Health, Safety, and Facilities 5.9.23 Tuesday, May 9, 2023 6:00 PM

001oh get that the last time I was here good evening everyone uh this is a call to order for the health safety and Facilities commuting for a committee meeting for the Board of Education today is Tuesday May 9th the time now is 605 pm um and yes and so in attendance we have myself uh chair of the committee Christine Baptiste Perez and we have both committee members Albert binaham and David Glennon online and the first item that we have on the agenda is approval of the minutes from February 7th 2023. summer yeah buddy moving well I just have a profound on the minute right okay we have a motion to approve the minutes from February 7 2023 I'll second it are there any edits changes to the content I don't know all right all right

002we'll vote on it now all in favor of approving the minute to say I I any opposite any opposed any abstentions here and none the minutes pass the next item that we have on the agenda is the presentation on the HVAC Grant award so we have Mr Garcia here from our facilities um represent good evening everyone um we wanted to give a quick update uh we've been discussing all of the grants that we've been working on uh we had a pretty in-depth conversation last time at a last facilities committee so we we're happy to report that we finally have been granted a grant uh this is the state uh Department of administrative Services grant for indoor air quality the grant is in the sum of 982 125 uh the grant is for the children installation

003over at Tisdale School the chiller is currently installed we're putting in the drives this week we'll be firing up the chiller and uh but we're happy to see that that project has come to Florissant and that we've been granted this grant we've got some ideas on the direction we'd like to go in with these funds uh continuing to strengthen the the the work that Mike zirkle's been doing with um energy conservation uh we're looking at some technologies that we think can be game changer for the district in terms of savings uh battery Bank um opportunities that we're working through now we've started putting the numbers into the models to see what the payout is and if make sense for the district so we're glad to have some seed money finally to start to push the

004envelope and truly live on the bleeding edge of Technology when it comes to the efforts in uh energy conservation okay thank you I'll take any questions or comments from the committee members Mr is it Glenn jelen I've heard four different ways of science but our record is a gallon the jealous it's okay it's French great work that's almost in the million dollar Grant that doesn't have to come from the Board of Education and just for the public this is the first time we're getting this grant correct yes and the good thing is that there's another opportunity in August that we're going to be working on um so we're going to follow the same model that we use for this one a project that's already um uh going through its uh process now which is the

005vitala chiller so we feel confident that we'll we'll be able to to secure that Grant also that'll be around 1.2 million I believe that will be going after and then also so sorry I forgot to acknowledge that board member Joseph kalvik is here in attendance and he also has a question so I'm going to acknowledge it yes um this is to say this is the same Grant rounds that was open to all districts and I know a couple of districts got like eight eight million dollars a few more than us how many how many grants did we apply for uh we applied for this single this single Grant in this round and we'll be applying for batala um we've got so many different things going on at one time that it's tough to focus all

006of the attention on that one Grant we're also working on a doe Grant that's about 2.7 million and a host of others we've got a UI grant that we're working on um so we wanted to make sure that we submitted a grant that we felt confident that would get awarded because there's a lot of work that goes into the grants and right now it's just me and Michael uh on behalf absolutely so um this next round of Grants when does it expire uh I'm I'm sure the date but I can get that from the grand channels because if it would be feasible to maybe hire to get somebody temporarily to go after some of these additional grants if the only thing is the time consuming filling out these grants I think it'll be more profitable

007because see in a smaller districts are getting eight nine eight eight million dollars and we're only getting one if we could hire a temporary grant writer to just hit these grants it might be very beneficial for the district is that does that say feasible or am I missing something um this is so so the the Das Grant is kind of um it has a lot of requirements that go along with it so the state what was that um and it also had to be City funded um one of the issues with the with the DS Grant is that there are a lot of requirements so you know we're really working hard to turn around the systems in the district and until we have those systems dialed in to the point that Tisdale will be it's

008difficult because we have to have certain amount of cfms running through um you know ensuring air quality and other things so it's difficult right now because we're we're still working through um getting these systems up to you know top shape so that's why batala Falls right in line with this because batala will be just like Tisdale dialed in you know we spent you know we're going to be not only doing the chiller but we're also going to be doing the controls so once we do the controls now we can dial in all the way down to the classroom temperature so if I could um provide some additional information I'm sorry mrsley please go ahead so good I was going to actually ask for you uh for some input as well go ahead Miss Clark yes

009thank you I was just going to explain that this particular Grant was opened by the state uh they had a lot of restrictions so it's not that we're not looking for Grants or opportunities this particular Grant was a reimbursable grant they went back in time to some extent they needed the work to be 100 completed uh it just so happens that a lot of the other school districts that you would see a mass amount of money um being you know paid out to them they were completely finished with their projects and were able to submit all of the things that were needed in our case we were Midstream with one of our programs and that's why we'll be doing our application and the one that was funded for the amount that we um outlaid our

010monies that we could get reimbursed for that's why we received those monies so it's not that we're not looking for the opportunities we could only submit based on that particular program for a reimbursable costs that explains it a little better because that was a good question that we didn't have enough people but uh I'm still sure the grants office is pressed and not able to grab every single Grant that's effective and that's what it sounded like in the initial conversation but um there's no doubt on anybody's work ethic or what product this is just or capacity correct in this particular case it was really that we needed to have all of these completed projects for them to reimburse us I am not going to deny we certainly could use additional people to go after every

011single thing that's happening we are going after as much as we can but um as Mr Garcia indicated uh capacity so you work with a department and it's what can they lay their hands on and help way because the grants office we're the administrative subject matter expertise we need those departments uh to work with us and deliver information so we can help you know craft those applications for them and it's wonderful working with the facilities to you they're committed to to what they're doing as are all departments but it is a matter of you know capacity at the end of the day for their subject matter experts to give us information for this particular Grant it really was reimbursable and once the work was finished we could ask for that money back awesome and then

012on the next next round of uh grants is the same situation so yeah so we will have uh Battalion completely finished yes team uh we should be very close once uh we have to start doing the grant once we have to start providing the details for the grant we've already started getting the information together at the office and how far is the look back for completed projects so I believe they were going back to 2021 I can pull the information if you give me a couple of them but we would have finished Tisdale I believe in Mr Garcia you have to date just the Curiosity and to see um is there any possibility of double dipping on the grants like good reimbursed and reshifting other grants somewhere else on any other projects that were completed

013that's probably a morning question so for sure double dipping is not the right word here so it's reimbursable knock knock [Music] any formally reimbursed under another grant that can have those funds redistributed by covering it under the screens yes that was very bad verbiage thank you so we have made every effort to clear and put charges on um on funding availability on where they could so we could um submit for our reimbursement under this program without any issues having the backup information Etc thank you so much that's all we'd just like to thank grants for all their efforts we've been working diligently with then Joan and nadera have been tremendous to work with the good thing is that we've been working on so many different grants that we're starting to build a database so the

014kind of information that'll be useful moving forward and sort of cutting down the amount of time it takes to share information to start to lock these grants in so thank you guys you're welcome welcome okay any other questions or comments from the board committee okay uh well Kudos good work um I had the opportunity last month to tour the facilities um facility and um to meet the staff and all the hard work that's coming in and I think we've discussed this in finance is that once we know the magic to writing a particular Grant and being able to obtain it being able to obtain the next one should be a lot easier um so we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda which is Sr plan discussion possible action regarding how

015to move forward with the remainder Esser funds and the facilities master plan discussion and presentation on the roadmap for the district okay so um as we start to get closer to the to the end of Esser we've got to make some decisions the last administration had wanted us to explore the options of putting AC in Columbus school and at Cross School so we've completed the design work all of the engineering's complete we started working through the scheduling and budgets um the schedules for these projects does not align itself with the end of Esser both projects are long-term projects that really fall under construction and we feel that we need to look at this from a different lens the good thing is that now we have two shovel rating projects with all the designs in budget

016numbers a good understanding of what it's going to take but these are 12 to 24 month projects the other issue on top of that is that's the that's the construction time of the projects the lead time on chillers boilers right now are anywhere from 40 to 58 weeks just to get the product in and then we start construction so we just don't have the time frame to be able to execute these projects to meet the Esther Grant the good thing is that we had contingency plans if you know we couldn't do these projects so we had started working on what's next we feel strongly about the direction that we're going in and stabilizing the district uh you know it was a struggle for us to say okay we're going to put a new AC in

017a building and then we have schools that are struggling to have issues and we're having issues with ACS so what we like to do with the remaining 7.6 million dollars is moving the direction of um stabilizing the district further we feel that we need to make sure that we're on strong footing so when a fiscal cliff hits that we can continue to operate and utilize our maintenance staff to keep these systems going as opposed to what we're doing now which is a lot of repair and replacement so some of the activities that we would like to that we would like to to continue on and explore through Western is carry out we like to replace the air handling units and a chiller on a rooftop of carryout they've had struggles with their AC over the

018last couple of years um you know we've got engineering done on this project um uh well actually we have the we have the mechanical designs in we're reviewing once we review the mechanical designs and we feel comfortable with that we could put a bid set together we could get this stuff out the bid we can create a budget at that time along with a schedule we think that schedule should meet what we need to do we looked for products that don't have that absorbent lead time because it's a replacement versus new construction the scheduled time for us to get that done is reasonable and we can meet that within the Esther guidelines another project that we're looking at is uh the HVAC system and the Polaris JFK we've had humidity issues um you know we're

019changing out two heat pumps right now the pool has been down um we the heat pumps are right now we're working through finalizing that project and we're revamping that area understanding that we had to decommission black and spool because of the infrastructure and the tunnels there and this is the last pool that we have in the school district so we want to make sure that we Elevate the aesthetic of the pool yes Mike oh so I hear you mention um the JFK campus I know that they had temperature issues over there with hot and cold up and down one area too hot the other area so is that what you you're talking about now well right now we've we've sort of stabilized JFK we have some pockets of issues that we're dialing in now we

020have converted over the control system uh we've been working closely with the principals in both both schools um the good thing is the complaint calls are down uh we're able to start to focus in now because now we can actually control a good portion of that system in the building and that's the that's the goal for the district for us to have that ability to really dial in and work with the administrators at the school level to start to control those classrooms one last question I'm sorry um so how how does the connection to um six to six magnet impact what you're doing is that whole system connected because I thought that's what they told me they said you know you're connected to six to six and so when you do something at that Multicultural

021you know it affects them vice versa the buildings are linked but our control systems for our buildings and our individual classrooms are not real not linked to six to six we provide six to six hot water for heating and uh chilled water for air conditioning as more of a utility they control their own systems within their the six to six building so that work that work is ongoing but we're making tremendous gains there um we've taken a very hard look at JFK and we're really focusing in to make that that campus what it needs to be and this is a part of that work so right now we've uh we're working through the mechanical design should be done hopefully by the end of next week for that project uh there's a uh a portion in

022there for dehumidication uh because we have uh humidity issues in there uh we want to get control of that we don't want to rot out our all of our infrastructure like like what happened over at blackham so um that's a project that we have that we're working through now we're looking to replace 10 boilers at District y once again the big infrastructure piece is that we can't get our hands on that kind of money fast enough when there's a catastrophic issue so we want to focus now while we have the time on the off season start working through that um you know HVAC controls district-wide that's a con that's an effort that we want to continue so now you know for instance uh uh we we may have control to the main air handling units

023we like to take that further and get into the classrooms once again to be able to dial in those classrooms individually there's a savings and energy conservation efforts through that but also you know making sure that the the end user in those buildings is comfortable uh you know we haven't we had an issue audit scheme where we had a steam a steam leak and now we have to look at what we're doing with the flooring the flooring has gotten a bit a bit unstable uh we've been able to stabilize it for now but we're looking to Abate and uh remove the asbestos the asbestos style that currently is encapsulated so it's safe but you know long term we feel we need to make this uh modification to the building now before we have an issue

024so we're looking to Abate and retile the whole entire Corridor at skang for instance um you know then there's exterior door Replacements Marin JFK tightening up the envelope because we're losing a lot of cooling and heating in these buildings because the envelope is not tight and then we've done a renewal of the chillers uh one of the chillers out at Fairchild wheeler these are Monster chillers you know that that facility is huge and it's got a chilled beam system so it's very finicky so we want to make sure that we ensure that these chillers are running properly because we can lose bearings and other things and those items because of that being an exotic HVAC system are really hard to get our hands out so uh we want to do a renewal of the second

025Chiller the renewal is really stripping the entire chili putting all new components in it and then recertifying it so we get a five-year warranty um you know and then we have contingency plans if we have if there's still money left as we work through these projects some of those is continuing to remove asbestos and replacing floor tile um and then you know if there is additional funding at the end of all of that we can replace playgrounds as part of Esther also um you know with that fiscal cliff we we got to think of the main infrastructure the big pieces uh you know we can we can sort of work through smaller items with our maintenance staff but these items that we're looking to replace are critical to continue to move the district forward thank

026you uh open up the floor first to committee members Mr bennahan thank you madam chair um Mr Garcia thank you for the report and can you go back and so you want to tell me that Columbus school across how like as a wedding is going to be fits into the AC because I know announces the process I understand everything you said but yeah I'm worried about that too So currently there are no ACS in either school so they're they're we we literally have to do complete construction that means that we've got to get the children out of the school while we do construction we were trying to find a way to keep the population in the school just the time frame and the scheduling of all of this because we have to do so many

027penetrations in the building and the building's made of block both buildings that there's no feasible way for us to keep the children in the building so what we like to do here is we feel that this is something that we should go to the Das like we do for school construction and modifications to buildings and then at that point the city will have to fund a portion of the project you know it could be 40 it could be 20 funded by the city and then the state will pick up the rest but it gives us the ability to bring a construction manager in there's a lot of regulatory pieces that go into this project so it's a little bit out of scope for us so the good thing is that we have designs in um

028you know we can we can turn this over quickly you know but it's something that right now it's just not feasible for us fortunately no understanding much better to work um without no students no staff on the body inside the building because I know how they did yes the way they did the school the question when you said Ted boiler I had to be replacing how much it cost each boiler to be replacing the estimates right now with bonding is right around 190 190 000 a boiler um each boiler um that's with asbestos removal if needed bonds and and the boilers themselves and the installation but we're going with high efficiency can boilers so there's a reimbursement of about ten thousand dollars from the utility so we work closely with UI or we're doing these

029programs uh you know we've been doing the LED lighting upgrade we've been able to work with UI to give us the opportunity to put in those projects as comprehensive projects when we add Elements which is good because it gives us the reimbursement so we're looking at about a ten thousand dollar reimbursement per boiler Avenue about a hundred thousand dollars in savings at the city uh the board event will receive a check for each thank you no more questions Mr Jalen did I do that right again all right I just wanted to just ask a couple questions about the the boiler on the boiler determinable boilers you're replacing how was the function currently with the boilers is it like dead or does it need to be replaced does it have two years left a year left

030five years so all of the boilers that we're looking to replace are really on their last leg um you know some of these boilers 25 30 years old um we have one boiler that's currently tagged out at Columbus school so that'll be one of the first ones that get replaced um you know we want to ensure that there's redundancy in these buildings um you know for us we don't want to shut a school you know our team will work hard to make sure that we do not shut schools down and catastrophic failure um but you know we also understand that there needs to be that Capital outlay you know so you know with Esther it gives us the ability to give shock therapy to the district but you know the other piece of that is

