Committee of the Whole School Board Meeting 4/8/26

001the Wednesday April 26th meeting the whole meeting prior to this meeting we met discuss litigation, contract negotiations, personnel material matter subject to attorney-client privilege. That said, would you stand please do the pledge? I pledge allegiance Right, so I believe those are the minutes of the prior board. Thank you. Mr. Cummings, uh just really quickly want to just talk a little bit. It's only been 2 weeks since our last meeting. Uh three of those days have been off for break like five. But uh just want to kind of acknowledge this month is assistant principals month. So I really want to show my gratitude and the gratitude of our administrative staff and this board to our three assistant principals throughout the district. Dr. Popowitz at the middle school, Dr. Carroll at the high school, and Mr. Ulmer

002over there. Uh they actually showed up so sorry. I'm just kidding. He's here with an AD today. But uh I just really want to say uh having those people as support systems and uh having this blend of some new folks who are bringing new ideas as well as uh Dr. Popowitz who is bringing his experience uh at middle school from when he had time down in Baltimore County to his time here now at at our high school and now our middle school. Uh these people are really just invaluable resources uh that we greatly appreciate. Uh sometimes uh they get bogged down in some of the minutia of running a building especially uh I've been a middle school principal so I know how sometimes uh those things that you kind of have to make sure that

003everything's operating properly. Uh they are quite often unsung heroes and I just want to make sure that they understand how much I myself personally appreciate them. Uh their kindness to kids is another thing that I feel is really important. The real important thing they develop with their their students is is something that allow their job to be done uh more effectively in in a a kindler way. I mean we've learned over the years that you know when you're disciplining kids uh it it's really important to discipline a kid when that kid knows you ultimately care about them. And I feel these three are all really good at that. So I just want to thank uh our our assistant principals. So pass that on to your buddy over there. I'll talk to I know that Dr.

004Barrett put out a tweet as well. So thank you all them. Uh we have some soccer acknowledgements acknowledgements. Boys. Uh we want to recognize we do this with all of our students. This is for fall sport. Uh a little bit later for this one. Uh we're waiting on getting pictures and and some information but uh I just want to congratulate these these uh folks from our girls soccer team. I know it seems like a lifetime ago when it was soccer season uh but I want to acknowledge these kids. As I say and this is something another thing that I'm really proud of at the district uh the fact that we have student athletes. Uh the student word always comes first. These are people who have incredible levels of of time management at an early age.

005They learn those things through sports and extracurriculars and and general. Um they also understand that they represent the school district and they do it in a in a way that that shines a good light on Elizabeth Forward. And those are things that administration I hope I know I speak for the board that they appreciate as well. So we really do want to thank them for that. We're going to call them up. Uh I'll hand you your certificate. So here's what happened. We used to say that I gave these certificates out. And I was proud of these. And then Mr. Ulmer came along and he decided to make these. And I realized boy I'm more of the boring guy with with the certificate. It has my signature on it and everything. But this is really cool

006and I can imagine this is going to be things that end up on a refrigerator or in a frame at a graduation party. So I'm really excited and thank you Mr. Ulmer for that idea and for working with the folks to do that. So uh I will give out my boring certificates. He will give out his cool pictures. Can we bring uh Maya Johnson up? All Section High School Girls. Thank you. Which do you like better? Don't lie to me. You don't have to feel bad you're picking. She couldn't lie to me. Kaylin Seaman, she here? All Section as well. Can we ask you a question? Which do you like better? Ah, that a girl. Thank you, too. Thank you. Macy Smith, come on up. All sections. I don't want to talk about which you

007like better. That's yours. Uh Luani Speedy. Also all sections. So, uh if we give these we're going to put them on the spot. Uh talk about your favorite part of your team or highlight. So, we're going to go with you. >> Okay. Uh my favorite part was definitely making playoffs. Um last year we missed out on that, but this year we um made it and we lost, but it was a good experience. It's okay. That's great. Thank you. How about you? My favorite thing is the bus rides home because you you Wait. It's even if we lost or we won, we still had a great time. It was very fun. That's awesome. Um I think my favorite part is that there was no drama on our team this year. I mean, last couple years ago

008we had a lot of drama, but this year it was everybody like liked each other, so that was really Oh. My favorite part was how everyone really lifted each other up. You know, we had a little bit of a different season than we have in the past, but everyone is really positive throughout it and I'm grateful for that. Great. Thank you so much. If we get a quick picture, we got to turn let Dr. Perry look first and we're going to look over here. Come on over we're going to do the book ends. You'll be the rose of the queen bee for a day. Here we go. All right, let's get a good cam. First soccer players want to go home. It's okay. I understand. It's a beautiful day outside. If you want to go

