that in 2020 whatever's three years from now, 2029. I'm more than a bit jealous. >> It is pretty special.
012Although it doesn't feel as special when you have 32 teenagers in international customs. So, >> not say the wrong word. >> Oh, I'm like, "Guys, if you joke, I'm going to hit you with a shoe." Like, nobody say nothing. Everybody say, "Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am." >> Well, thanks again, guys. Really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. >> Thank you for putting that together and for coming here tonight. Thank you. All right, thank you as well. And next up with our superintendent report project update government. >> Good evening board. Superintendent Edwards. Happy to provide today's uh bond update. Uh the weather's gone wood a little starting to break. Uh so things are looking pretty good over there at Woodland. You'll be able to see maybe turn it off on me. Oh, I'm sorry. >> There we go.
013Uh, snow's gone, which is great. Uh, really helps with the construction environment. Now, we just need to dry up a little, but for the most part, the site's really nice. Uh, really sandy soil, so the water kind of runs off and it drains down pretty quickly for us, but there is some mucky spots as you first get there, but overall, it's a pretty good environment for building. Um, but as you can see, this is kind of going to give you the same shot every time I come in for these board updates. It kind of gives you a shot. You can start seeing the building come to life a little. Uh they are really working on uh finishing up unit B, the second floor B. They've actually started a little bit of the unit C up
014front there. Uh it'll keep growing and growing as we go, but very happy uh with their production this last two weeks. Um you'll see that as we go that uh more and more blocks are being uh being laid each day. So they're getting that pre-winter block count back up to where it was uh with the winter slowdown of having to heat the material, build structures around material when it got really cold out. uh with this type of weather, you'll start seeing a lot of progress go quickly. So, that's good. Uh what you're seeing here is this is the uh entryway into the media center. Uh so, right in front of you there will be the media center library. Uh and then you'll have the entryway on that and then further where it's covered with our
015decking in steel decking. So, you're starting to see the roof start to come together in that section. That's the office you see there in the background. Uh here's just another picture of uh you're looking this is the entryway looking into the office area. You'll see that you have uh they have the steel decking in above the office and then the what's right above you up in the upper leftand corner portion actually yeah upper left is the second floor uh um uh oh word gone but the second floor uh cast uh cast what is it cast concrete can't think of it right off top of my head um here's you see the uh the gymnasium they have the steel decking on the gymnasium you notice that decking kind of it looks almost like It's see-through in
016areas. That's actually for sound acoustics to help keep the noise level down in the gym. So, uh, that's good. They have the the decking on there. You'll start seeing them build the roof as we go. Um, second floor. This is looking across the, uh, as you come up to second floor. This is looking across the entry. Um, this will be kind of like the upper deck where the heart and everything is here. Some more classrooms on the second floor coming together. They'll put steel up on that uh eventually and start adding the decking there. Uh this is back at ground level. This is the back side of the building by the gym um area. I see electrical and plumbing. They are running electrical. They have put in some boxes and some of the plumbing in
017different areas of the building. Uh this is probably the side of the building that's really coming together the most. This is the front office area. There's a curved wall at the front office area. It's looking really nice. Uh that's kind of that's pretty much ready for the uh brick veneer going across it here. Once they get all the blocks laid, they'll come back with the the brick and put the bricks up. So, but it's looking really it's coming together really nicely. Um so, that's kind of the woodland. It's you're going to get the same for a couple weeks. So, there's still way in block doing some uh steel work. As we move over to Amberly Elementary, um today later today, we're going to talk about bid pack one. Uh well, Anastasia will kind of walk
018you through what Bidpack one includes. Uh but I also want to let you know we have the community walk scheduled for April 7th uh from 6:00 to 7. If you're able to be there, great. Um we will be bringing some of that community walk to you guys at the board meeting uh the following board meeting. I want to say April 12th. Could be wrong in that. So we got to check that. But um so that's kind of my update for for tonight. Any questions I can answer? Thanks Russ. >> Thank you. >> All right, those concludes our reports for today. Going to be in action. >> We'll move to comments and communications. >> Oh, >> sorry. >> You're on a dual roll tonight. I'm like a bad penny. Oh, wait. They don't make pennies anymore.