031that you know we have to work closely with the city to make sure that they're funding the capital in a way that makes sense for us to sustain long term um the good thing is that I did meet with the um the city's um budget Appropriations Committee they called me in last second to discuss the capital stuff that we have submitted so you know I feel comfortable that they're gonna they're gonna do the right things um they asked a lot of good questions in terms of infrastructure in the buildings so I think uh folks are focused now on the needs of the district which is great um you know we we want to ensure that these boilers are operational because the biggest issue for us is that something goes down we just can't get these

032parts nowadays you know and uh the Vintage boilers that we currently have in some of the schools we have to have the the parts manufactured so it's even a longer lead time for us because we have some ancient boilers um no you will call sure sure does it be clear um so if the critic if the if the border is currently at a critical state is that mean to have to be changed immediately uh yes so most of the boilers that we're looking at just to swap out now are I mean it's tough to put how much time we have left but I mean there's not much life left we've exceeded the the useful life of them at this point so do you are there any schools that will potentially hit the critical Mark as

033you described in the next maybe two or three years that you're not um considering um changing at the moment I think we're comfortable with the 10 at this point I think that if if we're able to get through the whole entire list of 10 um you know that's that's when these Capital these Capital plans moving forward are critical and we'd have to fight to make sure that you know the city understands that this is not something that we're we're asking for this is a need so um you know the goal for us is that we'll start to build the documentation on every school we'll create a bile for all of the different components in the building that are now at their end of their useful life we've got a range when it comes to how

034old these buildings are um CSA is the oldest school in the district that's over 130 years old but and then we have Harding that's you know five six years old so we've got every textile every manufacturer in the Sun but our focus is on the older schools we're trying to close the Delta on those buildings that have agent the reason why I'm asking I was considering if you purchase additional boilers if possible just in case you can't get the funding in a couple years right so so the good thing is that um under question yep yep so the good thing is with Esser if you know we found some economies in the work that we're doing and we have additional funding uh KN uh the manufacturer that we're working with has committed to turnover boilers

035at a minimum to a month if needed so we can move quickly and if we see that you know we can continue to make gains and that there's additional needs then we'll continue to to push the envelope on that um the good thing is that I'm back two and a half years now year one was exploratory of understanding where the headaches are this off season for AC we started working on AC on control so we move into the season a little stronger than we were now that we're in the shoulder season we're sort of recalibrating as we move into the cooling season we start wholeheartedly working on repairs on heating so we're trying to stay one season ahead now so um we'll start to do more exploratory work once we start to get towards halfway

036through this list and if there's other opportunities to continue to add boilers we will and I noticed that you have a bullet for the asbestos is any health concerns at the moment we we've got a very tight loop on asbestos so we have a environmental person on staff so if there's any concerns we send them out immediately um you know we work closely with State uh the good thing is that we've we've we've kept a good Cadence on removal and replacement of tile um we're moving from a VCT Tile to lvt which doesn't need to be stripped and waxed another green element that we're adding trying to strengthen um the air indoor air quality in school but currently the only concern we have is that we want to get a get a head of scheme

037before it becomes an issue so that's why we feel strongly about doing this work this summer we've already um started drafting letters to the state that you know we're going to be undertaking this work we started getting all of the the documentation in place so we can hit the ground running uh early in the summer so the thing with asbestos is that we have very uh we have Tight Windows of opportunity because we have to do on the Zone in the building so you know for summer it's typically uh two weeks after school ends and then the programs start and at the end of the program and then three weeks before school starts and then every shutdown we typically take on smaller projects because we want to keep the ball moving and continue to to

038get asbestos out of our buildings so we're making tremendous gains after it's helped us tremendously to stabilize um but you know wherever we can continue to move the ball there we want to and we want to move to lvt because it brings down the the need for uh full-time employees and it's it's a greater technology and one last question um and to see this could be a huge undertaking you have enough staff or you're hiring contractors so uh the last two years year one we did 75 projects in this in the summer last year we did 125. so we realized that 125 is probably our ceiling and I'll never do that to my staff again they did a tremendous job of closing everything out and getting the work done and I tip my hat to

039them um this year we're moving into in a different direction we're bringing more outside Contracting and we're focusing in on doing all of our work orders so we want to clean out all the maintenance work orders um because we feel that we want to start the school year strong we want to have a good understanding we want to be able to run you guys monthly reports on exactly where we are when it comes to all of the maintenance work that's happening how many work orders open how many were closed um you know any areas of concern that we're seeing um tracking all that data we're automating all of that stuff so we can now print you a report every single month so you guys get a Cadence of what's going on um but we are

040Sure Staff um when I was here last we had 186 custodians currently we're budgeted at 160 due to the environment of trying to hire folks we're probably in the 140s um we interview sometimes five to ten people a week we're lucky if we find one we're not going to settle because we understand that we need to have folks that want to come to work and and do that work or working hard to create a good work environment for them through training certification um you know we get we've we've offered first aid OSHA 10 um you know we want to build a Workforce that if they decide to move on we want to support that because if we're breeding the best then we're doing a good job but we want to ensure that folks are happy

041about coming to work but we are short on the trade side we had 33 in the past we're down to about 19 and a half no uh 20 now um you know so it's a big undertaking Force we have good relationships with outside contractors thank God so if we have emergencies um you know we can call folks in the middle of the night and get folks on site um and and it shows in the fact that we've had some catastrophic failures and we were still able to open school I think we lost uh three days last year um due to issues we had one uh main water line that um that failed on us we had a boiler that went down and then the other one was on the fence we're doing a repair we

042probably could have probably could have got through it but you know we we uh hit on the side of caution thank you Mr bennahan commercial I'm going back home with some um golden say about the boiler and I'm very glad you're trying to fix that because I know sometime when they old and order the piece they forget it I can give it a sample Mr killing one sometime the elevator from Boston high school broke or something like that take months months to bring that little piece to fix it you know we got people we got teachers we got students they handicapped so you can imagine how difficult for them and they're much better to update like you say now all this boilers you know to have a new one I know they cost a lot

043of money but we don't want later wait months and months and sometimes they say yeah we're gonna have a lesson three months and then after three months they say oh I don't have it and then the school's still cold so you know it's much better to you know we appreciate that to have everything done before I mean you know the school start again type update and I know you always handed that the biggest issue is that we have a lot of original equipment so we've got buildings that are 60 70 years old working off of original equipment original infrastructure um so you know as as we we have opportunity we want to make sure that you know we're getting a good return on on that investment yeah any further questions Mrs kolovic uh yes a

044couple questions a couple of questions um we mentioned something about uh six to six which is a state school and we're providing two things for them are we getting reimbursed for that yes yeah so we send them bills uh twice twice a year so we get we're not in a position to afford any charity to other districts or programs for schools I just want to make sure that's clear on it on every issue it's going to be all encompassing Dean you're going to hear running throughout my conversations on every committee um okay now Fairchild wheel is Chillers is this refresh my memory the first time we went out for chile is it was was it because we had an insufficient amount of chillers or because the children one children went down uh one of the

045chillers went down so this is the second Chiller in the 10 years that the building's been opened is that uh unusual Ferry well well right now the the renewal that we're doing on this Chiller is purely based on us making sure that we don't have another failure so what this does is um it gives us another five-year warranty on that Chiller okay and our goal is to do it again five years from now so we don't have these issues because one of the things that we're we're really diligent on now is preventative maintenance you know we we need to ensure that we're doing everything we can to support this infrastructure because if we don't we're just going to have failure after failure so being that that system is what it is being chill B we

046want to ensure that we don't have to dig deep into this one because if we do we're talking Millions right yeah makes makes sense but is this concerning that a 10 year old building is needing this kind of um Investments yeah and once again you know we probably in hindsight we probably shouldn't have gone with children with something more traditional something off the shelf but you know they were looking for lead and we did get lead gold in the building I see yes speaking of the lead and the Innovative Technologies being used we've got one of those coming up being used in the basic facility are we going to run into some of those same problems I think we we were concerned so um at the new basic there's going to be a thermal Loop

047attached um at one point they discussed um pulling the three boilers out of the program well if there's one lesson we've learned is that we are not going to allow folks to toy with the original theory of design when it comes to the mechanical infrastructure the biggest issue is that when you start to run low on funds in the construction program you start to Value engineer things and it's easy to Value engineer infrastructure because no one sees it our Architects never going to change the undulation of a building but they'll downsize the chiller like we've done in the past so the reason why we're changing the chiller at Tisdale and Vitalis because they were undersized they were sized for 60 70 of the building they're starting to have more heat waves and and the need

048for for for longer stents of um cooling so what ends up happening is you're taxing these systems and we're just burning them out at a rate that you know is not sustainable so what we're doing now as we replace we're replacing with chillers that make sense for the size of the building so now we'll have better control that along with us investing in the controls themselves give us the ability to modulate the system better so now we're cycling things in a way where we have control and now we put that on a maintenance program and there's longevity and sustainability initial plan for the initial plan for Columbus cross is not feasible because I'm going to integrate two questions Columbus of course not feasible because of the time the students would have to be away and

049be empowered to do and also with the asbestos asbestos tight timeline yes can all of this be mitigated with having a swing space and that is because we're coming up on new construction and it might be feasible to try to keep a portion of the building and repair reforming space because currently we don't have a wrestling space um so yes a swing space is going to be important you know I would love to see the district and the city work together and we'll talk about that through the facilities master plan to reinvigorate a new new construction program um the construction program is coming to end with the completion of basic which will be 2025. um the investments will exceed one billion dollars so it was a successful program but there's a lot of work to

050be done you know we've got a lot of buildings that are at the point where they need to be either renovated is new or we need to move on and start to build new buildings um but programs like a program like AC for Columbus and cross those should be part of that program where we're going to the state and the Das and we're putting that um in front of the school building committee for management because there's so many moving parts for me and Mike to try to take that out with a consultant Consultants are great but you still have to spend a lot of time with a consultant so it really doesn't help when you have a team like School building committee and a cm and a superintendent on site that ensures efficiency and ensures

051that that the program is going to be run properly and it gives us a sense of um of surety that we're going to be in in good shape once the once the project is done awesome thank you nothing further um most of my questions were answered uh the only one remaining was aside from Columbus school what would be the two schools uh the remainder nine schools for the new boilers um I don't have the list with me I know we're doing Columbus uh CSA uh Discovery um Madison Madison we'll get you down yeah okay I don't know why I did it grab it I looked at it but I didn't grab it um and that was a the rest of the committee members and board members in attendance answered Dr Morgan do you have any

052comments okay I have one additional question Oh Mr Gellen I think you got it right there you go I don't know um just a follow-up with the children is the chiller completely a decimated is not working anymore just we need to replace or just the fact that it can't provide the necessary um cooling for the building size so the Tisdale trailer was down um we have two chillers at batala one is down um we're replacing that at Fairchild wheeler one of the chillers was down we did the Arnold thank God we were able to get that one up and going we have a new year five year warranty and then this second Chiller that we're doing we just want to ensure that we we had that five-year warranty in hand and that we're going to

053get a priority if something does happen uh any of the chillers so you're replacing chillers the one that is actually being removed can we uh are we selling it to maybe another location is that is not a good shape okay all right so they're selling the parts good reason yeah make sure if you could probably get some funds and we look at that angle we're big on reuse thank you Mr Garcia why Always Columbus school um before as a board member always have some issue that goes not too old they always have something new they have to do this they have to do that spend money why the reason they always have issue but I don't because that's supposed not to all like other ones what is the problem with that with that terrible design

054okay so um at school was the first school of the school building construction program I think everyone was still you know we we haven't had a school construction program before the outside of maybe one or two modification projects um and the size of that building their cabinets hallways and everything um the design of the original intent of the mechanical design was changed due to budget issues right so once again you've got to be able to fight that fight which we do now because the boilers in a thermal loop at basic we have those boilers in that program they wanted to pull those boilers out and we said there's no way you're taking them out we need redundancy and then in further investigation the amount of hot water that's going to be coming through the thermal

055Loop we don't feel is going to be sufficient anyway so we were able to keep those three boilers in the program if we didn't fight for that we'd be having the same problem or having a towel right now so now we understand that we have to make sure that we maintain that area design and batala you had an undersized Chillers they try to do eye storage which did not work and then the controls are not sufficient so we're we're working through all of that now to ensure that moving forward we have a better grip we have a maintenance plan and that things should start to stabilize we started making modifications to help the school so hopefully this summer as we work to do the chiller program The Chiller that's running doesn't give us an issue

056because we are running on one Chiller right now well we will be running out one Chevrolet because I know that school let's see first of all something that's called second floor is hot and then one room let's say this room is cold the next room it's hot so I'm like you know it's like how you said it the way they did it whatever put the pipe whatever is it's terrible it's and I feel bad for the staff and the teachers you know on the students suffering because this is bad well the one of the things that especially when the sun hit the window and you don't have no AC or something like that they don't have to cover that big window it's the worst so one of the things that happened was they they unified

057several schools under one head end which is a problem because if you start having issues on that one head end you have multiple schools that have issues and then when you're trying to dial out or you're trying to to gain access to another system we've had numbered issues so this is why that control work that we're doing is is vital to the whole entire program because now we have more control we've been working closely with it they're giving us virtual servers for each so now we have some redundancy we have Independence within those buildings so we feel that we're moving in the right direction and as we continue to dial these things in listen we're going to find problems right because there hasn't been a sustained investment in the school district when it comes to

058the facilities end for a long time it's hard for the school district to carry those costs because their Capital costs so we have to work closer with the city to make sure they're in the standards that we have so when we do get that Capital at that Capital outlay it's moving the ball so what we're doing is we're providing that stable foundation and moving forward hopefully we can start to work closely together to ensure that when there are things that are starting to come to the end of their life we're addressing those up front it's the same way we have in a home that something around the house the alarm go on and they go notify on the cell phone something's wrong one of the children attend in the middle of the night something like

059that and you know they send you did you have an app or something they let you know listen this school have this problem that they should you know off so you guys we prepared going in the morning to figure out what they can do so we're gonna have alarms set up um we're working right now we're doing seven chillers this summer um through part of the program through Esser and uh we're doing we're going to be um adding back net cards those back net cards will be tied into the control system and there'll be a series of alarms um from from uh you know small issues to larger issues what that backlit card with the technology does is it helps us focus in on exactly what the problem is because currently right now we have

060to go out and do an investigation as you can imagine when you're doing investigation when it comes to HVAC there's thousands of sensors in the building so it's very difficult sometimes to put your hands on exactly what the issue is so with the technology and the direction we're moving in now have a lot more understanding what's going on and we could be proactive as opposed to reactive and we could be a lot more efficient how we're deploying and there's also the opportunity for us to solve some of the problems in the office so Mike has been able to solve a lot of issues utilizing his uh desktop in office where in the past we'd have to send someone out it's a lot onto the computer on site hopefully we had connectivity there's no issues but

061now we're starting to do a lot more things remotely I wanted to fight you other one I'll notify the head custodian something's wrong uh notifies us and then we'll work with that custodian if he needs to come in and we deploy staff we deploy contractors depending on the gravity of the issue one more questions are there any other questions or comments from the board Dr Morgan okay uh so this agenda is uh discussion it's missing the and it should be and possible action regarding on how to move forward uh I will say Mr Garcia how comfortable are you with the backup plan so that includes the JFK campus the the boilers the Fairchild as being presented to the full board to go forward with at this time versus the cross and Columbus original plan um