009home it's okay. I actually believe people like my certificate better than Thank you all. All right. Once that's all I have. I appreciate appreciate this. Thank you. I'm going to open it up to public comment. Um John Strong. 400 Drive I'm here the same as I always talked about the cost of our construction and putting athletics ahead of education even though they are student athletes. Um to me it seems like we accomplished our goals. We accomplished that we claimed one. We were going to take care all the athletics. And we spent a gang of money. Now we're getting to the education end and all of a sudden we're starting to hear about budget restraints. And with them being students first and athletes second we should have been looking at that from the beginning. And if

010we would have looked at the project as a whole we had to build that education wing for a cost savings. And in any business you do a cost analysis. And that education wing would have been built first. That way we could have been saving money. And we could also been making a uh transition through all of our construc- construction with that education wing. We wouldn't have to shove people in different rooms. We would have had that whole education wing to do that. And it seems like we use return on investment when it's convenient for us. Um we demolished a bus garage that's been a return on investment since we built it. There was no actual reason to demolish that bus garage. I was told that that will have 30,000 bucks from South Allegheny to offset

011the cost of what it's going to cost us. If you look at that from a taxpayer's standpoint that $30,000 could have been used for something else. It could have been used to offset the bus contract. The 40 or 50,000 dollars that we have to pay for rent now for the bus garage could also been used for something else. To offset the bus contract. So, it seems to me we use return on investment when it's convenient for one of our projects. And it would be nice to start rewarding kids for being good students. If you take a walk around our school up there at the high school and just go through all the AP classrooms and take a look at them. Then come back and tell me that you're satisfied with those students that are brightest

012minds in the school have as a classroom. And my egg timer is up, so I'll sit down. Uh there is no other public comment. We will move on to section five, finance and technology. Thank you. Okay, 5.1 is to approve the um installment pay dates for the 2026 uh tax year which begins July 1st of 2026 and that would be August 31st August 15th and November 30th. That's a standard uh item every year and that's a resolution that carries forward every year. Uh 2018-004. 5.2 is uh an amendment to our fire tax credit. Last year was the first year that we actually went through that process and uh Mr. Cooger actually looked at the resolution. Him and I talked about it and I think we made it better and better for the firemen, better for

013the board. And the major changes to it are so it is an amendment to a resolution that was passed last year, 2024-004. And um one thing we did where we don't have a credit given to the ambulance services and things like that. So, we remove the medical services agency. Um and then we changed some dates. First thing is the applications will be due by July 1st. And that basically gives the firemen a full year to earn their 60 hours instead of getting it April 1st. The second item is we will get the list um to be notarized by July 10th. And that's the way that it originally read where we'll get the list of the um actual firemen and we will have Beth Greaser works in our office as a notary, so we'll be able

014to notarize that list. And then third, the board will approve the list of these eligible firemen by August 31st. Once that's all in place, now the taxpayer has to actually pay their taxes and they have from July 1st till December 31st to pay their taxes. Once they do that, they will get the $300 credit on by January 31st. So, time wise it works a lot better. It's fair to the firemen and um we basically felt we followed that procedure this year from the standpoint of paying the taxpayer or the firemen by January 31st, but the timing of the approvals and their list is better now. Any questions? Um I have the I know that when we initially passed that there was like a concern on the logistics like what the different townships. Is that fine?

015Is that >> I don't think there's any issues and this will make it better. Okay. One of the problem well, I don't want to get into problems or it was just I don't think it was done properly. It's it's it has a lot of extra headaches, right? Things are taken care of. Um 5.3, it's to acknowledge the PCCD middle school mental health support grant in the amount of $143,558. And this covers the Delphi um services provided at the middle school. It covered all the expense for this year, 25-26. And there will be about 82,000 left to cover 26-27. Hopefully there'll be another grant coming along, but it's covered by a grant, the services. And they're going to be here to talk about this a little bit. 5.4 and 5.5 relate to our food service management

016contract, the nutrition group. And Mr. Josh Cooger is going to talk about that. So, 5.4 we have in front of you a budgeted loss. I'm sorry. Um the renewal budget for food service uh for the 26-27 school year. Um This is the final renewal year under our current agreement with the nutrition group. Next year we will go out to bid for the 27-28 school year. What's in front of you is a loss not to exceed $25,920. So any loss greater than that nutrition would cover for us. Just kind of highlight overview of why that is different from last year which was a guaranteed profit of 13,000. Paper and cleaning increased 5%. Food costs up 4%. Labor and benefits up 5.7% enrollment decreases and charter increases. Included in this is a proposed 10 cent increase to