019Hold on. I'm uh I am presenting tonight on behalf of Port Education Association. We have our tradition going of sharing some positive stories from the district here. Um and these are from all different buildings from all different people. So, first we have Aaron Crouch submitting for Haver Hill. Their occupational therapist, Chelsea Horn, and the Haba Hill PTO surprised staff two weeks ago with the Dolly drink carton. Chelsea dressed as Dolly Parton and delivered beverages to the teachers and staff following their staff meeting. Um, from Julie Stevenson at Morsbridge, the kindergarters have been working so hard on learning their letters. Shout out to the amazing kindergarten teachers here at Morsbridge. It's so amazing to see our students grow into confident little readers every day. To celebrate all their ABC learning, they had a super fun ABC
020parade with homemade letter vests to show off everything that they've learned. Um, from Dennis Kosen at Central High, he wants to give a shout out to the Central High band directors um for their prefestestival band concert held last week. The Western Michigan University Wind Symphony performed the concert along with our high school bands. The WMU band was amazing and the CHS band and students loved it. Also from Dennis Kosen, the West Middle band and eighth grade orchestra students participated in the 11th annual lock-in on February 14th. The event is held at West Middle. Over 250 students attend the party, which included tons of food, a DJ, video games, open g uh open gym, and interactive games. It's so great to see our kids having fun and smiling together. From Dave Mandrich for all of Portage
021Public Schools, I guess. Um, Battle of the Books wrapped up another successful season. Adult volunteers, including many teachers, building principles, and parents, work together to create a fun, competitive event for our Portage students to express their joy for reading. Huge kudos for the community working together for the growth of reading, learning, and sportsmanship of our students. Also from Dave Mandrich for North Middle, the core skills class at North Middle School was able to take a field trip and community outing to build a bear thanks to their selling of popcorn on site and their fundraising efforts. Huge props to Kaylee Camp for getting it organized and set up. Another from Dave at North Middle, Amy Gley setting up NM uh North Middle gives Shop for a cause. It's a charity event that we've done at Portage
022Northern Middle School for multiple years. Amy Greley and Matt Swanson work with seventh and eighth grade art, teched, and fax students to create a plethora of goods, all for purchase. For entertainment, individuals are small ensembles of band, choir, and orchestra students perform all night. It's a wonderful event. Um, also at North Middle, wow, Dave Mandric is coming through. Corey Mcichael and her student council invited Superintendent Edwards to come speak to North Middle School students about Black History Month. Mr. Edwards gave a great presentation about Thuggo Marshall and the importance one person can make working for what is right. It was a wonderful presentation and it was lovely to see the students interacting with Superintendent Edwards. Um also at Northern High this time um Dr. Thorp is equipping the students at Northern High for an amazing
023presentation about Black History Month. This presentation of dance, song, and speeches about legacy was great to see, including future, former, and current Huskys all celebrating and showcasing their stories and experiences, which were then also presented to the students of North Middle School. Um, and it was a really cool show this year. The kids just like worked their butts off on this thing. It's really cool. Um, back to North Middle. Matt McCarthy does a great job coordinating and scheduling Northern High School tutors to teach at TU uh to tutor at Northern uh at North Middle. Woo. Say that five times fast. Um, getting high school students community service hours and also getting them to work with middle schoolers is a really positive exposure to help our students mature. Um, from Chris Frying at Northern High School,
024Cheryl McKenzie in the math department thoroughly and consistently decorates the first floor hallway to make it more inviting and welcoming to our students. She is frequently recruited to decorate other areas of the building and selflessly invests her time and effort into making the school feel warm and inviting. And just because I know it will embarrass her, she made a spreadsheet. She's a math teacher that will calculate how many Christmas light strings she needs based on the like the design that she puts into the spreadsheet. I like so cute. Um, last but not least, we have both for Central and Northern High, um, from Miss White Oak. Um, at Northern, students performed wonderfully at the District Coral Festival just this past I think it was just this past Saturday. At District Coral Festival, students are judged
025on their performance of two pieces and after they're judged at their site reading ability, which for those of you who are unfamiliar, it means they can pick up a piece of music blind and read it without help from a piano or from a teacher. And at Northern, the concert choir received 105 out of 20. Treble ensemble received 113 out of 120. Husky harmonizers received 110 out of 120. And the highest level group at Northern Song Leaders received 120 out of 120, the only perfect score for the entire festival. Miss White Oak also organized, created the schedule, and hosted this event here at Portage Central, and wants to give a shout out to the Portage Central choir because she feels they were robbed. they had a 119. It had been high school and high school, two
026perfect scores. So, she wanted to make sure that they got that shout out, too. Um, and I think that's all I have for you guys this evening. So, lots of good stuff happening. >> Thank you. >> Can you send that to uh Barb, please? >> I will for sure. Yeah. And I'm trying to get the link to that first um event mentioned to the sales at North Middle. I don't think that's happened yet. >> Well, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Are you up again or is this >> I don't know. You want to do my taxes? I think I'm done. >> Are there any comments from board trustees this evening? >> Hi everyone. >> Um I just want to highlight I was um we got invited to the one choice protecting futures assembly here this