062we feel comfortable with um working down this list and completing as many projects up into the 7.6 million and satisfying the grant requirements so we're hopeful to get through all of this but we will get as far down this list as we possibly can and then we will continue to work with the city or through grants to uh address and identify funding for the other items so that's why we're working closely with the Grants Department um you know for instance we're working on the department of energy Grant right now for 2.7 million dollars uh UConn is a partner with us and UI so they're they're working alongside the Grants Department um to to start to put that together but we see that the relationship with UConn is very important to us because we want to

063we want to draft The Five-Year energy plan and we also want to draft a five-year maintenance plan that makes sense for the district based around the infrastructure that we're replacing now um you know the theory that we have is creating smart schools so you know we're looking at the potential of four schools that we're going to tie in every sensor so now we have a granular view on what's going on a more focused view on what's happening in that facility down from the lighting to the heating to the cooling to the energy consumption so now we have an understanding if there's any gains that we can make so if modulating the chiller saves US money then we're going to work on getting that done if lighting if we can control the lighting when there's no

064occupants a little more succinctly and there's a savings there that's how we're going to be able to move the ball because it's tough for us to say we need more we need more in our budget we do but we also understand that there's a fiscal cliff coming so everything that we're doing is trying to set us up to have some sort of opportunity to keep fighting enough so at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve the uh possible action plan as presented so switched over to utilize our remaining 7.6 million dollars of Esser funds to the following operations curiel JFK 10 boiler Replacements the HVAC controls to continue district-wide this gain asbestos abatement exterior door replacement at marine and JFK and the Fairchild wheeler wheeler renew a chiller 2. five second there you move

065it move it it's been moved by Mr bennahan I'll second it is there any further discussions questions comments Mr skeleton just a quick question but moving to represent this to the football yes it's going to be presented to the oh yeah of course that that is always implied with committee level we don't make executive decisions decision of the nine uh so yes it would be presented to the full board for a complete approval so this would just pass the committee level any other questions or comments okay CNN will take the vote all in favor well I any oppositions any abstentions hearing none the motion passes it will be presented to the full board I would have to look on the calendar when that's going to be but no we're going to move forward with it

066to present to the full board thank you okay switch screens all right the next item on the agenda uh you know what that is a twofold item which may have been a a type typo error but facilities master plan um the presentation and the discussion presentation did we hit on that as far as like our future goals um no but I'd love to touch on this because I think this is going to be vital um with all of the work that we've done um and then moving forward having a plan so um the last time we had an update to the facilities master plan was 2013. I believe that the last time a facilities master plan was done was around 2008 so it is time um the facilities master plan that was done at that

067time was really the driver of the school construction program that we're completing now so it's time for us to start to Circle our wagons regroup get a better understanding of our condition of buildings um you know uh the the migration of students throughout the district you know our occupancy in in terms of uh the usage of these buildings it really gets a good clear picture of everything that's going on in the district a facilities master plan will work through every single Department in the district to give us a clear and concise roadmap as to the direction that we need to take with our facilities and a better understanding of where our pinch points and our RDX are um with that facilities master plan in the work where that we've done it really ties that all

068together because now we can see what our investments are and have a clear understanding of what we need to do next from a maintenance level from a school Construction level and then this helps us when we go to the city and we look for Capital funding because we have this data that really isn't black and white for everyone to digest and understand um several towns have started undergoing the facility master plan Greenwich started theirs in 2018 um or 2016. the price range they had three bids come in one was 240 000 one was 400 and change and then the highest was 615. Trumbull is undergoing it now I believe yes so they're undergoing a facilities master plan um and then you know the the most important pieces of a facilities master plan is not only

069do we internally understand what the needs are but we get to bring the community in to get an understanding of what they feel and what they're seeing in the building because one of the the conversations I love to have is with parents to get an understanding of what it is that they feel when they walk into a building because I feel that's a that's a very important aspect of what we do um you know for instance JFK uh the site had terrible terrible pavement so we've we've worked on that they were having issues with popping towel we've worked on that their HVAC system controlling that that was an issue um and there's a host of others but a lot of the the things that we have done at JFK um we've got that that feedback

070from the parents through meeting with them so this gives us the ability to formally add community outreach which I feel is important moving forward you know folks want to be part of uh the decisions that are made for your children um uh the ad specifications that'll be used for school construction can be developed and drafted through this um you know gives us the Democrat the demographics the enrollment projections the capacity and utilization study that is big for us we've added that conversation at facilities because um you know as we look at the district we have schools that are under enrolled we have schools that are tipping at the at the maximum enrollment so we need to understand that um the facilities need assessment and maintenance schedules to us that is gold because um you know

071all the Investments that we've made we want to make sure that we we capture all of that and build on that cost estimates and improvements um that's where when we sit down with the city we can have those facts and data for them to understand what we need at Capital and then the finance plan and investigation of potential funding sources so that helps us look at the future perspective of what the fed and the state will look to to to to um providing grants the opportunities we have through on reimbursement with the state with school construction and the work done through the pas um so there's there's a whole host of benefits to facilities master plan um funding is this is is the big key here because it's not a small ticket item but it's

072one of those things that the investment we will see a return on investment on this um you know what we've done now is we had a district that we weren't really getting the kind of capital the the kind of capital to make substantial gains we've given it we've given this the district shock therapy at this point but you know we need to formalize what we're doing now you know so as we start to finish Esser I feel it's a perfect time so we can start having bigger conversations and moving forward thank you I'll open up the floor to committee Members First um any questions or comments Mr I have a comment oh I just wanted to say um what I hear you saying is that you want to make sure that everything or whatever we

073have now works before you begin any other big projects that add to that for instance um the air conditioning across before you get to that you want to make sure that the boilers work right so that when the winter comes you don't want to be working on air conditioning across which is a long project when the boilers are falling apart right is that what I'm hearing we want to show everything up we've we've gone and done a lot of major work now we want to fall back into our fundamentals to make sure that the Investments we made now don't start to slip because that can happen easily would a district this size um you know once again the golden summer is to bring in outside resources that help with major projects and fall into a

074maintenance program so we're taking them out of uh work orders that we have in the system and really I want to get up to zero that's the goal um we've never been able to do that but that's the goal for this summer and then when we start the school year we have a lot better grip on what's going on moving forward the facilities master plan really memorializes everything that we've done and that Direction moving forward and it puts dollars to it because um you know folks need to understand that we're not talking small dollars here we're talking hundreds in millions and tens of millions of dollars and there's times where in some buildings you could spend 10 million dollars and you don't see it because the infrastructure is at the level where you need complete

075replacement and we're talking buildings that are you know uh 70 years old that are made of glazed block and asbestos so you start adding these things up you know we need a clear and concise picture and the work that we've done has stabilized us for now but we need to start to have that vision for the future um do you consider wet weather patterns the reason I'm asking that well here's the reason why I'm asking that um I was interning in Fairfield and there was a problem with the floors because we're coming in and they were falling all over the floors it just so happened that summer happened to be really hot and so the humidity because of the humidity and with the air conditionings and the humidity the floors were getting wet so I

076so I I remembered when the superintendent addressed you know the board to figure out a solution she actually looked at the weather patterns and I say that because we have a lot of flooding here and we've had a lot of rain you know uh this year so I don't know if you consider that at all or do a projection for you know a couple of months ahead sometimes so we're seeing that the summers are hotter we're having a lot more heat waves um it's really taxing our systems once again you know you say well you know what we're in New England 60 capacity is plenty and then we get into these heat waves that now we're taxing our systems um so yes we look we try we try to ensure that moving forward as we

077make a replacement we're taking it into consideration so we're not looking for taking a 60 capacity to 70. we want to get 100 capacity so now at least moving forward we have a better foundation in terms of uh our environment now the same issues that fearful that we have had in Bridgeport because um you know there's a lot of dehumidification in in in in air and cfms over here that are moving through these buildings and controlling that is very very important to the climate in the building so and for instance in Barnum waltersville we had issues where the floors wouldn't dry when we waxed them over the summer because there was so much humidity in the building we're going to eat we couldn't uh get the humidity out fast enough so I mean Mike we

078did a drawing board we started looking at the system and saying okay we need to go through this entire system from end to end from every Bell to every bearing to the energy Wheels to make sure that everything is done to ensure that we don't have this issue so once again the the fundamentals of it we ensure that that's right and then we start to do the repairs and dial things in but the reason why we're moving towards this model for this summer as opposed to the 125 projects is because now we want to dial into those maintenance issues and make sure that every belt is done things are greased you know the the filters are changed religiously anyway but that you know there's nothing that's missed and we're now reviewing and inspecting that stuff

079we're putting a lot of things on systems and computerizing the the department so like that now we have a better grip so instead of having my managers running around town to see things they could see things in the system through reporting and now we're deploying more efficiently and focusing on the issues a little more succinctly there's a lot of work going on in facilities right now and because we have such a small staff we have to bring systems in to help control um but what I can say is that we have a dedicated staff of folks that really believe in what they're doing here and thank God for that I'm blessed with the team man Dr Morgan no problem Mr bennahan thank you manager um Mr um Christina I know you said something of the

080work you do in the school is because you speak with the parents and parents tell you you know what's going on and you do basically and you do the same thing with the staff because you know sometimes the staff you know the inside want the room they're more in the classroom they know what's you know what's wrong they will inform you listen to Mr Garcia can you check this so one of the things that we that we do um and I was doing it daily with the teachers union is that we communicate every morning so if teachers had any issues they'd report into uh the chair of the facilities committee for the Bea and we would interact every morning as Jeff Moore said I believe he's the president now he's going to be the president

081um and for us that was Game Changer I walked into the district we had nine I believe grievances we're able to pull them in advance get those squared away and we haven't had any grievances I think we're going to get agreement soon on uh baby black them but uh you know we haven't had any grievances but the the reason behind that is because we were communicating so we're understanding what's going on at this at the classroom level it's tough for us to interact with every teacher um parents are easy because you get them in a group and you have the conversation we do meet with parents um if there's an issue in a building I want to be the one that talks to the teachers we've had Mass meetings at batala Tisdale BlackRock tell them

082a few um you know because we need to understand what the issues are what the end user our our whole entire operation is based on making sure that those folks come to work do their job not be distracted and educate children um and that takes a lot of communication question I know some because some school DeBary classroom is very high and some teachers they say I like to bring in an AC I like to bring this I like that and I told her listen you have to be careful because the school you know to school this old they're not gonna take that power so I just wanted you to let them know because I you know they ask that question so right now um a lot of this a lot of the schools in the

083district are maxed out power-wise um there's a couple projects that we're looking to to to do potentially this summer to bring in more more power uh we've got some Capital money to do that for beersley we've done that at blackham we've done that at host of other schools but remember these schools were built at a time where you didn't have all this technology so you're bringing all this technology you're bringing in you know uh everything under the sun that that needs to be powered so these buildings aren't wired for that so that's where the issue is every time that we get an ADA request to put in a AC because that's the only way we're putting them in we have to do the calculations check the amperage make sure that we can support that because

084in some instances we can't because we're maxed out there's parts of buildings that we can't add anything else and there's part of there's parts of buildings that we may have the opportunity to um but you know there's a lot of instances where if everything's running at one time Breakers are popping it's unfortunate but that's where we are in the district thank you no more comments any additional questions or comments Mrs kovic yes um first question uh Georgia 40 to 615 not opposed to it but I think it'll have to come from the operating budget but it's worth a conversation with Marlene um and maybe there's maybe uh you know we try to partner with the city on this somehow also I would like to look at maybe expand Maxwell Mr sapovics I would also like

085to probably look at expanding upon it um because as we all know we're going to have inadequate funding when this fiscal cliff comes and we as a district are going to I don't see a way around it last year was an election year for the governor we got a fifteen thousand dollar boost this year was an election year for the mayor and the city council and we're getting 2.5 million booths when we asked for 16 million so there's no doubt that next year and the year that the fiscal cliff hits that they're going to come to the rescue because those aren't electricity is Randy item so we're on our own with this deficit so we I I think we should probably utilize this process to look at closing in as many schools and consolidating as

086many services as we need to and keep as much of it out of the political Arena as possible because as you know before we got just read just recently we had a decision that might financially impact a hundred people might impact them and the room was full but talking about decisions that are going to defend impact thousands and thousands of students and thousands of families and and I think if we could utilize a firm like this to basically do a overall view of everything within our budget I mean because we're basically at the worst case scenario now there's nobody I don't see anybody right into our rescue and I don't see any body really taking up the mantle to actually come help us out so we need to have a clear plan to make these

087cuts and I think this might be the vehicle for that I mean a little bit they won't have they'll be independent of the lobbyists that the city council will be independent of all the phone calls we get when we say we want we need to make this cut on that cut is there any way to integrate more so much fun so through the facilities master plan there will be a set of recommendations for the district so some of that will be you know um decommissioning of schools based on um your conditions or the fact that you know the the migratory path of students has changed and now a school that once was at 80 occupied is now 30 occupied so all of those things will be captured in the facilities master plan so you'll be

088able to memorialize what we should be doing as a district based on facts and data and can we give that get them to give us recommendations for which would be the most cost effective closures to make that that will be part of facility master plan yeah thank you any further questions or comments okay the none that fully captures just checking just checking that fully captures agenda item number three uh we're gonna now move on to agenda item number four which is a buildings report for Hall and Edison school so what we've done is and the sad fact is that things haven't changed much in terms of condition um except for getting a little bit worse for all in Edison um we pulled the the car loan dial existing facilities conditions surveys that were done I

089believe in 2000 and it's at eight let's see so these studies pretty much capture everything that's going on in both facilities um I think both facilities are worth the tour to get a better understanding of exactly what's going on in them um it's tough to run a 21st century program in in the schools due to the layout of the buildings for instance Hall has three floors the only bathrooms in the building are on the bottom floor so students on the top floor have to Traverse all the way down to to use the facilities um their neither building is ADA Compliant um host of issues infrastructure as you can imagine at Hall at Hall school for instance we had a pipe collapse on the bottom floor due to wipes um and we had to literally dig

090a five foot trench in the hallway in the basement outside of the bathroom um when we did that repair if the the collapse was about four feet from where it was we wouldn't have been able to get to it we're gonna have to decommission the building at that time the collapse continued out into the driveway we had to dig a 20-foot pit to get to that one um so there's a host of issues there the infrastructure is definitely on its last leg um you know our position is that we don't really recommend the closure of schools but we give you guys the facts and data of uh what the buildings look like in terms of condition but these studies that were done back 15 years ago still rang true to the conditions today and I

091think that tells the story in terms of um where we are in those buildings the sites aren't big enough to do a construction program on the state has requirements for a certain amount of acreage um neither building falls within that if there was an investment made to either School the investment will have to be made purely by the City of Bridgeport um we're talking Investments of 20 plus million dollars at each building and those are conservative numbers um but you know we have to have a serious conversation of what's next the city is struggling with the fact that we have five to six buildings that are not ADA Compliant and the state is pushing back on releasing funding for school construction activities to do the Das um we had pushback when we did the Marin

092roof last summer there was some pushback with the Bassett project because we need a commitment to sort of uh have a plan for these buildings that are not ADA Compliant they are laws that govern that um so we have to get to a point where we're we're making decisions based on the facts of where we are um and these two buildings are not ADA Compliant so um and when we look at them they're we don't see a way that we can make them ADA Compliant because of the layout you know we've got to be able to get to all spaces and it's difficult because of the way that the buildings are laid out and we're maxed out powerwise so it's all the major major work infrastructure wise and we can spend millions and really not