017our paid meals. I do want to highlight that this year's guarantee of $13,000 profit has already been met by the end of February which is only 60% of the school year. And we had a really tough February where we lost seven days. So the point in that is that even though we have a $25,000 budget of loss, if we follow the same trend it's going to be closer to a break even school year for next year. Any questions with that? They're actually going to be here to present at the regular board meeting. 5.4 is our ala carte review. We do this annually and this is just to remain in compliance with our non-program food pricing policy and USDA requirements. Of the full ala carte menu it's a 6.5% to 15 of the 36 items. It's

018just there's a proportion of revenue that has to be gained by the cost of these sales in relation to the total food costs. Any questions on any of the prices there? Which? On the program? On the ala carte menu. Where is the switch up? Against apple and a bottle of water. Is that a All of them. >> [clears throat] >> To be honest I don't know what else you are referring to. Which food is a creating clean label meatball parm sub? Is it labeled on the menu? We can highlight that, Justin. We'll put that with you when Tony comes to ask what the what the specifics to the menu. I'm pretty sure it's not on the menu. Thanks. Thank you Josh. Just in terms of those things that he covers Did I miss anything? No,

019I'm good. Just in terms of food service, transportation, rates and those. Appreciate your efforts and just the attention to details really appreciated. So thank you. I know thanks. Mr. Reagan will support that too, right? I did, Eric. Thanks. Thanks for the math few ones over there. Okay. Uh We are done with your section, correct? Yes. Mr. Reagan? Moving on to six? Yep. Six education and grants. I think at first we're going to introduce Lori Harvey and Rachel Bridge to talk about Adelphi and then we just kind of follow up with what Mr. Reagan said about the grant that we received. So I don't know if you just guys want to talk about it a little bit. >> could just go in front of the TV that way we can get you on camera. I am

020Lori Harvey. I'm the one of the behavioral health education program directors for Adelphi education and this is Ms. Rachel Bridge who is the therapist here at the middle school. We have been working with uh your middle school for about a year and a half? >> Mhm. About a year and a half. And we serve students uh from sixth to eighth grade and we provide in-school mental health individual therapy services. Um some of the services that we provide I wanted to share some of the outcomes and the services and and what your grants are funding. So our therapy in schools program um provides services to students um not based on insurance, not based on diagnoses, but based on their needs. So if you have a child who has individual therapy needs, they're having struggles with their

021families, they're dealing with maybe grief and loss, or maybe they're having some behavioral problems in the classroom. They may have a diagnosis of a neurological difference, um ADHD. Whatever that child's needs are, Ms. Rachel's able to work with them and their families and their teachers, do observations and trainings based on the needs of the students. So just wanted to provide a little bit of a snapshot. Currently she has 28 children that she sees approximately once a week. And those children are in the month of March just specifically she provided 154 sessions of care coordination or therapy services for the students in the middle school. That could have been Typically they are the services that are um planned on and but she also provides services based on those students' needs. So if the child's having a

022struggle, maybe something happened at home or even if the situation occurs where the the district's guidance counselor or the principals needs some assistance with a child who isn't in services, Ms. Rachel's available to them. Of the current students that she has, eight of those students unfortunately are dealing with ideations of self-harm. So Ms. Rachel has eight children currently that she works with the district and their families with ongoing safety plans for those those kids. So those kids may be have some feelings of hurting themselves or maybe some feelings of some of the children self-harm or we have some suicidal ideations that she deals with. Some of the most common issues and Ms. Rachel should like to can talk about this is anxiety, depression, peer issues. Middle school is a very difficult time for kids. So

023trauma issues, maybe they are having some stressors, some impulsivity, some social skills deficits. A lot of the the children are really struggling with their social skills and being able to get along with others and the rules of the classroom and things like that. And we also do a lot of measurement based care. So what we do is all of our students, families, and our students sixth grade and up are given and we utilize a system called Green Space. And that system provides children and their families with assessments. So we continue to assess their ongoing treatment and care. The assessment services do not provide a diagnosis, but they really help us guide treatment so that we can catch early when there's an issue happening with the kids. Did you have a question? I'm sorry. So we

024want So that's one of the best parts of this service is that kids don't have to fail to get into the service. These aren't kids necessarily that are coming to us after their lives have fallen apart. The teachers, the guidance counselors catch these kids early. They catch them the quiet child in the back of the classroom that may be really struggling but isn't the behavior problem that gets that child an IEP. Maybe it's the child who's the consideration of the family that maybe they were thinking that the child needs extra services when the child just really needs some extra support that doesn't require the um the complexity of the the processes that go along with evaluations and that stuff. Another thing that we that we've done um is that our family feedback. So we do