027morning and I was able to come. um Eric Alberis invited us all and some of his staff and it was an amazing um presentation from a woman her name is Becky Savage. She's a nurse and a nurse educator and a mother of two well four sons. But her oldest two sons died of opioid um overdose um quite suddenly and shockingly. And because of that she started a foundation called the 525 Foundation. named after their hockey jersey jerseys. One was number 25 and one was five. Um, and it's her mission to educate students and it was super well done. I learned a lot because I know nothing about fake pills and real medicine and she had DEA slides to show students. She talked about, you know, how to how to get yourself out of a situation
028when you're out at a party and you want to leave and you want to save face and um just a lot of great information. And I just want to let people know there is a community event and resource expo this Wednesday night at 6:15 here at Port Central High School. And just spread the word because they will have vendors there. They're going to have Narcan there. they're going to show people how to use it. Um, it could be super informative and um, so anyway, just good education going on to keep our kids as safe as we can. >> Thanks, Mar. >> Oh, Randy, I'll just thank my colleagues for the great retreat this afternoon. And um, you know, sometimes those are mentally exhausting and for good reasons. We're discussing good stuff. So, thank you. >>
029Thanks, Bo. >> Anyone else? Just want to commend uh Northern High School for their uh Black History Month assembly and uh thank Mr. Edwards did a great job u presenting on the legacy of Martin Luther King. It was a great event. Mary Lou and I attended and thank you. Is that it? That's it. Okay, we'll go on to our consent agenda. We have two items. the February 23rd, 2026 regular business meeting and close session minutes and the um approving approving the June 2027 Ported Central High School student trip to Puerto Rico. Are there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented? Uh hearing none, the consent agenda is approved. And now we need to go all the way over to page 40 to uh assurance of district performance monitoring reporting and leadership skills. >> All
030right. Uh thank you, President Van Anworth and members of the Portis Public Schools Board of Education. Uh tonight want to just uh lift up and highlight some areas within uh monitoring report 1.2 to specifically related to uh these 21st century learning skills and the four of them critical thinking, creativity, communication as well as collaboration. Uh within this report, you'll also see we have some data related to some academic components uh more specifically around advanced placement and IB scores. The data for the AP scores uh and IB go back the last uh four school years. Um the AP courses involve students grades 9 through 12. Not so much 9 through 12 for IB. Uh but also in the uh chart on page 44, the top chart, you'll notice uh students who are earning the IB diploma
031versus this temp its attempted number. And so we have some very favorable scores uh overall in terms of I IB diploma as well as AP and I IB exams. The bottom of page 44 talks about the number of course offerings or electives that we offer at the secondary level particularly related to the arts, music, PE and then moving over into technology engineering, CTE, EFA which is education for the arts as well as CAMY. although those are opportunities that our students have primarily at the secondary level to work within those four C's. Moving over to page 45 in your report, um we even break down some extracurricular opportunities at the elementary level which includes uh after school clubs as well as some opportunities that will happen during the day like field trips to the ARZO and
032author visits and things of that nature. Uh what I really want to spotlight is this month is obviously March. March is reading month and I've been I've had the pleasure to be the guest reader in several classrooms so far this year and that is certainly a treat for me. Then moving over to the secondary level, um it's too many activities and clubs to list as well as over 30 plus athletic programs uh in our two comprehensive high schools. But we do survey our students each spring and we call it the student experience survey on page 46. It is not the entire survey there, but we did lift up several areas that kind of align to this particular standard. I'm sorry, this particular uh monitoring report. Uh we surveyed u 4,823 students last school year. Uh
033in terms of enjoying their electives, 4.2 22 on a fivepoint scale. Uh in terms of uh hey I know where to go if I need to get help 4.13 and all the way down to the bottom I have opportunities to be successful 4.27 and then we also incorporate project based learning project lead the way as other STEM activities. But there's one portion that's not in the report because it just happened a few weeks ago and I think it's one of the best examples that we have in our district related to this particular uh monitoring report and it's called the Kalazoo Unified uh club basketball club particularly um a few few weeks ago uh some of our students many of our students who don't have the physical or cognitive ability to compete on an athletic team
034have the opportunity to work with their peers and they played in a basketball game against students from Madawan and this was hosted here at Port Central High School. The entire school comes to the gymnasium and it's not about wins or losses or points but to see how our students showed the compassion and rallied around their classmates to celebrate them uh while they're on the basketball court. It gave our students with disabilities an opportunity to really be uplifted and show the uniqueness and the talents and skills that they have. Um and um while I was unable to make the event uh I don't believe there was anyone who attended that didn't say that this had to be one of the brightest moments in our school day if not our school year. So um again these reports