093feel the benefit unfortunately we're willing to take any questions we thought that this would be more of a conversation because the studies are what they are and they're 15 years old yeah Mr bennahan thank you very much Garcia you bring this because I already talked about this last year and I know we had to update the schools because first of all is the safety of our kids in our staff especially with the parents and also on parents and some stuff like oh they're going to cross whole school oh they're going to cross Edison school bed they don't see how bad is the situation they don't see how danger is the situation and I really went to high school as a big as I am if I go have to take these steps upstairs I have

094to go side how can I go straight because the little step is like out for babies baby step especially if you say go to a bathroom I see the gym I feel about the principle look like she's in the closet her office the security the same thing you know I see one I feel when I walk to the door of the school and I heard that the the floor cracked I said I did I go to down to the basement so imagine every time they pass and I feel the the security trying to do the best the custodians try to do the best you know it's terrible but I want the parent to understand because you know more that uh us and we know that they need to be updated schools not update they need

095to be new ones you know and I don't want the parents and the students and the the community and the city say oh they want to go to school where are the children is going to go we know how to handle the situation that's what we have our insurance superintendent there now to handle that situation but they don't see how the safety the situation and I like to um invite them with you with the or the permission for them experiment all these people they like to see how the school look like they will be surprised because one thing they talk and the other thing is they don't see what's going on you know and I feel bad with the stats sometimes they stop going to school they say oh my God I feel bad there's

096something's falling from the from the ceiling oh I'm going straight to the basement or a twisting my leg you know what's up is is bad I seen that person and we need to update you know they need to do the best thing you know for our you know first for students and as you say we're gonna renovate and try to fit the school they're gonna cost nine thousand million dollars and then we're gonna waste it that million dollars when we can use it to do a new school or something big they can to school they can be together and trust me they will be much better for our kids because it's our kids but sometimes they don't see that they think all about the kids are going across the two score but I invite them

097one day with the permission you know the way to supposedly the policy in the protocol to walk to the school especially the city councils when they start saying oh they're gonna cross the schools all the cases going across the street they don't care about no we care that's why we're doing this because you know Mr Garcia you you're the professional like I said you're The Master about how is the schools as best as you know how to spend money this that the pipe I remember when it was um the temple was below oh the pipe is flow like crazy and it was a weekend and I know you just start running like it was a Saturday run to fix that problem they don't see that I see that I know one members see that they

098don't see that so why we have to spend more money more money not money thousands and thousands and thousand thousand dollars we can do something better so I hope like are you playing and you present and everything in the BR process that we need to they need to be closer to school and try to make something nice I know social protocol it's a policy will take time stuff like that but I need to have something concrete like I said this is what happened and invite whoever complain and say why are they closing the school let's walk to the school let's show you what is the problem because as I say we want the safety because we don't want later any parents any staff any um um students whatever you're not guess who because the safety

099of the school so I'm very glad you bring this and we talk about this this is that about the third time I bring this or at least Let's see we can't have something concrete we can figure out what we can do for these two School the more common question for them is Valencia thank you if I can one of the things that we do is you know we we believe in equity across the board so you know when we work at on things at Hall or Edison or any school we put in the same effort you know the problem is that you can do a ton of work and you really don't feel it and you don't see it we did a lot of pointing in that building we literally have put that building back

100together since I've been back because all of that brick has become a sponge and all of the all of most of the pointing on that building had to be redone we had lentils that were sagging that were being held by just the fortune the force of nature you know so these are items that you know can become a major liability it's a safety concern um you know we've stabilized things you know Safety First for us so whenever we see something we don't we we we we do what we have to do and we've we've stabilized the building but you know once again you know I always go back to that collapse pipe four feet we wouldn't have been able to get to it you know um and that's what we're dealing with on a daily

101basis you know we're just waiting for the next thing to to cause an issue then it's unfortunate because I know that the the staff and the students you know love the building and you have a dedicated staff there but you know we really have to think about where we are with our facilities we love the building in the building like you said Hospital in 1914. we love the building we love the history stuff like that but we have to think about the safety of the kids and the staff and everyone in the community that's the most important thing I remember when outside they're trying to fix the playground you know me and Mr Resto we want to see and you was there to bring to fix it how many thousand dollars to fix that I

102mean five thousand dollars the the the playground you know so you know it's surprising people they don't see that so I know they love the building we love her you know it's a history but I think we have to think about the safety of everyone any questions any from board members or committee members uh I just have I have a comment so for Hall School it states let me sit down the last date of major renovation was 1939 like around the world war unfortunately yes we've taken out more Capital through operating at all schools than probably any other school just because you know it constantly needs major work um and we do it and we find other ways to make things work but you know um there was no major Renovations or anything done at

103all because the program right you look at the program and the things that that students need now it's difficult to run a 21st century program in some of these buildings and those are the decisions that I think the facilities master plan will help hash out so we have the facts and data because it is a political thing and folks feel strongly about those neighborhood schools and I I get it you know my kids went to Beardsley school you know so that's an old building I feel strongly about it you know but we need the facts and data to support those conversations um so I think this facilities master plan really dovetails into this the Investments we made through Esser and the future plans and division for for what we need to do as a district

104um and you know I mean Edison is in the same Edison's in a bit better condition than all but you know it's it's another old building that you know really it struggles to provide a program that kids need and then you have a boys room I'm one Florida girls room on another floor at Edison school you know so they're just operational challenges at some point you know it's an equity issue I agree period I agree it is not right when I see those students walking through those hallways my heart sinks because I think if this will my child I would they wouldn't go there they wouldn't go there the building is crumbling let a hurricane something come just random hurricane come and you have a problem I agree with Mr bennahan sometimes you know you

105have to do what's right even when people don't want it done I can't believe that the teachers actually love the building it may like working there in that atmosphere but the building itself the facilities it's not it's not right it's not fair and it's it's not equitable I I do have a follow-up comment to that would it be cheaper to build a new school than to repair Hall and Edison or cheaper to build a new school and build than to repair each individual School absolutely um one of the main reasons is because it'd be difficult for the state to fund any kind of renovation to these schools just because it doesn't really match the profile that they look for for 21st century schools so you don't have the acreage to really build the kind of

106school that you need to build on either one of those sites because they're very tight sites um and then you're funding that at 100 because the state wouldn't give you any reimbursables you couldn't go through the the Das programs that are there for New School construction renovation and cold update so um yes building a new school will be cheaper because if you're let's say it's 20 million dollars you have to put into and that's a conservative number and to all um you're funding that at 100 if you build a 50 uh 50 or 60 million dollar facility you're paying eight 12 million dollars some money because the state is going to provide the rest um and then the other piece to that is that you know you have all of the infrastructure that goes along

107with building a school through the state right where you have your construction manager you have all those checks and balances you have the school building committee you don't have that you know we're going to be taking that project on we're going to use a consultant but that's a very heavy lift for a small facilities department and you know as as a taxpayer doesn't matter what city or town you look at it in your city yourself is this the right investment and I get it you know I mean people feel strongly about the schools but once again we we need to have a vision for the district that really looks at these things and if you look at the nation everyone's decommissioning buildings at this point it's just no one can sustain what we used to

108do I mean programs are different libraries are different education is different the needs are different but the building has remained the same since 1920. oh I'm sorry I got another question and so this is definitely before my time I think even in Bridgeport I've lived here about 10 years but what was done for the BlackRock school because it looked like it was the older facility with a new attachment Block rock school had an addition uh put on to the site the site is a bit bigger it spans from one block to the next block um and they had an addition put up um but once again that was another program that there wasn't enough money and we did a substandard job of construction and we're dealing with things now that won't bring before the board

109and the next facilities committee meeting with the HVAC system there um you know it's a vrf system we would have to put in that system or we had a choice and it's failing and you know there may be some litigation that we may have to we may have to engage it with what we're experiencing out there um but once again all building that's what a new one not a great idea uh but there was more Square there was more acreage on that site I figured it was for the public that could be a potential comeback as well for the Black Rock neighborhood they got to keep their school with an attachment to it so why in a different part of the city that may not be as affluent that the school has to close in

110its entirety so I think clarifying and also explaining that there may be failures in that building it may help the public at ease if this was a decision to go forward with the full board um then my next question then I'll open it back up to everybody it's just when were the last rounds and this is vague with rounds right but repairs that were done to each of these buildings using Esser funds um they've been ongoing um the Western minimal at those buildings actually we use a lot of capital because we did have capital for pointing we um had capital for pointing at both buildings um but through Esser it's minimal because uh we focused in on on major infrastructure and the infrastructure that we're trying to sort of get our hands on is the

111infrastructure that is controlled through a system and there's really nothing there really in those buildings I like all buildings to a certain extent because there's not much going on you flick the boiler on and off to control it as opposed to utilizing the computer and controls and that's what we have in those buildings there's really nothing there's no AC um they're really rudimentary when were the boilers last repeat uh replaced in those buildings since they're definitely over 100 years old um I believe the boilers at Hall there was a boiler done at Edison there was a boiler done at Hall um years ago through um a repair and replacement program that the state had to put out uh probably 10 15 years ago but they're still in decent working order Edison was done four five

112four or five years ago about five I guess I'm asking for like a recycling purpose is that if they're still at their useful life and if a decision uh for those facilities came to close whether we would be able to reuse them every building that we do commission we go through with a fine-tooth Coleman if there's any value we take it then I'll open it back up to the rest of the board members uh since this is very engaging I just wanted to say I think we need to look at it closely only because I think if parents were to go to other buildings where children go to school they would see you know how sometimes you take a you take a game um you take some kids to a game in another town and

113they look around and they see all of the equipment that the other town has and then they realize oh we don't have that right now those parents may not realize that there are there are places that are you know state of the art that kids are going to we need to just think about Equity that's all I want to say okay uh Mr bennahan and Mr Collins thank you mother Sherry one of the thing is that I want to um say is that the handicap you know it's terrible it's terrible as a mean of a person I'm a handicapped to a person to take that stairs you know sometimes I have to go be careful my general senior person or person or any guy you know it's bad it's bad that's one of the things

114you know like I say people's looking for money and we don't want to get to so much better to get updated to school because you know it's very bad about the handicap situation and I see the special new student how did you know that they don't have that service they don't have that space they don't have what they deserve you know it's it's because it's not the one they don't want to it's the situation about the building so it's very important that we have to see that you know thank you no more questions Mr scalda uh yes microphone what's the current capacity of both schools I mean the current enrollment versus Aroma versus capacities I'm not sure of the current enrollment yeah I I got 20 20s numbers I think probably a little bit like

115on the last report I don't mean to jump in but the it may be on our portal because we did the capacity versus enrollment in the dates of the last Renovations at the last facilities meeting um so we have I know we have that information or we were provided with it well the last one I got available I think is lower than this now but for just for this example just a expediency purposes I'll use these um in 2020 the numbers were 46 at 49 percent um 189 students in whole out of 385 and Edison 194 out of 415. so I was a little okay thank you um yeah so we're talking about 20 million for each School spending 20 million dollars those are estimates yeah yeah it does everything all all numbers are rough

116numbers 20 million per School for 184 students and 191 students so that's 40 million dollars now If Money Was No Object well let's pretend money is No Object why can't we do the work without the money um why can't why we I'm being facetious but it's a it's a it's a real question because people are going to come out and say when it's too late as they always do because we cannot create money we as a board cannot spend money we do not have let me repeat that for those listening online we as a board cannot spend money we do not have we need to um If people could come out and advocate for 40 more million dollars from the city to repair these two schools and to fix these two schools we would likely

117be able to do it that's 40 million dollars above and beyond what we got today because otherwise we'd have to take it from somewhere else in our district so people need to realize by the time you're sitting here telling us please don't close our school please don't close our school it's way too late it's way too late because the money is not there we cannot continue our services without paying for them I mean there's all there's only one two three three people four people in this entire room who are not receiving pay so we will we all be here if we weren't receiving a salary we gotta people got to feed their families they want to be paid for the work that they do and it would be illegal for us to even to go

118into a deficit or debt to pay people if we don't have the money so this is what we need to understand now these facilities just these two are focused on now but after the master plan and this rfps issued and people look at we're going to look at all these other schools that are very cost of course inefficient to keep open with their small population sizes and this is just a factor it's not a factor of the facility is being run that's a factor of fiscal neglect that we cannot pay to keep these schools open pay to keep up with this work but it's not it's fiscal neglect on behalf of State local and Federal and they need to step up if they don't want to close their schools because we talk about this budget

119is trying to build our tax base in the City of Bridgeport but guess what the biggest thing that'll drop the property values in the neighborhood is a school with plywood across these windows we will be shrinking our tax base in the city of Bridgewater if we do not invest in education thank you okay I just want to comment as to the question you asked because I was able to pull from the last facilities report thank you the love reports uh so Hall is at a 47 capacity with 184 students when it can hold up to 385 but given some of the comments I'm kind of glad it's not at 385 and Edison is at 44 so for low capacity 186 students when it can house 415. so I I believe from my memory we had

120about 14 buildings that were about under 50 percent Sophia um and you know there was definitely a thought process as to that um are there any additional questions or comments feel free thank you so I you mentioned a comment regarding um heat AC not being available at Hall um how many times did we had to early dismissal for children um and say 2022 or in the summer and any closing of schools I can't really I don't recall how many but you know many of the district schools don't have AC um you know that's about half yeah right around half of our buildings have AC that's another reason that we need to invigorate a a school construction program again because those Investments are vital as things change because they are changing um you know we need

121to account for those things to Selena's point the environment you know uh within these buildings is a concern and uh you know it's it's even tough to plug in fans in some instances because you're maxed out with power you know so it's difficult to provide any relief in some instances are we looking at the um are we doing like daily temperature checks of of the facility or on average separate requested thank you okay uh seeing that there are no more questions and comments uh regarding this item wait actually I do want to say one thing to the public for all the families uh who have students that attend Hall and Edison school you can feel free to contact us at the Board of Education with any questions or comments or any next items based off

122of the information that's been discussed here with that school and the conditions of the building so um don't say you weren't invited now in case the decision is made two years down the line um and so with that we're going to move on to the next item in the agenda which is discussion regarding a clear and consistent district-wide policy for facilities usage during all sporting events um so this came about and I believe it was hit in diversity equity and inclusion however um when we do have Sport and events at our facilities and rules are being made uh really who's making the rules for each usage as to which students can attend the event who cannot attend the event and from an equity perspective is that happening at all the events or is it just

123targeted at the basketball games and not the soccer or the football games and so as far as to what are the safety concerns pose and what are the communication efforts and based on the discussion here what I would like to do is maybe have something proposed to governance so we actually have a plan as to how our facilities are going to be used for student Sport and events I'm not sure who's the staff or of Lieutenant I mean Captain Greg is here online as to who discuss this particular agenda item but this really does come into play with some of the decisions at our school games at basic as well as oh I'm slipping the name nope not well hardened to but also the middle school no not later yeah uh but it's happened at

124our few of our high school and middle schools for basketball events and so there we go classical studies I was I was thinking CMA and I was like what does this stand for again okay there we go um so I'm not sure who is here to discuss this item but it is necessary that we actually have a clear and consistent plan district-wide instead of students at one high school they can invite their friends and go to a game and then the rules different I think from what we're here we need to have a district-wide plan as a how we run our facilities and that should also include our support and events to call of it Mr sakovic microphone will be the best one to lead off on this because um while the BPD will may