025family feedback surveys in the fall of each year and then we do them at the end of the school year. Of the parents that we surveyed from Elizabeth Forward, 100% of the parents responded that they were satisfied with the services. 100% of the parents that we recommended the program to others. 100% of the parents wanted to continue the services. And I think what's really great for the district is that 100% of the parents are indicating that these services help that child stay in the building, stay in the school district. That they're not wanting to send their kids out of district. They're not wanting to pull their children out of the of services and send them somewhere else. That these services are helping those kids stay in their buildings so that they're not um not leaving

026and going other places or asking for services that um better that may be difficult for the families and the students in the district. And 71% of the parents um have indicated that they have improved communication with their child. So one of the biggest parts that that we work on and we recognize is that helping that kid through that school day is is one just one piece of their lives. Helping and bringing those services that she provides into the home over the summer really helps impact their academics and helping them learn better. Kids that are dealing with trauma, if they are dealing with stressors, they're not learning well. They're not getting along with their classmates well. They may be in the guidance counselor's office a lot. There may be calls to the district constantly where administration

027is being involved, but Ms. Rachel's able to really help those students and mitigate that and hopefully continue for them to grow and learn in a in a much better way and environment. Um and one of the another piece that this program helps is that school climate. Catching those kids before the teachers aren't able to teach the rest of the class because that child is having a problem. Um having that child able to come down maybe for a couple days during lunch so that they can sit with with Rachel and and process some of those pure relationship issues. I don't know if you wanted to talk at all about some of the things that you do with them. Yeah, so um a big part is I see the kids individually and each each kid has an

028individualized treatment plan that is created collaboratively with them to like uh promote their self-autonomy cuz I know a lot of kids at this age like feel like they don't have control over a lot of things. So I want to present that in a way that they are you know that they have they're having a say in like what they want to work on in therapy. Um another big part is the family engagement so that's super important. Um I have a couple families who um either will come in person or be on the over the phone and we'll do like a joint family session together to help either um help with like effective communication or if like they um if the kid is living in two separate homes I'll have like um mom and dad um

029one on the phone and one coming coming in person to kind of like help with that transition with like living in separate homes. Um So and then a lot of coordination with like outside providers. So there are a few who um are on medication management. So I coordinate with their psychiatrist to uh you know get the background of like what medications they're taking and so it helps me to better understand like if there's certain symptoms that I'm seeing within them that's like different from what I'm used to. You know um so I'm understanding more of like what's going on with uh the side effects and everything that's happening within their brain because of the medication. So I work alongside the psychiatrist with that. Um But other than that I I really enjoy working here. Um

030I love the students that I've been working with and I have seen so much growth in um a lot of them especially the ones that I started seeing like the very beginning and now like they're um getting ready to prepare for like high school and so you can just it's just crazy to see how much growth that they they have had just by having like someone supportive each week to kind of like come in and um work on different um skills and um things like that. So. And we have a holistic view of what's going on with the child. So we recognize like when you go to a specialist then the heart doctor tells you, "I'm sorry I can't help you because of your stomach you need to see another doctor." We don't turn the

031kids away. We don't say you have this issue so we can't see you or we we we try to make sure that we're ruling out the medical so we work with that. We So we have kids with chronic health issues. We have kids with with maybe a secondary diagnosis of autism and because we're not diagnosing and they don't need a diagnosis we're also not labeling the children. We're providing those services based on need. So child can have uh maybe a loss in their lives and they don't need a diagnosis. They just need someone to talk to. So I think that I think we're probably at our about 10 minutes so I don't want to take any more of your time. But if you have any questions please let us know. My our information is in

032that um and we always have uh we'd be more than happy to talk to any of you at any time about our services. Uh I want to thank Lori uh working with Dr. Sedesky and Mr. Reagan for working through that grant process. So thank you for your help on that. Rachel I want to thank you. Uh Rachel really kind of made herself in greater solid part of the fabric of the middle school. Uh she participates in and there's a basketball uh uh students versus adults she's involved with that. And what that allows people to do is if they see her a part of that community that makes them more comfortable going there. Uh we have kids we talk about personalized learning all the time. Providing you know being able to personalize things for them for

033educational purposes. This gives us an opportunity to personalize some of their other supports that we have to give them. So uh there's some kids here that are being kept safe safe. We talked about some of those safety plans that we have to have and also here in school every day. Uh those are things that you know they learn best when they're here and getting them through in the morning. I know you probably had some pep talks with kids in the morning to get them through the day. Uh so I appreciate that. So thank you to the folks from Delta. And thank you. Thank you for having us Lori. Any questions for the folks from Delta? How many students are able to self-refer? They just get a hall pass and have you know ask to be