035are based on last year but given that's a recent event. I just think that's a great example of when we think about monitor report one two how all the students come and cheer for both schools both port essential and madawan to give our students an opportunity to shine. So that's how I wanted to conclude today's report and mantra report one two and I'll be happy to answer any questions from the board. Good report. >> Good report, Jenny. Thank you. Um, is there a motion, please, to approve the report on page 40? >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education accept monitoring report 1.2 ends as a reasonable interpretation and evidence of compliance with policy. >> Thank you, Mark. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mary Lou. >> All those in
036favor of approving monitoring report 1.2, please say I. >> I. I opposed the monetary report is approved and we'll now move to page 49 our required action item for our technology group there >> resolve to do performance >> performance evening board of education superintendent Edwards so this is for Michigan Department of Transportation is the permit approval performance resolution so read it for you because there's lots of funny words I recommend that the board of education approve the performance performance resolution required by the Michigan Department of Transportation as presented. So this is to do with our districtwide fiber project. And so in order to do certain pathways with the fiber, again, we're we're going underground with it, we have to get some MDOT approval, namely when we go underneath uh 94 to get over to angling.
037So I'm going to read a little bit more on that. And so, uh, required by MDOT requires the approval of the resolution that you have for the purposes of issuing rightaway permits and to authorize myself, Ryan Miller, uh, director of technology, and Steve Van Djk, who's our data center system specialist, to apply for the necessary permits to work within the trunk line rightways on behalf of Portage Public Schools. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. So there's no money involved. It's just >> unusual for you. >> Right. Exactly. Wait. Just queuing you up. >> So just to be clear, Ryan, for a second, I thought you were going to say that legally you had to read this thing. >> Um well, >> yeah. >> You didn't cover that in your retreat. >> Yeah.
038You have to reading of legal legal stuff. >> Correct. >> Okay. That's where the as presented in the motion. >> Yeah, I didn't do that for you. >> Excellent. >> Yeah, we need a motion to move this along quickly, please. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education approve the performance resolution as presented. >> Thanks, Bo. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. I don't think there's any discussion. All those in favor of approving the performance resolution, please say I. opposed. It's unanimous. The resolution is approved. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Making me read it. >> We have one action item tonight and that's the 2026 Northern High School trip to Japan. Is there a motion, please approve that trip? >> Uh, Mr. President, I move. We approve >> page
039four. >> Thank you. Board of Education approved the 2026 Northern High School student trip to Japan as presented. >> Thank you, Mar. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. The motion passes. The trip is on. We'll now move to page 53. Our first discussion item on earthwork and construction prep contracts. Great. We'll have Russ Gerber as an exchange of from Owen Kim. Good evening, Oregon. Superintendent Edwards. Uh we're here in Oregon public schools who uh recommended that we pass bid pack one. Let me hand it off to Anastasia kind of talk about what bid pack one in includes, but it is one of four bid packs to get Amberly Elementary uh built. So we're going to go over bid pack one know that is
040does fall within our budgetary our budget for the building which we'll be presenting in April. >> Thanks Russ. Good evening board. Um so tonight we're looking for approval or well looking uh >> for approval on the bid pack one for Amberly Elementary. So there's three bid categories for that one. There was demo demolition, earthwork and general trades. So within bid pack one we are looking to demo a small portion of the existing building to make room to build the new building. So, we would be demoing part of that and then also the laying the groundwork, the earthwork for the the new building to come. So, as Ross mentioned, there's going to be three other bid packs that I will be presenting to you guys in the upcoming months. So, the next one that you'll see
041would be the footings and foundation, and then the third one is going to be the structural steel, and then the last one will be the remaining portion of the construction. And the reason that we break those out is really to keep the project moving during design so that we can work with contractors to get material ordered, kind of just get get the ball rolling as soon as we can. So with regards to uh bid pack one, again the the three bid categories, demolition, earthwork, and general trades were the total award for that is 2,899,600. Any questions? >> I was just surprised at the at the difference between number one and number two at the excavating. >> Wow, >> that was huge. >> Yeah, there was there was quite a bit there. And when we went
042through again, we do postid interviews on each of the the contractors between our team uh Tower Pinkster, Hurley Stewart, there wasn't any concerns with with the number based on our budget. So sometimes just the way contractors look at things, what they, you know, decide to take a risk on just really depends there. And there, you know, I know that they were asking some questions last minute, so they could have just added a little bit more for those. >> Any other questions? Is the board comfortable moving this to action? >> Yes. Okay. We need a motion, please, to move it to action. Mr. President, I move that the board of education with the Amber work at construction prep contracts discussion item to action. >> Thank you, Emily. Is there a second? >> Thank you, Mary Lou.