125be involved in security we drive the policy and as far as the Bridgeport Police Department interacting with our schools and securing our games and what have you we it should be a top-down approach with the superintendent and then and there's discussions and um the equity committees um Focus around superintendent parents and and those decisions made were basically most most from her with the exception of beginning when one school refused to play with us because they didn't feel safe for other kids but definitely I agree with the policy wise and I think Mrs Perry superintendent parents on the business did you leave thank you and so the reason why I mentioned Captain grack is from what I understand from various phone calls I received it was a police decision not a superintendent decision it was then

126eventually backed up by the superintendent and regardless of how it worked out is that how we work all our support and events at our facilities because that that is the true Equity concern absolutely uh while we wait for our superintendent parent messing up everybody's name today uh we can entertain a brief five-minute recess or we could just stay live and so Mr bennaher has moved for a brief five-minute recess is there a second it's been second all in favor aye we're going to move into a recess but it's not here to put us in recess so it's still going to record okay so we're gonna go break up into recess all right good evening we're going to resume the health safety and Facilities commuting the time now is 7 53. uh we had took a

127brief recess um at Agenda item number five which is discussion regarding a clear and consistent district-wide policy for the usage of facilities during all sporting events so this is a bit backtracked I'll just repeat um what I had summarized earlier uh regarding some of the issues that had occurred at the basketball games with some of our high school and middle school students uh middle schools um and and part I had explained the equity issue whether the way it's going to be run at facility our facilities will it be the same for all the buildings as well as across different events so if we're going to limit students at our basketball games will the same policy apply now for baseball and soccer events or soccer games as well as football games and so the idea is

128to pass something on to governance where we'll actually have a policy and have something uniform district-wide so then there's no will at heart and it's done this way and that basket gets done that way that way students as well as families know how Bridgeport School District functions when it comes to their sporting events so um we definitely need to work on creating a policy um in regards to equity about that I think one of the issues was I think I spoke about it previously was that there was a divisiveness amongst what was being done on each of the building levels because there was various athletic directors that were providing you know feedback as to what was happening and there was all these different policies that were happening that were being enforced at the school level

129however there was not a uniform policy across the district so um moving into school year 23 24 there is going to be one athletic director that is going to be overseeing all High School athletics for next year as far as Middle School sports we're still in contract with Caribe to do that but there are have already started conversations into what that's going to be to look like um at those um games across the board specifically at high school level we have to become clear on what that looks like and it really needs to be related to equity for students and looking at discipline so if discipline is the the major issue that was brought forward in regards to limiting who's allowed into games though the who the where and the why um in which you

130will be spelled out in that policy and it will be um done in conjunction with the athletic director um for um next school year as well as through the governance Council so that all voices can be heard so that is something that we've already started talking about um putting together on what that looks like for next year okay is there any questions or comments from the committee Mr Bennigan it's not a questionable Miss pairing if the students don't behave they were supposed to be and it's a Palestinian protocol and he needs to get consequence because really if they really we let it go into the past because they're students because oh they let them play because me the other students will do the same thing I know we want the students have fun in Middles

131in the school but if they don't follow the policy in protocol sorry there's a consequence it's like if I match her how much out of my house don't respect they're constantly so I'm okay whatever um processes had to be done yeah and in addition to the student athletes who are engaged but also student Spectators who are coming forward to watch the games if they are not behaving appropriately in school there has to be consequences for them as well um so it's a two-part yeah and yeah I agree with you especially farmers and um family members whoever come to see you know the family playing they have to understand we got a prior court and a policy if you don't follow that you have to be uh you know if people they don't see that it's

132people that like to come with a big issue or big drama and stuff like that but we have rules you know if you come boom you respect that and if it is fine I feel that everything is okay but if you don't you break that so sorry you know we want everybody to have fun let everybody come and enjoy but let's have everything you know professional and the way it's supposed to be more promise question Mr sokolvik yes um just the sake of clarity we still got some of the same misinformation floating around a community can you explain uh to the events leading up to and decision making process behind the cancellation of the Harding game and the classical studies games for sure so the Harding game that was as a result there was an

133issue that took place in January 2023 uh when a Harding played uh one of the New Haven High Schools um in New Haven at that time there was a big thank you I apologize that is correct so it was basket was playing a um game in New Haven where there was a huge altercation where students were involved in Spectators as well as parents so during that time um the each of the schools went through a restorative Circle to be able to talk about why this happened individually and then we brought both of the schools together in hopes that if they did meet up in the state championships that they would be at a point where they would be able to play constructively and according to the the regulations however what was engaged in it was

134a conversation that excluded District Personnel from Bridgeport Public Schools um and that conversation was held with District Personnel in New Haven who stated that at the time if the schools did meet in that Championship um it was going to be a closed game this was never presented to our community um in Bridgeport Public Schools so when it was found out about this one of the first things that I said was well we're not going to have a closed game if anything that we can increase security measures for our students however at that point the New Haven District was said no we don't want our children to play in that game this is the agreement that we made even though it was not done in conjunction with District Personnel here in Bridgeport so at that time

135I made the decision that I was canceling the game because I was not going to exclude our parents or our community members for something we had never weighed in and never shared the information so that was that situation and with the classical studies um situation that happened um there was a game that was played it was not a Bridgeport Public School sponsored event um we are classical studies as well as Curry out girls played during the holiday break in December um during that game there was another altercation between two students between each of the schools parents were involved arrests were made at that game as well again we follow a very similar process that we had with the basket New Haven situation where they were restorative circles um where we brought the schools together trying

136to create an environment so that way if they met in the championship that it would be um you know productive you know we were going to be moving forward with that game we had a range for additional referees and so forth but the problem came in when there was lots of information that came from parents about creating a very unsafe environment for the students who will be playing during those games um and it became very clear that if we allow this to happen and there was any perception of some type of misdoing it would become an extremely unsafe environment for the students and staff there so it was I determined that I was canceling that game as well and a follow-up question um to your knowledge has the police department ever restricted people from attending

137games on their own without direction from the district not that I'm aware of thank you okay I have a question because Hardin High School did come up and it was a separate in I don't want to say incident but I believe the event uh I know Miss Brown attended uh I don't want to say it was homecoming uh but there was an event at Hardin High School uh students it was oh I don't know the senior event I'm sorry that might be a New York it was soon I was about to say it is a New York Gap in knowledge because we didn't have sports team in my high school so I'm like it's something with the basketball players and their seniors so it's their senior night and from the allegations of her now Fraser

138allegations is that students were turned away and so we had students that may not have necessarily had family show up but friends show up and they were denied access to the building and the actual procedure and notification that you couldn't go was never communicated until it was at the door and from and again this was just from my vague memory of what I was told occurred it was one of those really cold nights so we had students in the dark being turned away access from the building for an event and whether the district had actually gave or not in this District or even the building so from Principal grandmother there's actual Communications that you can't attend um and again that's not necessarily a sporting event but it is a facility event at a particular building

139and again if basic all our high school is going to have their senior night so if it's done one way at basic and Central or BMA and then Hardin wants to do their own thing it's again another issue where there's a special event missile Miss uh no comment from the public I'm talking uh I have the floor um and so it's another situation where our students or their friends may be showing up to support each other and a very much of in a community sense um and they're being denied access and there's also just an outside safety concern because to the extent that parents are like oh you're going to the high school for the senior event great and then they're being turned away in the middle of the night in the cold like I

140mean it's Communications like that even from the building level for student safety because to a certain extent these facilities these sporting events these events and games are our students safe place it is probably one of the few places where uh they can go to a game they're with their friends and they're not out in the streets um and then the counter argument is that we're turning them away so we're forcing I mean whether it's to that extreme but we're forcing them away from their safe space um so I I did want to bring up the hard senior night so you know I sh that will share with me very similar to it we shared with you um so um what I am aware that specific those specific recommendations as far as students who are being

141turned away that was not something that I was necessarily involved in but I do hear you when you're speaking about it because it does create a problem as far as Equity amongst high schools and then notification to these students um so that is something that is going to be part of the policies that we're working on because to me that all falls under the umbrella of sporting events because the communication pieces is very important and if these students are eligible to go on for because of whatever that took place they need to be made aware of that ahead of time so um one of the things that I was thinking about um as I was a brainstorming um earlier in the year when that came up was you know if there is a list of

142infractions that took place during the day that causes a safety hazard because to me that would be the biggest thing a safety hazard not if you're skipping class or you shouldn't be doing it not something like that but something that would really cause a safety hazard that that you know you might have access to some into individuals that you had physical interactions with during the day then there would be like a list that would be generated that would be presented those students will be you know notified as well as their parents and then there will be a list that will be available at you know the entrances so that people will be aware um and it would be a cut-off date so it couldn't happen like the same day unless it was a true emergency

143but have to be a cut-off date beforehand so there would be enough time to be able to communicate that because that's an issue as well thank you for clarifying that um is so I I get the point with the cutoff date I think that's a really good idea and then we would just verify it with like this the student IDs that's okay from each school and hope and hopefully they will have them by then because most of them have them that was an issue this year too that everybody didn't have student IDs which became an issue uh is that is that building wide district-wise students losing them or and this is a gap in my knowledge and I don't mind admitting it to the public but what and I can only compare it to my

144high school experience which probably wasn't that great but walking into the building show your ID go through the metal detector go to class is there a similar process where show your ID and if you don't have your student ID then what no because usually most students unless they're returning they don't they don't necessarily have an ID for that school so IDs are issued once students engage in the photography day so that usually happens in October november-ish once everybody gets photographed for that then the IDS are printed so if they were a student who was previously there they should have their their ID um but if they don't then they would not have access to that so thinking about the equity piece there too it would have to be you know they give a name hopefully

145we have a name for them and it would be a list for that you know once the IDS are issue we can make sure of that but again our population is so transient so if you go from basic to Harding and you now become that student more than likely and if that's after their picture day you probably are not going to have the ID that says you're a Harding student it may say you're a basic student um so there has to be some clarity around curing that as well because most of the times when I walk to high schools I don't see children with them um children in elementary school have them as well usually they don't carry them either the only mandate really is for staff at this time wait but so if that's

146hypothetically I I'm a student at Hardin I've graduated but security remembers me it's the first year last year oh they recognize my face I could just kind of walk in if it depends on if it's open to just students so if you are guests they don't necessarily say well who are you here to see or you know are you a student at the school you know if a guest just shows a better game they're a destination about a game but if there's a list of specific students you're going to need some type of identification to be able to say okay and cross-reference this student committed this infraction they're not there but right now we don't have any existing policy around showing an ID as you enter again whether that be for a student or anyone

147else that's interesting um I guess in my head I can like trying to paint a bunch of loopholes all around it but um I I'll open up the floor to the other board members for their comments or questions Mr bennahan thank you very much um Godfrey question now do you say a lot of things I just brought it when um when a police officer is in the game why as Anonymous on Joel soccer he say something why sometimes they push their parents away why they think that they control the game they control the school and they control everything you know we have the experience and we have the um parents call us and you know they call us right away and I say I know the police officer is there and you know about the

148safety situation but why sometimes they push parents over and say no you cannot come in I'm the one this I I'm the the I'm the law because I know they happen they're recording say I'm the I don't care I'm the Lord this is my way and I'm like why why they say I think like that when in good communication respect maybe they understand but if they come lap because the law they think they can control the whole thing the whole again the con controlled everyone so what I will say to that is because I can't speak for the police in that no I understand well what I I can say is they they are there to make sure that it's a safe environment so I can make assumptions which I don't necessarily want to do

149but if you're engaging in a way that maybe causes safety risk that that is a responsibility to address those things to make sure there's a safe environment but I'm not going to say that you know they're in charge of it because they're not in charge of the game they're in charge to make sure that everybody is safe and as long as everyone is safe then they're just they're as Spectators like everybody else well they cannot not only parents I just they cannot push away students they cannot they can't just send a child away so say for instance you're a student at Harding High School and you show up for a game and there is not a reason a safety concern there is no reason for you to be turned away okay and when it all

150in security and it's now the police officer is in the building they bought the kitchen pigeon of the city so there are for sros specifically sros are assigned to these schools so there's a total of four for the entire District that are assigned and there is a um budget that comes from part of our operating budget that helps support that as well but some of that is Grant funded at some of that is City funded but there are four just give us um let's see what happened at Ambassador High School um Caribe they um they pay then the air the police are all all the uh boardgation so for Caribbean specifically what part of Caribe when they heard would I write really they have the game let's see basketball and basketball something like that so

151though that comes out of our budget for for all of sports because there's always a uh SRO who was there at sporting events so that comes from that what we do when it comes down to assigning them we work in collaboration with Caribe to determine whether there's going to be an officer there um all day part of the day if there's been an incident previously we will make a determination of how often that they're going to be there because it's not one that's necessarily a sign for each and every game at each and every site because of the costs okay and the mother question when you got police office and you got security the why the reason you got both other security or you need extra so my question is do you have a security

152I know they're trying to do be sure that everybody same thing while we have a police officer when it's a game so it depends on what the level of safety at high schools we usually engage in having um some SRO presence there just due to the age of the students um and some safety concerns around that piece now at the elementary games usually I see somebody will come in but they're usually not there unless there's been an issue so for instance this year with Caribe during the first weeks of the game there was an SRO that was going to each and every site then we started pulling back on that Caribe did want them to be there more than than not there um so what we did was we had one police officer who was

153there and going to each and every site to check in to see if there were any concerns um this this sport sporting season was definitely more active in the City of Bridgeport um and as well as across the state as far as different physical altercations and stuff so the Press business was there I think and the other thing is that when you're talking we're talking about the ID um like this webjet system you know with currency you know strange that are not ideal if you don't have ID you cannot get in let's see another student let's see my son graduate from Boston high school three or four years but I want to see the game I think you don't have an ID from school so he cannot come in we don't have a policy like

154okay about IDs yeah we don't have anything that says right now if you're gonna come in you got to show our ID right we don't have that they cannot stop to go see the game they cannot stop and go to see no there's nothing that's going to stop them right now we don't have an existing policy that says that if you don't have an ID you cannot enter the game okay this is something that high school principals you know have been asking about but again one of the issues that came up was was when we issue IDs so we can't just say that we're going to stop people from entering games because they don't have that type of identification um so you know those are conversations that we are engaged in but if everybody else

155can come in from the community and they don't have to share their ideas five students the community members do not show their ID staff members have shown their ID a lot of times they have them on um when they come in so that a lot of times they avoid the paying and the fee of that nature but it's not mandated to do that because sometimes just because the last time they have one of the students performed something investing in high school it was like 10 students that they want to come to see the game and the security of the police officers did not let him come in and I was there and not saying oh now coming I said no they had to go I said they're going to pay no they're not gonna pay

156they cannot come they're not come in I had to get in I said I will pay them I will respond over them they will perform something investing High School why they kind of come to see the game and I stayed for them so they pushed the almost a 10K to one by Aztec away and I said why they have to be acting like that and then the reason that's why sometimes students I think with attitude because not because they have their police officer security you have to respect them I always say you want to receive respect you had your own you had to own the respect it doesn't matter how cool you are what kind of title what position where you come from you want to respect respect I cover that for the students thanks

157to the coach Patrick he helped me he said don't worry about it and I will stay there until they leave so they cannot be responsible for the kids and the kids was acting good but that situation that I did and everything I hope you can yeah the fun thing in work because you know if I have family or friend they're going to see the game let's say my kids work out different medicine high school they want to continue because the IDS are I'm worried I'd get concerned about that yeah the ideas I know one thing that they were asking for is to have an adult to be present with the student that I do know that but I don't know anything about you utilizing of an ID to say you're a basic student you can