034able to sit down with you like how does that work? So the students for every every district's different in Elizabethtown um it is typically gone through the guidance counselor. So the guidance counselor will send us the referral. Um they will talk to the family to make sure that the family's comfortable with the services and um so then the then those kids will come to us after we you know get consent from the families and and do that initial intake process. But um in middle school we usually our services usually aren't self-referred in middle school because we want other people in their lives to know what's going on at that age. And I also believe most of the um most of the students that I see I um they have gone they they've been SAP'd. So

035like it goes through that program first and then kind of oversee that and see like whether um they send them to me or the like the uh the school base um the other school base therapy program. Um and so it just kind of just um between like insurances like whether they have insurance that um that will that they will cover. So like um and then if like they don't have an insurance or uh they would usually then um referred to me. And because we're not so Rachel's able to do services based on that child's needs so there's no there's no time limit in the sense that if there's a crisis or something like that she's able to work through that whole entire process uh and there's not a cutoff or limit and uh so we

036see that's one of the other benefits of that program. Um next so um educational updates uh just the big one that'll be coming around the corner are PSSA Keystones. We're just a few weeks away. Um the PSAs the PSSA start April 20th through the 30th and then followed by the Keystone starting May 12th through the 22nd. Um so obviously this is a very important measurement of how our students are meeting Pennsylvania academic requirements um in each of the subject areas. I want to thank our teachers for working incredibly hard to get our students ready for these tests. It's very nerve-wracking for them. You know there's a lot at stake for them. They take it very personal. So um you know a a big shout-out to them for how hard they worked up to this point

037to get everybody get all the students ready. So um Uh next which leads me into 6.2. So we're asking the board to approve the 3-hour uh delay schedule at the high school for May 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th. Students who are not currently taking one of three um year courses um three end of the year courses or scheduled to take the retake uh for Algebra 1, Bio in 10th grade, Literature will be on a 3-hour delay. So that just ensures that students that are taking those end of the year course tests a quiet environment to do that. Uh 6.3 uh we're asking the board to consider uh approving the adoption of CKLA third edition and boost reading for grades K to 5 and Amplify ELA for grades 6 through 8. Uh this would be a

0386-year subscription running through um 2032. Uh I just kind of wanted to summarize that this has been a very thoughtful and intentional process. We've been hearing a lot about this over the last year and a half. So um Uh you know I've been providing updates during our educational committee meeting and throughout the year. Um we've also spent time last year reviewing programs and outlining um uh our processes before even beginning the pilot. Uh groups of teachers and administrators have either reviewed or participated in presentations from Great Minds which is Arts and Letters and HMH which is Into Reading Uh the teachers uh were and principals were in favor of doing a full year pilot um of CKLA. Uh the the teachers were selected by the principals. An email was sent out. You know the teachers

039could agree to participate in the pilot or not. It would made no difference. Um so we had 14 elementary teachers across the K to 5 that participated along with six of our middle school uh ELA teachers. So it really was a true representation across the district in all grade levels. Um so throughout the pilot teachers received in-person training, virtual training sessions, and ongoing check-ins. Our Amplify representatives have um been extremely supportive meeting with teachers individually throughout the year. In fact we're actually meeting with our second grade team tomorrow. Um Uh our principals were also involved. They had regular check-ins uh with um the support of the implementation. Uh we also created a uh pilot toolkit which allowed teachers to ask questions, share feedback, and make recommendations in real time. Uh in addition teachers completed surveys

040through Amplify uh as well as district created surveys myself cuz I wanted information from the teachers um so that we can gather consistent feedback um and respond to any of the needs that they had. We also um involved families. Several of our pilot teachers participated in a parent-teacher night uh and we shared details about the pilot, our process, uh the structured literacy guidelines that well were passed in Pennsylvania um and need to be in place by the 2027-2028 school year. Um from an instructional standpoint CKLA is aligned to the science of reading and structured literacy requirements in PA. So it is on the recommended list uh programs that can be adopted. Um addition Additionally many neighboring school districts have also um uh adopted uh CKLA either um edition one or two and now, you know,