043All those in favor of moving this item to action, please say I. >> I opposed. And now we need a motion to approve, please. >> Mr. President that the board of education approved the awarded contract totaling $2,899,600 for the Amberly Elementary Earthwork and Construction the following contractor as presented the funding for which will come from the 206 bond fund in a series from the 2021 vote. Specialized Demolition Incorporated for demolition work $23,000. Chris Fontaine Excavating Incorporated for earthwork 2,823,600 and Hazelhoff Builders Incorporated for general trades work $53,000. >> Thank you, Mary Loer. Second, please. >> Thank you, Mark. All those in favor of approving uh the bid package here for earthwork and construction prep, please say I. I opposed. Great. The motion passes. Thank you. >> Thank you. And our next item is a discussion
044item, installation of the generator at West Middle School. Yes. So, a few board meetings ago, you guys uh approved the purchase of the generator. And during that uh approval, we talked about how the actual installation would be coming forward. It is that time. So, this is the installation of the generator at the West Middle School site. pretty much it's the keep life safety operational, keep food service, coolers and freezers running. Uh, you know, it's kind of essential nowadays for a building to have a generator just to keep the business going as usual and not, you know, lose product in your freezers and coolers and then keep the building safe while the district figures out if we're going to continue school for the day or if we're going to get the kids home. Uh, so this
045would be the installation of the generator uh at West Middle School. A little earth work to get the site prepped. That's uh James E. Fulton and Suns for $47,800. And then the actual electrical work to install the generator and there's some lighting and stuff in there to get that up to speed would be Parkway Electric and Communications LLC for $423 $423,200. Um, if possible, I'd like to get this approved today as well so they can get some fixtures ordered as well as some of the components that have a little bit longer lead time. >> Any questions? Thanks to Susan for the money. Appreciate it. >> We need a motion, please, to bring this to uh action, please. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education move the generator discussion item to action. >>
046Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of moving the installation of generator purchase to action, please say I. >> I. Opposed. The motion passes. And now we need a motion to approve. Mr. President, I recommend that the board of education approve the award of contracts totaling $471,000 for the generator installation project at West Middle School to the following contractors as presented with funding to come from the lunch fund express fund balance and the 2019 building and sight syncing fund. James Eyee Fulton and Suns for Earthwork $47,800 and Parkway Electric Communications LLC for electrical work $423,200. >> Thank you. Marks or a second? Please. >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of installation of generator purchase, please say I. I. >> Opposed. Motion passes. Installation of
047the generator is on the way. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And our next discussion item, Brian and uh student Chromebook purchase. >> Evening again. So tonight, just recommending bringing forward our annual refresh for Chromebooks. So tonight we ask that you would approve the purchase of 1,198 student Chromebooks from InMP TSG in the amount of 249,900, excuse me, 249,9280 cents. The funds for the Chromebooks will come from the building site syncing fund. And so typically uh bring this to you every spring a little later usually than this. And uh if you remember Chromebooks have about a 5-year lifespan. They are required for state testing. Biggest limiting factor for us are the parts that we could find for replacement. We're sticking with that HP G series Chromebook that has kind of been the workhorse
048for the last 10 years for us. So we were happy to to find that again. Interestingly enough, uh this time we have enough licenses. So, we're realizing about a $30,000 savings there. $30,000 plus savings there. And on February 27th, we did receive an email statewide. All districts did through the REMC save director. And so, if you remember what REMC save bid is, it's companies bid on these devices. They bring forward a device. They win the bid that prevents districts from having to go out and do RFPs for these these devices that they purchase every year. We did get an email that did indicate that due to the massive global shortage of memory. So the memory sticks and processes or chips, things like that that go into student devices, so Chromebooks, laptops, computers, memory, as you'll