158come into a bathroom yeah but that's another thing that you say Outdoors sometimes parents are working and they say I want to see my friend working on by playing the game all my cousin or my brother my sister whatever you know I cannot come in because I don't come with adult so you know that we had to work you know find out how to work much better you know and how to work with the security in in the school to deal number question number coming Madam chair thank you yes thank you again thank you again for you know um ad hoc jumping in answering questions I really do appreciate that I just wanted to take a deeper dive into the ID um I'm fully I fully understand the relation between the ID and the sporting

159event so why it was brought up um what was the Practical use of an of the ID if is not done at enrollment or if a student changes um schools so really with the idea in this many years ago was there was there were the the photographing students took place because they wanted to make sure that there was a recent photo of a student if there was a case of an emergency so that's where that came about so there was the printing of the little uh photographs that go on the Queue cards which are still paper um here in the City of Bridgeport and then they use those to create IDs so students will have it it's a way of sense of identity truly for each and every student to have one um but there

160hasn't been no policy around how those really can be utilized at the elementary or High School levels okay that's something that we will look into in the near future to optimize the use of the IDS or so we have to talk about what that's going to look like because again each and every school chooses when they engage in the the photographing process so we talked about ad enrollment so for an eighth grade student who's going to a high school that will look different for a student who's already coming in later and because they're it's so transient we have to talk about what really would be the most beneficial use of those IDs aside from having something in the case of an emergency um and it we do have to talk about that as far as

161what that looks like across the district because it is variance thank you and I'm very happy to hear you have a athletic director that sees the entire District I think you know I'm centralizing the um that approach would you know re-benefits for the entire districts I think right because I I since I've been here there's definitely been shifts and changes there used to be a athletic director and then it changed and there was no longer an athletic director and then there were directors at each individual site and it's just everybody kind of wants to do their own thing um and there's no continuity which is problematic so that's one of the ideas behind centralizing and creating systematic approaches died Mr skalvik yes okay by the store all roads again are going to lead to money

162can just come out of my mouth well we did have an after athletic director 2018 athletic director was cut I think I may have the wrong year 16 17 that's one of the first Cuts one of the first directors to go was the athletic director we may find a few dollars right now to have that after that worked up but facing the fiscal cliff and the budget come Cuts coming that got maybe on the chopping block again not the way I have it set up not the way that yeah but they see that see that's the thing after after I Look to director at 130 000 or whatever the salary may be when it comes down time to make 16 million dollars in Cuts in an athletic direct is balanced against maybe uh director of

163student services I'll just make one up I know which one was in Jeopardy before and the last lines that I had is actually advocate for it to stay so if it's coming down to an athletic or directive versus an academic director if the board would settle on keeping that athletic director over the academic director I'd be very surprised and very disappointed I mean Athletics does have its place but we got to take care of the academics first and foremost as a district so it is the best they say the best laid plans I mean there's no disrespect to that but in reality this whole is encompasses anything I mean I'm not objecting to having it right now but but I just want to bring some clarity to that I understand exactly where you're coming from

164when you talk about academics versus Athletics um specifically because you know when we think about you know our mission and our goal is to provide you know an academic environment for our Scholars and Athletics is part of that but when it comes down to the level of importance when it comes down to decisions we have to make when it comes down to physical responsibilities we do have to do that but the way that we're looking at the use of athletic director now it is not just the only umbrella in which this person will be serving so there is an academic umbrella as well so it is a shared role so that's what I want you to understand so would it be somebody who would necessarily be cut because of the Dual rule that they're playing

165yeah you would think the same thing a kindergarten parent professionals but they were gone and everything like yeah but yeah okay I'll get back I do want to just make a quick comment on that that it is the holistic experience of our students that motivates them to come to school I remember touching on this and teaching and learning although I don't personally agree with it but I understand that it is real that sometimes it is the Athletics alone that keeps some of our children pushing into the school and so something consistent that's going we can have the hypothetical role you made up but if we don't have a solid sports program some students will not attend and so it is catering to the whole student academic environment you know it will help keep some students

166in school it will help keep some students from getting into trouble it will help build some students discipline that they may not have at home so I don't want to have that conversation now of if we had to cut a Macintosh Apple versus a Fiji Apple at this time because at the end of the day it's still part of it's an apple and it's part of the experience of the education environment um I I just want to Pivot back to just something really quick that was a student I had other questions I was going to get back to so let me just finish my thought process um yeah you kind of cut me off on that but you can go ahead and finish your comments all right now as far as the sros and the

167funding um when did we start picking up that tab again for some of it I can't answer all that remember this was something I was not prepared to speak on so I cannot answer that question for you now and when Caribe holds a game are they not paying their portion of the facility use fee so career Bay's agreement that was signed under previous administration um talks about unlimited use of facilities free of charge so whatever the agreement made previously if there's supposed to be an encumbered under that so it is not something where they will be paying a facility fee for each and every use of the building and that is part of their Loa that was signed previously do we know when that expires it expires at the end of next school year so

168June 2024. security I believe that's all thank you any other questions or comments all right I'll see him so um I think this is just thank you Supreme uh in terms of the intended parent for on the Fly jumping in and clarifying that point I I do think it's going to be a round of discussions oh now I remember but this wasn't what I was going to say uh Mr Bennett the hypothetical with the ID like maybe it's for community members too because if we have grown adults fighting and Mr Smith was the one that was in the altercation and got arrested at the high school game Mr Smith shouldn't be coming into the building um and if Mr Smith's an adult driving he should have his driver's license on him at all times um

169so oh wait there's actually another level two there's multiple levels to it actually why some people may not have ID that I just thought of so we're not going to get go down that rabbit hole right now uh but I do want to thank you for coming in this will take further discussion and I hope that we can develop a plan that can be implemented so we have something clear and consistent for our students uh we're now going to move on to item number six which is presentation of health related grants the district is applying for that can be used for students physical and mental health including the samhsa grants so this item came up from a regular board meeting from a parent in the public um at asking what outside of our Esser funds

170outside grants that we're going to use so we can continue to support students with their social emotional needs in the district and so present um hello good evening everyone uh so this was a wide-ranging request when I saw it I certainly did not attend that prior board meeting so I didn't have the context so I actually have a lot of information in terms of our um you know current grants I can start with just giving some information on the things that we do have pending um we do have coming up to the state the primary mental health grant program that's for maximum twenty thousand dollars which is to focus on the implementation of general education school-based early detention and intervention programs this is for kindergarten and through grades three that's going to be due at

171the end of June we do have and maybe this was the one that was mentioned during the board meeting this is true samsha it's the project aware program um Miss Batiste Perez do you recall if that was the name of it I know it would stand so so if that's found and I've been destroying names all tonight so uh that sounds about right okay so um project aware and aware is in caps that is um for advancing wellness and resiliency in education program uh that's up to 1.8 per year for four years uh that last cycle closed recently it is on our radar for the next cycle which is in 2024 I have to mention that we have applied several times for project aware and this is going to sound a little broken recordish um

172we did not get the funding even though we had really competitive programs and we were putting for really you know strong applications uh when we looked at the traditional funding streams of that particular program they seem to be giving mainly to um state boards of education for them to either you know dwindle down to maybe uh districts if they um needed to I have seen some districts receive Awards they were going with really heavily you know combined programs with Community Based or even reaching out at the state level um that was not what was in our prior applications we certainly again do have it on the radar and you know would work to you know partner um if it does take having you know a larger stake at the state sites just get this money

173into us but it's not something that was previous funded there is also another Samsung item that's on our radar which is grants for expansion and sustainability of the comprehensive Community Health Services for children with serious emotional disturbance that's actually at the same level it's for 1.8 per year for up to five years that cycle is coming up again in 2024 um these things I'm you know they really need to be done thoughtfully um it's very easy to assume that just put in application and we'll receive it but when we um look at where their funding streams have been uh they have focused on mainly community health centers also at the state level creating really big programs we would have to be working really hard making sure we're partnering with the right organizations taking time to

174you know have those really meaningful and intentional conversations about what we're looking forward to doing in the district and getting these programs in something that we recently um did provide a letter of support and that's what I thought was the question about when I originally received this um it's actually through hersa which is another you know um health related Federal program hersa stands for Health Resources and services Administration and that program was called the health center program for school-based service expansion we provided a letter of support for Southwest their application went to what's the end of April so we're waiting to hear back what that partnership could look like they were focusing on providing expanded support at the school-based health centers for black m cesa Battalion Reed and Roosevelt so we did partner with them

175um last cycle as well they were not successful so we're hoping fingers crossed that that can turn into something as we move ahead uh other than that we do have you know all of the other various Esser grants we have homeless um grants I guess it just depends on on the question is when you're asking about um health related if you're looking for just all our SEL related items that certainly uh still includes some of those items particularly under ARP Esser we have the um the Student Success program we have the social workers that are being funded of course we're you know getting additional grants on something that just came up is that Primary Health that's going to be that actually came out yesterday from the state so there's always something coming up but we

176are looking at both you know the federal and the state level and even for private funding which is something we have for our SEL initiative um to just you know continue to provide those services to the students thank you Miss Clark I think um this is twofold from the request from the regular board meeting but also just to let the public and the community know that our Grants Department is working um I know we're lean and mean yes uh but also that there are certain um grants that we're looking towards we're trying to stay up and I guess the best way to phrases be reflective in case we don't receive a particular Grant what we can do instead of just repeating um the I mentioned with Mr Garcia earlier is like once you figure out

177how to get the grant or write it in a particular way you kind of know the magic to it and so it like you mentioned it's not just like you apply and you get it but what we need to do to actually um put in the requirements to be competitive and receive it in terms of the samsa grants um are there because you said 2024 uh the application the next time it'll be available are there any thoughts and process now with reaching out to the State Board of Education um I'm sorry go ahead no no oh yes no certainly like I said it's really making sure as I was mentioning at the beginning of the meeting when I was jumping in I'm not asked but I apologize for that but really finding you know the

178subject matter expertise of course our nursing department um we have our school guidance counselors um so we have to find our right taught Partners to have these discussions about what the potential grants are and then figuring out who in the community are a community-based organizations and then at the state level um more than a couple of years ago we had um a federal state tie-in Samsung Grand that was the safe schools healthy students grant that you know really spun out really great relationships at the state level and you know throughout the district working with a lot of other thought Partners around the state uh so we do have those type of connections but it's really finding a great program getting those subject matter experts to give us the information so we could put together those

179applications and being thoughtful um you know a lot of these grants will tell you cancer plan so you have social workers that are being paid in one Grant and if you get both of them at the same time you end up with a really big issue because you only have so many resources so we can't you know run a grand concurrently and expect that we'd be able to implement it as successfully as anybody would be thinking which is why we didn't push so hard we're trying to you know pursue a Samsung Grant right now a lot of the social workers our Student Success group you know there are in our Essa grants which aren't you know tying off till next year so it's it's being strategic and paying attention to all of the things all

180the pokers that we have in the fire to make sure that we're going to be able to successfully you know Implement our programs and and spend all the money once we get it in an effective way because reporting is 100 guaranteed with every grant that we get especially if it's at the federal level the state level we have to be able to effectively show that we're spending the money in the timeline that we have agreed to thank you I'll open the floor up to committee members thank you um it's a question I know you stated that um well project aware you were denied um did you get do you get maybe feedback um from um the um the grants um things that you were missing and can you share some of the things that were

181required to maybe get you the approval so yes so we apply for project aware in 2014 we took the notes that were provided uh turn that around I felt that we provided a stronger application in 2015 and we were denied again and so at that point you start to think okay so we made all the changes they suggested we went in with you know what we felt were updates and then we were still denied and then again as we're looking at the trend where they're focusing more at state boards you know you start to feel okay maybe that was their focus in this particular space do we give them a rest and we come back after a certain point in time so at the federal level yes you certainly get you know review notes and

182you can make your efforts and change but again it's up to that person or that team doing that review uh to give us even more notes or actually to send us to the goal posts which you know sometimes happens and sometimes does not okay thank you do you know if um Connecticut state board the State Board of Connecticut applied for this particular grant for project aware when I was looking at the list over the last two or three Cycles I didn't notice their name um but I would have to reach out to one of my contacts just to see if it's something they just decided to pass on again I I don't have any knowledge right this moment thank you um also I don't also mentioned um creating strong Partnerships with organizations um what are

183some type of organizations you're looking to create partnership with if it is not already solidified and how are you looking what are some strategies you have to you know grow the partnership so under the health Banner you're referring to or just in general for the district in general for the district so I mean it's very wide where really for me I say we're one of the biggest organizations that have so many different things going on there could be a strand one day for SEL there could be a strand for buying the curtains behind you there's always something going on so people in the community they're you know private donors there's things at the federal level there's you know private grants it just depends so it's if we find that there is an organization that you

184know provides a particular service or is willing to donate then it's you know sort of cultivating that relationship it just depends on what's on the list which is always everything's on the list uh we can't do everything we really are a very lean small team um but we do try our hardest once we get leads or we're figured out there is a connection between something reaching out and doing all that we can thank you um and last question what is the what does the trend look like uh with the grant approval say like dating back five years for the past five years are you see more Grant approvals approvals in this District or less and where do you see maybe the opportunities are so that's some questions because a lot of funding we have uh

185received in the extreme millions of dollars have been due to covet uh so you know from 2020 on we would have seen a huge explosion so to try to use that as a trend is really difficult because I'd be giving you really you know explosive information that wouldn't last to you know five years from now so and inflated numbers yes extremely inflated numbers you know just our ARP Esser was a hundred million we got the largest award from you know everybody in Connecticut as um a school district so and every day I'm not even you know being facetious there is a new Grant popping up in the State uh egms system and almost all of them are tagged our ambassador so um my inference is that there is a lot of money that hasn't been

186distributed that the state's still making you know um additional you know decisions on the background and as they make those final decisions they're releasing those grants and then they're telling you okay by the way this has our best of money so this is now the new deadline this is a program I I know we're in a different committee but I would have mentioned um the sbbt program that's something we were getting for several years that's the support for um pregnant and parenting teens program uh that was sort of off the radar off the federal radar because that's Federal money the state applied for it and it came to us with our best and money and so now here's a new cycle so it just really is kind of ongoing with new things or bringing back

187old things that there wasn't funding that just dried up and now it's available again so we're we're really in a great what I like to call the boom season um because we're really able to help you know fund and create different programmings that we weren't you know able to continue over the last couple of years um but that's going to start transitioning off um at what is now listed as the end of Esso which is at the end of um in 2024 but there are lots of things happening as we're going along so we just have to see if there's other things coming up thank you yes Mrs caldick microphone um question are we applying for every single Grant possible that we can receive I would like to tell you yes that is humanly possible

188with the hours that my staff and I work uh are we leaving things on the table I would be lying if I said no I mean there's only so much that we could do um if we don't decide to pursue something it's because we're working on a major grant that is requiring all the efforts um you know so or we're looking at a different way to do something um Mr Garcia mentioned to you about that EPA Grant we actually had that on our radar and started working on it as a district submission uh we figured out it was better as a collaborative with UConn with their name on it maybe a stronger potential that they would get it as a higher education entity which is also something that works against uh us sometimes a community-based