041edition three and that's what we are um asking to adopt. Uh Bethel Park, Canon-McMillan, Baldwin-Whitehall, McKeesport, West Jefferson Hills, Northgate, Central Valley, Keystone Oaks, River Valley, uh Greater Latrobe, Beaver Area um had just adopted the third edition uh I think last night at their board meeting. So, there's a strong alignment, you know, across the region which you know is very helpful for teachers whenever they want to kind of rock uh collaborate. We did actually take a field trip to Baldwin-Whitehall. I brought all the teachers that piloted K to um uh five over to Baldwin. They were able to talk to teachers that were that were actually using CKLA second edition. They were able to observe a lesson, kind of see how they're using the resources, so that was very helpful to them as well. Um,

042you know, CKLA is a very comprehensive program, but it is flexible, which is one of the things that I like. So, we can make um adjustments. We can omit specific content maybe that doesn't align with community expectations, so I kind of like that about it. So, um the uh program coordinator from CKLA is willing to work with our teachers for anything that we feel like maybe we need to tweak. So, um you know, I I mean, at the end of the day, this was a very extensive pilot uh lots of input still ongoing feedback coming through from the teachers. We're still meeting with the teachers. Again, like I said, we're meeting with second grade team tomorrow um or our rep from CKLA is coming over um just uh talking about assessments, what it looks like

043what next year, what the roll out looks like next year. If the if it is approved, we are having a full day training at our next in-service um with all the teachers that would be involved with it the following school year. So, um just any questions about that? I mean, I know I've been talking about it like um So, with all of your information you provided there, thank you, by the way. Um teachers who were part of the pilot program, the teachers that were engaged um you know, in the surveys, I I you didn't mention whether they accepted it, denied it, had comments. >> Yeah. Um there's been a lot of discussion around uh the adoption of CKLA in our district and you know, like anything there's positives and negatives. I've heard a lot more

044on the one side than the other. Uh does it make sense to move in this direction? Are teachers satisfied with this? Every teacher that has participated in the pilot has raved about it. The principals have raved about it. I know that there's a lot of discussion going on. >> see them? It's fine. Um the the survey information that came back from the teachers, whether it was something from Amplify or the survey that I sent out about, you know, boost, you know, how are things going, what more additional information do you need, the teachers were always positive about it. We just did our principal meetings with the principals and you know, I mean, it's Connie can can attest to like what the principals said about it about how engaged the kids are, how much they love

045the stories that they're, you know, that they're reading in the class or independently. So, every teacher that I am working with, that I've received information from, which is all the pilot teachers, love it. Like I just talked to the couple of the middle school teachers today. Again, I said, you know, you know, we're moving forward with this, you know, don't let me forget to change your mind. I need to know. And they're like, no, we love it. You know, we couldn't imagine going back. I'm not that I'm looking for you to do any more No, that's fine. No, that's whatever you need. I just want to make sure that, you know, the the broader teachers are also engaged too. I mean, 14 teachers out of the collection of our K through five is I mean,

046it's a small percentage. I just want to make sure that, you know, it's being well received with everybody else so we can continue with our education. That's all. Or if you I mean, just spotting around would be fine if you could for next for next Wednesday. Yeah. Thank you. People have to be honest though. They have to kind of they have to come forward. They can't be hiding behind somebody saying things. They need to come forward and say what they like or don't like. So, yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. I just chime in. >> [clears throat] >> I want to just commend Dr. Perry. I think you recognize the passion that she puts into this and that speaks itself by doing her homework. Uh you know, the same incredible work that she did when

047she was at Central Elementary along with those teachers and staff. Um this is the level of effort that she put in. She's passionate. Uh she's thoughtful. She's And I think her description of the process that she went through really tells you that this was not something um that that is done for any other reason other than finding out what is best for the kids in the Louisville Forward School District. She's always been passionate about that. She's developed MTSS programs at the elementary level. Um she she collaborates with teachers and and talks to them about goods and bads and I just really appreciate the level of effort that she's put into this and the thoughtfulness. The parent night was wonderful. I attended that with her. Uh some good conversations there from uh some of the people

048I respect, you know, Sarah Neil over at the William Penn. There's a lot of folks, but Sarah Neil was there at the meeting. She's a reading specialist at William Penn. Allison Grimm is our curriculum coach. Uh we had uh Lynn Boyson and who else was there? George. Lisa George was there along with three student teachers uh who all feel very passionate about this. So, when you have those those teachers who work with our kids on a daily basis and they understand how passionate this is and principals come to me and say, I've never seen kids this interested or engaged in reading instruction. Uh those are powerful statements to me. So, I just want to commend Dr. Perry and thank her for her efforts. I I mean, I I I wasn't That's why I'm here. I