049see in the next recommendation I'm bringing, that we were to expect a 40 to 60% increase in price effective April 1st. And so we've moved, we kind of got our stuff together. And just a huge credit to Chris 2 and to Brandon Pulk and to Shane Ditter on our team to kind of circle the wagons and figure out which device quickly. Uh the one that you are two of our choices were already gone. They weren't anymore uh on US soil. And so we did find a vendor that still had a HPG series for us that was able to to get us enough and at a pretty good price this time around. So I did attach for you a quote and also email that we received from their MCAVE director in addition to a letter of
050intent that vendors are because there's such high demand uh they are asking for uh basically a guarantee which we really can't give them without board approval that we will purchase said Chromebooks. And so uh we did issue a letter of intent to say we intend to purchase those uh pending board approval. And so we'll do that if you if you see fit. Any questions on the books? >> No, just good work because our next board meeting is April 15. >> Correct. Yeah, there is that. Al, so on that note, appreciate it if you could approve it tonight so that we can we can then get these purchased and before they're sold out from underneath us. >> Yeah. >> Any questions for Ryan? Um, okay. It sounds like we ought to have a motion to bring
051us to action. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education move the Chromebook purchase discussion item to action. >> Thank you, Bo. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of moving this item to action, please say I. >> I opposed. Motion passes. It's now an action item. If we need a motion, please. U Mr. Mr. President, I move that the board of education approve the purchase of 1,198 student Chromebooks Chromebooks from Inorp TSG in the amount of $249,92.80 as presented. Funds for which will come from building and sight syncing fund. >> Thank you, Mark. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of the student Chromebook purchase, please say I. I opposed. Motion passes. The Chromebook purchase is approved. Our next discussion
052item is the purchase of data center storage array. >> So tonight I also bring forward the recommendation you approve the purchase of the data center storage array uh from 45 drives incorporated in the amount of 57 570,573.17. The funds for the storage array will come from the 2025 bond fund third series of the 2021 vote. And so what's a storage array? So basically it is combination of hard drives that is the core backup for all of our student and staff data, all of our archived data, including all of the the memory and things that we need to keep everything running. And so we have three main arrays through the district. We have two that live in the data center over at the administration building. This one is the hard drive array. There's also a flash
053drive array that will be due for replacement in 28 or 29. And then we do have a disaster recovery site if there were a fiber outage or breakage to the administration building. We have a backup over at Northern High School. So this is specifically for the main array that sits in the data data center there. And so the current storage array that we're talking about replacing was installed in 2021. This is another recommendation that we would have brought May June timeline to get that stored but as you can see in the notes this is also something that's very much impacted by the global shortage and memory and the prices are going up. So we've been advised not by just this company but by advised by all of our my deal vendors and REMC vendors as
054well uh that now is the time before that price continues to climb. We have seen a pretty steep uh climb already uh in this gear and so we we need to get this on the schedule. It should be replaced this summer. Uh 45 Drives is the sole proprietor for the the manufacturer, the vendor, everything for the drives that we use that was established back in the for you know through the RFP formal bid process back in 2021. And same thing, I provided the quote for you. And we also had to issue another letter of intent uh letting them know that we do intend to buy uh the drives if if we receive board. So, any questions? I don't think anybody has any questions. Your neck's out there. We better approve this. >> Okay. Is there
055a motion, please, to bring this to action? Mr. President, I move that the board of education move the data center storage array purchase discussion item to action. >> Thank you, Mark. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. And all those in favor of moving the purchase of data center storage array to action, please say I. I opposed. Motion passes. We now need a motion to approve. >> Mr. President, I I recommend that the board of education approve the purchase of the data center storage array from 45 Drives Incorporated in the amount of 573,000 I'm sorry 570,000573.17 as presented the funds for which will come from the 2025 bond fund in a series from the 2021. >> Thank you, Mary Lou. Is there a second? >> Second. Thank you, Kimberly. All those in favor
056of approving the purchase of data center storage array, please say I. >> Opposed? The motion passes. And uh with that, we've reached the end of our agenda. >> Thank you. And I just need the monitor report evaluation and board self assessments on both of our meetings today. Thank you. And we're here. I tangle them.