189organization sometimes they could be better qualified in the federal or state or private entity eyes to fund a particular item on us getting in on a tag is better and we can get you know a subcontract to you know Implement services on our end uh we are trying there is a lot going on but you know could we do more with more staff and and more time 100 absolutely I reiterate when I ask these kinds of questions there's no knock on the step I know you're working 100 200 percent above capacity actually and these questions are to draw out the fact that we are indeed underfunded and we as a board we know this but the community out there does not know this so just to reiterate our lack of funding is preventing us from

190chasing additional funding it was kind of stuck in a vicious cycle Mr bennahan do you have any questions or comments another question thank you um thank you so much Miss Clark I I did leave it opened it um again it was just kind of a community overview um and we appreciate all the work that you and the staff do to try and get us as much money as possible when everyone else is kind of turning their backs on us so with that said thank you um thank you I don't think I need you for the next item regarding the school resource officers I hope not so I'm going to sign off good night everyone thank you so very much have a good evening now we're going to move over to the seventh item on the

191agenda um one second okay we're gonna move on to the seventh item on the agenda which is presentation on the school resource officer scope of work uh this item was suggested to me from Committee Member Albert bennahan so if you want to give context you can feel free to do so Mr bennahan but if not then we'll let Captain grec um go forward thank you correct good evening uh Captain Greg to Lincoln Park congratulations both for you you know to be a captain you know for the city appreciate that um say you know I got some concern about security I believe you received what I want to hear or have some questions but I will give it to the floor you can start what would you like me to well first of all I'd like

192to yeah of course I can ask it uh of course there's no problem first of all the training of your security guards how far is this you know how many times the the security guard trainings you know how long are they taking the whole the whole year or only the 10 months uh when the school is over though I don't want to stay old Justin and Lieutenant can you just make sure you turn the mic in front of you put it right in the middle yeah there you go okay thank you okay so what we try and do is when the school's not in session we try and get them training uh we just did a training session you want to explain the training session because we just did yes we did um so during

193the April school break um we set up a few different things we had classes um that was anywhere from de-escalation um crime prevention um I want to say suicide prevention we talked about human trafficking um try to go off the top of my head here and that's one thing I don't have listed today um mental well-being mental health and well-being jrb came in we did emergency procedures with Tehran from EOC um parents didn't make it um so pretty much our days were basically full so whenever there's no school we try and do training they get CPI certified they have uh it's every three years but we try to do it every year so this way they're proficient in it so if there's a lawsuit and when we go and defend it we can say the

194course is certifications every 36 months we do it every 12 months so we have a Proficiency in it they have a guard card which all the guards have to get it themselves I believe every three or five years they have to get recertified uh doing it we try and do a lot of report writing because what we've known or what we found out over the years is every time we get sued as a district the first thing they want is the reform so we want to make sure the profession in report writing and then you know part of our sop any guide security officer that goes Hands-On with anybody they have to write a report we have to review the report we have to make sure everything is above board and it's done correctly we

195do a lot of de-escalation because you know we want to de-escalate situations before they rise and red flags so something's going on in the school uh so the guy's done a beautiful job two weeks ago a young lady left Central uh she walked in the back um they thought it was a little suspicious long story short the cow was following her tried to get the guy gets out the car tries to pull her into the car she's on the phone she calls 9-1-1 we end up finding the car we arrest the guy it wasn't the first time he tried to do this so we try and Encompass all that training because at the end of the day I've always said this about the children it's about the kids it's about safety you know we've had

196school shootings there's 180 school shootings in the last 10 years 180 it's it's high we have Sandy Hook not far from us you know unfortunately you know the inner city of Bridgeport is a great City but we do have violence we have a lot of shootings so we want to prevent that and knock on wood we've done a really good job uh over the past 10 years you know that we keep everyone safe so that's our primary responsibility all the high schools security officers do a phenomenal job you know doing that due diligence in the morning and again you know we do different approaches I don't can't explain everything on public session but we've got layers of approaches that we could take um this is open to committee and board members um I had allowed

197Mr binhan to start first because he had referred this to committee but anyone with questions you can feel free to raise your hand I have more questions but I just want to know my name he has a lot of questions so this may be your opportunity okay CNN and I was just trying to refer to Mr Gallon if he had any first all right I got a couple of questions well first the comments every time I hear a police department or a police officer mentioned Sandy Hook in the City of Bridgeport we'd offered a demographic those type of things don't really happen in inner cities they're mostly in the suburbs and I always like to emphasize that because any change it makes to Security in a city where that demographic doesn't really fit it's not

198going to work we need to concentrate on our demographic and our issues which mass shootings are in one of them okay that's that's the first that's just a comment and second when was the last time we uh had a memorandum of agreement between Bridgeport Public Schools and I'm not sure because I don't remember doing one I know there's one in place so it's got to be at least eight or nine years and I would like ideas yeah and I and I I like to say um how do you guys decide you guys don't just walk into a school and start patrolling the hallway correct you've got to be invited in for the most part well no so when we first took over the schools we had over 400 arrests now we're down to I don't

199know so far this year how many do we have 12. wow so we're about not arresting kids what about keeping kids in school it's about having a safe Zone that's what we do okay and so our relationship with the board of education has been phenomenal because we're all on the same page it's about keeping the kids safe and keeping them strong uh so unlike a lot of other districts our philosophers are different we do a lot of uh referrals out you know we make sure the kids are safe and it is a city and we do have gang or group issues within here we've had some arrests that you know and I can't get into pacifics but they were very very serious arrests from so I've asked students very serious arrests um but you know

200what we do is you know and it's pretty sad because we built a great program uh when we first started we had 14 sros and school police combined we're down to three three so we have three sros for the whole District that's what we have so we they do a really good job of when the call for services when a principal calls or the Teacher Calls we try and get those free officers to respond to the sergeant response so this way because we know the protocols you know we've changed our policies in the police department where you're not just making an arrest on a child that there's a protocol in place where you have to do the mediations you have to do the referrals you got to do everything and that's our last resort and

201that's why we've been very effective yeah and that's why that's why I'm touching upon the memorandum of agreement because I believe a lot of I've heard very good things about yourself and as far as um going around using a rest as a last resort I want to know how I'm trying to figure out how much of that is codified because there's not always going to be a captain correct there's not always going to be a lieutenant parks and it's not always going to be a police chief that keeps the same philosophies I mean we've got certainly excuse in certain cities that may default to arrest first and that's something we need to I think needs to be codified in a memorandum of agreement like when just to be sure that there's an understanding that things

202continue the way you've been doing them to make sure it rests are minimized right and you know we would invite it to Washington DC many years ago to discuss how we prefer the arrest that we didn't make the arrest and what I can tell you were Chief Porter he's got a five-year contract he is a hundred percent with the program that we don't make arrests that's the last last result you know uh Trisha obviously I got promoted uh Trisha came in she wasn't at SRO you know she is a sergeant and I'm helping her out overseer so we have a transition of knowledge and programs you know we're not going to leave it where someone leaves and no one's trained up Trisha has five years left uh I only have two so you know I'm

203there obviously as a blanket you know and you know what I think the reason it works is we care right and we've shown that we care and the stuff that we do is for the kids and we we stay out the politics of it and you know at the end of the day it's all about the children it's about what's best for the children you know if you say you're down to how many three three now now obviously you can't respond to every incident with an SRO how does the the city standard standard police officer responder so the city cops responds the weather principal calls and there's no sros available then Sergeant Parks will respond to make sure it's handled properly and if that means we have to intervene that's win to be the good

204thing is also is I oversee they should Patrol so all the officers on they should Patrol I'm in charge of so they know My Philosophy is on children you know we're not putting them into the system it does no good right so it's about helping and finding out how we can resolve this so we've done a good job so far and I'm hoping and I know this I can speak for the chief when we get more manpower then obviously we're not adding more sros because that's our most vulnerable thing is the uh the students the children and what's the difference in the training between a standard police officer and SRO is that something you could go to in public it's a philosophist it's a philosophist it's the interactions with the DCF workers a mental health

205crisis workers and it's a relationships they build right so the building the relationships with the principles the vice principles the social workers and the students so you know we try to make that interaction very friendly we try to you know we've had great successes where students have come forward and spoke you know unfortunately there is a lot of stuff that goes on right a lot of bad stuff that goes on and I think the relationship has been really really uh founded and listen we're not perfect I'll tell you right now we're not perfect but you know I think we're in the right frame the program works and we've shown that with the the figures and our results thank you any okay good evening I'm not sure if you're able to go into this uh details

206but you see it was top arrests over the Cs so far any common trends of these uh arrests power assaults there was an arrest in the end okay so if it's two students get into a fight when I don't you know we don't advertisers but we're not going to make an arrest kids fight I mean I had plenty of fights as a kid right so I get it I understand it that's not a place where the police need to be involved that's a place where the council comes in that's where you pull the kids in you let them talk you mediating you get it going it's when it raises to the level of injuries and it's it's not about serious you know serious stuff okay um and you spoke a bit about relationships um with

207the really interdisciplinary team which I you know like that approach can you talk about how you go about building a relationship with the students a bit more so what we try and do what we've done over the last 10 11 years is we try to hold summer camps you know because the students have a really big engagement with sports that's just the way it is uh we send the officers in the schools where they talk to the students but they're not doing it in a negative way they're doing it in a positive way because unfortunately a lot of students the first interaction with police officers is usually negative when they respond to the home or they respond to a neighborhood so we're trying to change that mindset where they feel comfortable speaking with a cop

208you know and it takes years I mean it's not something that you can do it overnight and with the sros it's that mindset right it's like look we have to help how do we help we have to Outsource it resources you know uh jib has been phenomenal where they come in and they give them the right Health day needs and someone is counseling some of it's just parent involvement in the parents involved but the sros go back that next step you know where they'll follow up they'll make sure things are right thank you one last question any efforts to um recruitment strategies for a department uh you know unfortunately um it's all over the country right now no one wants to be police right it's not a good time in the country to be a

209police officer I have to say I mean I think in Bridgeport we have a very good Community relationship uh problem is is when one of the lowest paid so when you go into different you know Norwalk stamfords you know all these other places where they're paying you know tens of thousands of dollars more and they're not dealing with some of the stuff that we deal with fortunately guys and girls are going that direction any strategies to help recruit maybe students seniors yeah so we we have a junior responders Club uh that the police department has and they have the the cadets we send them to a training up in Massachusetts we get them a grant for that and they go once a year uh you know it's just trying to get them involved young and

210I think you know being positive and it's a big drive you know we try and recruit from within Bridgeport you know I mean one thing that we were very successful at doing is uh we had at least I say about eight attend security officers became police officers you know and it's so like we have Antoine sistrunk right now he was a security officer I had in high school and I was a police officer so he has that institutional knowledge you have Rondell Jones Nicole colon Jonathan Mendes um Walker Thiago Reyes so we've done a good job of transitioning them over and having that mindset so thank you Mr bennahan okay I'm gonna ask me more questions um thank you for your um question um you know answer about now the other question I want to

211ask you is about the uniform yes I love for the day one where the former asked did they change the uniform I really I was the for everyone to say I'm not greeting they know that for me they don't look professional and I'm gonna tell you why last year that I went to one other school and I dressed just one of your security guards they don't stop me they don't say nothing they thought I was a security guard so imagine another person and I'm not gonna say to it in the name of the school because I don't want the school issue but I've just spoke to the principal and I say imagine another person that dressed just like me and they keep walking anything happened when I have a school like you have your uniform

212professional respect the law everybody oh the Securities here the police officers here but that uniform like that like everybody said and you know everybody say that it's like a State Farm a Target I dressed I told you like that they see me in the cameras that was a security guard and I keep walking to the cafeteria and what the kid was eating imagine a crazy person called what's gonna happen so my problem is you know and I hope so they have a professional you know their own uniform they respect you know they say something security principal policy off that they have before this uniform I'm sorry uh Captain Greg and tender Parks not go with me I don't find that professional football school so the uniforms got changed about four or five years ago and

213that was by the Super Nintendo and the whole philosophy behind it was the security officers Warner unified Michael police and certain schools and more with students that come from different countries was scared because they thought they were police officers and they looked like Corrections Officers and he said you know it's about bringing everyone together we want them to feel comfortable so and you know what I didn't argue you know I said look I like the security uniform we spent a lot of money on it it's done it cost us a lot of money and the superintendent said no I want a softer approach I want the kids to feel comfortable I don't want them thinking that police officers are identifying themselves as police officers we had a big movement at a time adult the boss

214and I mean it is what it is uh the security I mean it's red and you know they have the emblem on the shirt you wanna you know you'll see that I mean so and the new ones have Security on the back there big security on the back assignment the back they have red uh final jackets um so again you know we've been buying these for the last I don't know uh five years in addition when we started buying these we cut the price of the uniforms in half because they were cheaper uniforms so we saved forty thousand dollars a year we've got four years or five years of uniforms these guys want to change them back and change them back it's up to the superintendent or whoever has that say so uh but you

215know and I get mixed reviews I get some security obviously love them I get some who don't like them you know so I mean at the end of the day you know the super nintendent at the time made that choice they're the boss we're not going to argue is what it is and as far as the Public's concerned mixed reviews again some people love them some don't you know to me it's not what the uniform looks like it's what's on inside it's a person representing this this is what it is uh so I think we got more respect though you know speaking to the microphone so that way but um going going back about your um your thank you sir I'm going back um you say about the former course he decided to make the

216change the uniform and he decided thing that was wrong I want the security guard look professional I'm not here like you said oh the other students look oh they are they scared because this because that I don't want to get scared but they understand we have somebody professional they will care in the Pacific to the school look at what happened in San Diego because everybody was welcome and look at what happened I told you that I walked inside the school as a the same uniform and now walk like a you know they do what's the security I want people when they see that's the security you know because the first thing would happen anything happened in the school who's going to prefers first respond the security guard right before the Sao before the police show

217up so I want them to be professional Captain great you know and they are really fine I respect that you know and I I want the nice you know the percent responsible they were supposed to be so people they respected because people parents students they call them like he said you know safe Farm you know Target you know stuff like that sometimes I go Target I say oh my God I'm in a security guy we have here when I go to Target so I I prefer you know we look more professional and less having you know people respect our secret because they always be the friend response something happened they don't want something like that like in I know what it's locked down login you know uh crossing the school they are the one and

218they put the chest in the front not until you show up not me not the primary not the students you know and the principles behind them because you know principal is very smart so so you know they are so I want people respect them yeah so I agree anything before I can ask questions any other questions from board members committee members go ahead Mr sokolovic yeah I'd like to piggyback well well oh well the uniform Mr holiday microphones they put you back while we're on the uniforms I was here when that change was made and it's you did touch upon a lot of the points that were made in feeling like a prison guard feeling like um schools some of our schools actually look like prisons with the concrete walls and stuff like that are

219students actually have some of our students have actually parent members in prisons unfortunately and it feels like a restrictive environment and one thing you said that was very interesting is this the man that makes the uniform not the uniform you might not have said it in that way not the uniform that makes it mad but security like the teachers it's their command presence whether they control their school or whether they control the classroom it's not the shirt they're wearing if I got people defending depending on an article of clothing to get their command present out there I think the problem may be a bit deeper than a piece of cloth and I and I think this may have some Union contract implications as well but there's no coach is there uniforms in their contracts as