049have no skin in the game. I went out and did my research and I brought several programs to see what people wanted to pilot. The teachers wanted to pilot this program. So, if they would have came to me halfway through and said, this is awful, it's not meeting our needs, our kids are fumbling, we can't do this, we could have pivoted, but that was not the response the whole year. >> That's fine. I just want to make sure that, you know, the rest of the teachers do speak up in the event. Not I'm not for or against. I don't know that much about it. But I just, you know, spending this kind of money with a change in the educational curriculum, I just want to ensure that this is the correct not that it's incorrect,

050but that accepted way of moving forward so that we can Yeah. And and Dr. Perry quite often says that she did a better job than the assistant superintendent than the previous super assistant superintendent did. >> Uh she likes to remind me that. All right. Sorry, I'm done. Go ahead, Dr. Perry. So, uh okay, so then 6.4, uh we're requesting the board approval for the adoption of Magic School AI platform to support K-12 uh teachers and students. Uh Mrs. DeMarco is here. She's our director of digital teaching and learning. So, her and I again, Zoom calls, meetings on different platforms that are out there right now for education and uh again, teacher input was on this one as well. So, I'm going to let her talk about it cuz she was just intimately involved with the

051teachers with this pilot. We've actually been piloting Magic School across the district for two years now. Uh we started it last year with some free uh codes and really honed in on the high school because of their future focus being AI. And so, with all the work that we did there, we started exploring other platforms, looking into what works not only with our um devices, which is a big deal. Some of the platforms we looked at didn't play nicely with our iPads, so we had to make sure that we chose something that could actually work in the classroom. Um we landed on Magic School for a couple of reasons. One, I think I have eked out so many free pilots from her and codes so that our teachers could test this. Um currently, I have

052AI like told them cohorts happening at different buildings. I've got some happening at the middle school, up at Central, William Penn, um and I have two teachers in particular that are piloting it alongside CKLA um to uh use some of the writing features that are available in Magic School. Um and we settled on it for one of the main reasons is because of student data privacy. Uh we continue to be uh inundated with regulations to make sure that when our students are online, they are safe. Uh if you know anything about artificial intelligence and what is out there, uh it's called open AI because it is open. And so, what Magic School does is it closes that for us as a district. And all of the tools that are available are vetted through the platform.

053So, when let's say for example, we have a chatbot that is being used, that doesn't go out into the internet. It is a closed environment. And what I mean by that is it references only the things that we feed it. So, to kind of piggyback off of Dr. Perry's uh discussion about the CKLA curriculum, that's one instance where we can take all of our curriculum resources and materials and feed it into the back end of Magic School. So, that when our teachers go into the chatbot and ask it for uh lesson plan ideas or activities to do with students, it will specifically reference CKLA to the point where it will come down to the lesson. We can do that with our math curriculum. We can do that K to 12. So, all of our curriculum

054resources that are research-based and vetted are what's being used rather than if someone goes on chat GPT and says, I need a a lesson for pronouns, we don't know what kind of resources chat GPT's going to spit out. With Magic School, we do because it's only referencing our curriculum materials. So, that is a a really great reason why. Um the student safety measures are really good. So, it as I mentioned, it's a closed environment, which means that we as administrators and teachers have a dashboard that we're able to monitor what students are doing in the platform. Teachers can curate lists of tools that they want to use with students and only release those tools when they want to be used. Um and they do that through a a class code that that the students type

055in on their iPad. They go in and if I wanted to have my I was an English teacher before I did this. So, I think um one of the things that I would have done, this is it's April and April is Shakespeare month for me. So, I would have uploaded different sonnets. I would have uploaded Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or whatever I was teaching. And then students can go in and actually the chatbot would act as William Shakespeare and they could have conversations with Shakespeare about the writing that is in there and it would only reference what I've uploaded. So, that's what I really like about the fact that it allows us to control the environment for students to explore AI because whether they like it or not, they're already using it. Um but

056with our district issued devices and district licenses with something like Magic School, we can really provide a safe environment for them to gain the tools they need so that when they do leave us and graduate and they go into the workforce that is heavily inundated with AI, they know appropriate and ethical use. Be able to block um our district iPads from like the other like F B R. Okay. Yes. So, for chat GPT is blocked from our district issued iPads K to 12. We do also have a Gemini through our Google Workspace. And through Google Workspace for education, Gemini is also a closed environment. So, a recent I can share information with you about that but one of the nice things about it is I sent out I do a tech Tuesday for our teacher

057teaching staff. And when you use Gemini if you're signed into our Google account, there's a shield that comes up in the uh the um the text box where you type your prompt. And then once you hit enter, there's actually a disclaimer at the bottom that as it's generating a response, it tells you that Elizabeth Forward chats are not being used to train models. So, all of the information is kept again within our Google Workspace. Again, we have an admin console that we can go in and we can monitor those. Any other questions? You working with Dr. Spiegelman as well? Yeah, so she really was whether I liked it or not spearheaded me deep into this. So, she worked in the AI fellows last year and she was the one through the AI fellowship that brought