220is it yeah so I mean that's a bargaining issue that I don't even think we should really be discussing outside the bargaining table thank you any other questions or comments from board members the term back to Mr bennahan thank you Captain gray um and um why we have principles that they like to um specific security how you rotate all the security because I know principles they were no I want healthy security you know what to do you know what he's doing you know for that you know are they rotate or when this principal assistant principal ask it no let me have the security here don't change it no so a principle will not dictate what security guard goes to their schools I think done thank you go ahead Captain uh no so a principal will

221not dictate what schools security obviously goes to it's the needs of a district thank you um the other one is enough if this is very important for me I know we got a league guard all right it's Mr Louis Santiago right um Santiago To Go in different schools you know checking you know what's going on he's doing his job the way he's supposed to be um so we can have more let's see another lead guard so they can display because I normally guard and you as I know you're doing your job it's more you know it's very important but you have reality too and having one regard going to go to school you know sometimes you have that League guard all the time in that school because situation and the process you need to check

222be sure that link I do the report and I know because something I was doing a phenomenal job you know in my respect for him and everything but at least you cannot have another League or two you know that I could divide okay you take the white side of your routine you know with the check yeah it's a financial thing if Marlene wants to give a few extra dollars uh to do it that's fine I mean I think lead guards are great and I think it's it's really good but it's again it's a financial thing because we're good it's coming from a mystical Financial committee okay all right same good thank you I appreciate that big one of working with that um cameras I know some camera from beautiful school they're not working very well

223they look blurry um I'm concerned about that because something happened how proof you have I can give it a sample about in High School parent center it's in the middle you got the camera from the um gym you got the camera going to cafeteria look blurry you don't see who came something happened you don't see but if the person come close you know the cafeteria or the gym you see that so I know another school they have a camera they can see how dirty is your nail you know because I see that you know you show me in your department why the uh what's going on with that um so basic is very old and we don't want to invest money into basket because you're getting a new school I'm pleased to say that we

224did get a grant and we're going to be changing out not basic because it's I just give a sample birthday we still have a lot of schools with analog cameras we need to get rid of them cameras are very expensive there's a lot of cameras in the district uh they break there needs to be a plan where we exchange them as they go uh but we got a grand to change out a lot about 75 of the analog cameras in the district so we're going to start that project in the summertime when the kids are out of school so we can change most 75 of the analog cameras we're also looking at another brand sustainability Fairchild wheel is now 12 years old technology comes and the life so we're looking at another Grant and working

225on where we can start looking at virtual wheeler and a couple of the other schools to start redoing them over again because once we let wait they get old and they break and then it cost us more money I know like a classical story and it's TCL uh it's the other churches and Beachwood I forgot her name right now and I know they don't have the camera exactly they have the cameras they are they're not working very well and I'm worried too about some cameras I can give a Tisdale because I went there when you go outside they have a camera for the door but they don't have nothing it's the students across the street with the crossing guard if something happened God forgive you will not take the play you not want to take

226who was it what happened and then nothing so Tisdale school is a dumb camera is sort of original with a school we've applied for the grant for Tisdale for like five six years we they keep turning this down that's one of the schools that we're going to change all the cameras out with this grant and I don't want to go into every Pacific School no no because no I can give it because I went throughout the you know all different school and not stay outside to see what camera is working or what would I have the camera and stuff like that and we just don't want to no I understand but I just didn't let you know that I really checked you know so I believe you I believe you thank you um the other

227one um I know all your security is supposed to do a report right anything is going on in the school I still have fights are sold or when they they have to do report and then that report go well goes to Security Office Sergeant Parks will review it yeah we'll make sure it's good if obviously if something happens and there's any allegations that they use any kind of excessive force or principles from call we'll speak to HR we'll review it I mean understanding of security officer's job is to go Hands-On right so we put there's that fine line and they are trained you know CPI trained so uh we encourage them all we tell them that they have to write a report and we just review these reports um your budget how much it um

228if I can know this is if I can I believe it's public about the budget what would you use for your security I don't know off the top of my head it's a lot of money I know it's a lot of money I know it's a lot of money so I will let you know when you get a chance you know yeah you call me well yeah um I have a question for you and what is the role of the police officer in the school and at the games for the SRO let's not police officers I know it's okay sometimes you got SRO and Santa we got police officers oh and a police officer is an SRI so uh in schools when they respond they'll respond to a call I don't miss prick when I

229say something Miss Pratt no don't wait because I see you okay sorry sitting in so what do you mean in school you know what is the role of the police officer when they call it you know on the school is our old going to school so because we have so little most of the time you want to say how many calls we've had yeah so um the SR rules responded to the schools for some for some Tipper up to Last Friday the 5th 628 times their role is um Safety and Security but they're called either by security by a parent or by a principal um for assistance and that could be a range of things um so 628 times in 153 days of school we have 38 schools that they respond to with three officers

230so kind of circling back to what you were asking about before um with City officers the sros try to take those calls because they're more familiar with the kids they're more familiar with um all of the like the captain said the resources that we can offer and that the schools offer um at the games those are police officers but they are the SR the same three sros and myself that you may see at games if you see City police officers um then they were probably if we weren't there then someone called 9-1-1 but nine times out of ten they're only called if we weren't there or if we needed assistance and there's been a few times where there's been um activities at games after games during the game where the crowd was large and we

231needed assistance from other Patrol units we had just for example we had hodgin high school at the beginning of the season we had to clear the whole school out the whole gymnasium up is all the fights that were going on that's not the same thing with uh with a game right the same things are all they do it with a regular um school days the same thing with uh with uh games yes um thank you correct and we have something you got security they don't come exactly the way it's supposed to be I know they're coming with the red and khaki but they don't count exactly what they uniform correctly and I don't worry about if they're not coming towards uniform correctly you know with the black Jewels with your belt the t-shirt inside you

232know something like that you guys want to go around you turn and listen this is not the first time I asked you about this correct uniform the way it's supposed to be but if you see the kid doing it the kid doing it what's the process well so if uh an officer and I think we're pretty good for the most cases um but if an officer is not wearing a proper uniform and then we'll have a discussion on them we'll give them some counseling corrective counseling right hey this is if it elevates like anything then uh HR will get involved uh Miss Martinez it's in McNamara then they will handle it you know and it's a principles the principles are told you know they have to you know obviously it's our school building so they

233look at the guards they see the guards every single day but we've been pretty good you know as far as uniforms concerned um yeah all this on security that they have a job impression they know what to do and they really sign they have no they know the policy the protocol right so for now then follow the policy that we're supposed to be right they're not really designed for that so they can know that they know this is what happened if you don't follow the policy well we meet with the guys in training and you know at least once a year sometimes twice a year we'll bring HR to the meetings and they will talk about different stuff sick time policies uh you know late policies all different policies I mean you know they have

234a hard time it's a tough job we don't get paid big money they work extremely hard they deal with a lot of stuff they're not you know but folks don't understand is they're not just security guards the mentors the social the everything that job and you know it's about you know helping the children out and I'm not saying a certified social workers anything like that but they take on different roles they're there for the students they act like a mom and dad I know I say that and we have some great ones and we have some okay ones I mean like in any profession you know but I think overall I think they do a great job questions I do have I do want to say that that it is pretty commendable that with the

235over 400 calls and 153 days that only 12 incidents were only identified as escalating to warranty arrest of a student or person whatever the situation may be because I do want to keep confidentiality to the district and safety first um so I just had that one um comment that I wanted to express Mr sokolovic yes um yeah I want to piggyback off that for a second of those 12 those were 12 arrests uh David today represents separate instances so there's multiple arrests 12 I want to say uh there was 11 incidences okay there were two in one incident it was two arrests because I know sometimes we have multiple this is mostly multiple bytes multiple components I think last year we had one with quite a few execute the results a little um as far

236as lines of responsibility it's all it's always troubled me that we pay for those security but the city negotiates the contract what are the lines of responsibility as far as you mentioned um going in front of the Personnel director and this and that so say say it is an issue with a security guard at God forbid requires some discipline who carries out that discipline the city side or the Board of Education side Board of Education okay so yeah and sometimes I'm a little unclear on actually do you directly you don't directly supervise the security guards yeah we directly directly supervised operations and if there's uh conflict between where the superintendent would want security placed and the police department would like security place who's got controlling Authority so we've never had that issue but obviously when

237the police responded if someone's calling 9-1-1 the police they take over the city correct yeah I'm talking about that not not like an emergency situation clearly emergency situation but if they say a basketball game or a football game lacrosse game whatever sporting event and or even or even a play and it's got over a certain number of people which requires a security presence if the superintendent thinks a security guard would suffice and you think a police department police officer will suffice police officer is obviously more costly and the security guard is less costly and if it's not a clear and present danger can you override the superintendent and put a secure police officer there or is it the superintendent's call in a non-emergency situation I'll deploy staff so what I can say is this public

238safety events stuff going on uh we'll have a conversation it's never ever in 10 years I've been doing this it's never ever been an issue I think uh and you can speak to Marlene on this we've been very fiscally responsible on knowing what it was when we first took over we had uh sros or school police officers working tennis games and baseball games we stopped them you know we try and use school security offices the best weekends we just don't have the Personnel but again certain events if it's an outside event you know everything depending on the climate what kind of event how many people are doing it so it's never ever been an issue and I don't expect it to be because if we don't have police we're very limited school security does a

239great job we use them we'll use that thank you I I have a question um this is just from personal experience on the board when we were having a meeting regarding the transition for superintendent uh then I'm to assume that was a school resource officer called to be at Central High School to monitor a board of ed meeting and that prevented the public from inquiring questions from the former chair and former board members that went in the back door so was that a request from the superintendent at the time or was that request from the chair at the time I think both I believe it was a board uh I believe it was I can't it's such a long time ago again we're not here for Paul politics when we go there it's if it's

240a concern it's a concern obviously we don't want a crowd going into a school of adults when there's class going on you know and and that occasion I got called and I stopped the meeting we're not doing this here this ain't a place we have class going on we have a night school it's done uh they weren't happy with it but I'm like my job is Public Safety if something happens to one of those students it's me going to the house talking to those parents it's me getting questions you know when we do security details you know we do these details if something happens we're fully responsible you know so we have to ensure Public Safety we want to make sure all the kids are safe going home and we can't guarantee anything but what

241we can do is through our training and experience and we have quite a bit this is what we determine this is why and if we question we have the answers to go with it thank you um tonight Mr menahan also for the record is 9 27. yeah my wife's waiting so you know why we have this little alumina right yeah okay and I don't want to get details it's not dementia for in this previous um I know SRO I believe the city pays the hro right now double education yes right I know the CD pay you will pay you guys not the qualification the wide facing our security Gateway about City in UK Papa we're sorry the security gate payable location you get paid by the city and you supervise there are securities out the

242publication I don't know all your respect you know I like for so many years and you don't know for I asked about education pay for the security I want somebody conversation in video like I told you leave guard one Liga two also also we don't use the supervisor David in the leader we get paid for the secure on board occasion take care of our security because you got paid by the city I know you will not do it for me in another but if I told you Captain Greg I'll turn it apart this is a happy happy you know blah blah blah you can tell me listen I don't need to listen to you I don't need to uh take order from you they don't pay me the city pay me so I know you're

243not going to do that for me but that's that's not my question how come you guys get paid for the city then you take care of our security and security giveaway by it because I I I think many many years ago you had a security director an assistant security director malware and Jimmy Neely that you're paying close to three hundred thousand dollars for yeah and it just didn't work no it didn't work so we came in and you saved all that money saved a lot of money and now you have in the security officers trained by the police supervised by the police and it works because we've been doing it 10 11 years and again it's that relationship that we have so it works so the Board of Ed is making out it's not about

244the board event it's not about money it's about the safety of the kids so it is successful if it wasn't successful there's no way we would still be doing it thank you we I know we we have to be let's talk about that but I want to have let's say the last question for now I don't know checkpoint when the point of whoever comes to the school and they go to metal detector I don't like because they teach us because they know you because you're my friend because I'm a board member no go ahead pass I don't like when the security do that all right the security didn't know the life of each person come of course I will never do that before something crazy I do God take my life away because I care

245about everyone but I always pass I always take care of everything I told the security guard something to know Mr but no I'm a human just like you the same day you did it for everyone I want to do it for you know everyone sometimes we got teachers they are forget it you know they are professional they come in positions they got problems they got problems in the family you don't know when they're coming home from driving they are arguing because the guy patted the light or something and they go stressed to the school you know because I see that but I just I don't know why some sick on Securities knock ahead go ahead pass you you're okay all parents all another students I don't want that I know we got camera they checked

246out they don't want the security because something happened I know you go back to the cameras and you're gonna check what happened how come you you know you don't check that person because I had this bad I'm a born member but you don't know exactly what the hell's I'm bringing that I will get them to check you every time you go on the building I don't have a problem with that I don't have problems I want to do it I don't know I'm gonna check my bag you can accident you know I don't have problem with that but it's good to go there and another thing sometimes when they check okay yeah thank you fine question I did sorry now you don't have a drug life done something well now all the high schools have

247x-ray machines yes I see and we put the bikes through the excellent machines this is not a strip search this is a school it's a learning environment this is not a prison we will not make it prison kids have to feel safe coming to schools and they sure feel like prison so no we're not going to strict search kids and do everything right we do our we do our checks and not to get him to do like I said before we have layers and I want to get into it it works is it a hundred percent no there's nothing 100 the teachers go through uh the metal detectors no they have the ID we know who they are they pass right through could a teacher have a bad time at home absolutely so could a

248police officer so could the principal so could the custodian I mean at some point this is where we have our red flags and we have our layers of security that's what we do but what I can tell you is this I think we have one of the safest school districts in the state you know what we do and all the security guard from responsible they know who are all the ball members right no I don't think so why not because you're both members you know they know who they are no I said they know who are women they are the you know we are born members I don't think they know each board member because I really have experience that you've got security they stop me they don't know who I was wow so you

249know and they have a dual process I don't mind but you know I feel there's a board members Dell security they have to know who's the board members and has to be careful how to talk talk to the board members because Mr Bennett okay interrupt you just because I do have one comment okay I mean I will say the misuse of school resource officers not school results our school security um by non-school staff I've seen it happen where they've asked me as well as constituents in a building a school building for my information my name my address and it was for our city councilwoman I feel like that's a misuse of ours yeah and so yep I brought issues uh at that no you know I'm not leaving a confidential this was at Thomas Hooker

250School this was the issue between the alleged um potential merger of Wilbur cross and Thomas Hooker and city councilwoman Maria Pereira were collecting all constituent information for her own voter database and I feel like that is a complete misuse of our school our building our facility as well as our resource officers and there was also a police officer outside and so I I am curious whether that was a school resource officer but that is that in that situation it comes off as an abuse and a misuse of what is in the board of Ed's purview um and I did want to bring it up because I agree um yeah and so I think that needs to be clear that it doesn't matter if you are an elected official and you know I'm I'm an elected

251official but I don't Market my face out there look at me is election like most people are doing right now um but um I think that's just an abuse of the policy and that should be communicated that just because you're a city council person doesn't mean you get to collect for your own personal privilege um especially since you don't necessarily have a say on our schools unless you're getting us money um and so yeah I just wanted to bring that up just right I just read my question you know I appreciate that any question anything that I forgot I will email you guys but I appreciate your time at least you know we can keep seeing each month right no more questions uh and are there any questions comments are you sure need another second

252okay seeing that there's none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn it this time uh five second all in favor any objections any oppositions not see none time ends 9 35 p.m take care bye-bye