058back the initial pilot codes for Magic School. So, that's really when we started exploring what was available. I spoke at length with Haley Grossman. She's our Pittsburgh area rep. So, she actually lives in in the area and in talking with her about kind of planning what next school year would look like, what we have as far as the cost includes professional development. Typically it's a it's virtual but because she lives in the area, she has said she will come in person to do a lot of the professional development. Um and has offered to meet with our with the AI cohorts as well with the teachers needs that we're currently doing with the pilot. So, been very responsive with that. Um and she has provided countless pilot codes for us to be able to use those.

059So, she So, Dr. Spiegel really did kind of spearhead us into the guidelines and policy all of the things that have been coming across your board packets in the last year is really because of the work that she has done. Dr. Spiegel was actually against AI, talked about academic integrity, her experiences. She's teaching some colleges courses at the college level now. She recognizes that she needs to get her kids better prepared. So, she really just engulfed herself in AI. >> She's been teaching an elective called AI and ethics. >> Yeah, and she has she was >> to our high school students. And she's doing all the professional development classes in Canvas along with Allison. So, Allison, thank you so much. It's changing so rapidly, you need somebody on top of it like that. And again,

060I think kind of recognize the passion. So, I appreciate that, Allison. And then finally, requesting approval for the adoption of two novels at the high school. Fahrenheit 451 will replace Romeo and Juliet. It's being removed from the ninth grade due to the adoption of the adoption goes through with Amplify curriculum at the middle school because they actually teach Romeo and Juliet. So, they did not want to have a duplicate novel. And then Glass Men, I know what manager we is already part of the curriculum but it was only used with a quarter of the class in ninth grade. So, we want to adopt that for the entire ninth grade class. That's it. Are these hardbacks that we get from a particular vendor? >> We have a vendor and they're softbacks. They're Oh, they're paperbacks. Paperbacks.

061So, they're very expensive. Like if you just go on Amazon you can buy a box for like $18. >> Yeah. Which is like $1,200 cheaper. I just wondered Okay. if those are options to I mean like if we we go through a vendor that works with schools. So, I mean I'll I'll look and see if there's if there's a I don't know. wonder what the advantage was if it if it's a Mhm. Significant decrease in cost. What's the advantage is to use them? >> Okay. Yeah, I'll look and I'll see if there's like a difference. Yeah. One second. Those are digital bound. And all of that I swapped out about that. Thanks. But a paperback would be like $9 versus $20. Yeah. We'll take a look. Yeah. All right, moving on. Section 7, facilities and

062transportation. I think the construction >> Construction update. Dave, which Dave wants to go first? You did. All right. >> Dave will give you an update on phase one and phase two. High school. We had a transport We had a transportation and facilities meeting yesterday. So, we shared a lot of this Kentucky starting? The speaker always turns on when I start speaking. Yeah, I'm done. I'm ready to talk. All right, so this is the what's going on this month, I guess. Got the little curtains again but um This is the auditorium currently. We finally got the dance floor done off the upper seating areas and um uh they're currently working on drywall. Mostly HVAC rough in is done. Uh uh all the duct work is pretty much in place. Right now, it's mainly electricians, painters, uh

063and uh uh we got some other finishings going on. The stage people are doing here next week to start the rigging up on the stage, all the heavy heavy iron work. Uh and then they're going to once the electrician gets done in front of the stage, we'll get the rest of that ceiling painted and then the stage people will proceed with that. The seating supplier came out and measured up for all the seating. Uh so, that's in in progress. I believe we're going to expect the seating somewhere around in August, latter part of August for the seating. And then this here is our uh auditorium lobby. We got all the framing in for the ceiling. We still have some electrical work to do in here. Uh we're going to We didn't provide for any monitors

064in here. So, we're going to go ahead and throw in some rough in on either side of this entrance entrance on this bulkhead. So, if you guys decide later on that you want to put monitors in there, at least we'll have the electrical and data network stuff in there. And these are the restrooms. Restrooms have been kind of they were a little bit ahead of the game. So, they've been kind of sitting waiting for everything else to kind of catch up. Uh so, at some point in time here in the near future, we'll probably start getting the grid in for the ceilings and so forth. And Dave, can you uh move around in that bulkhead if we had to? Uh you're going to have to cut a hole in it to get in there. Okay.

065Uh these are our lockers. We're having a little bit of a hangup with the locker manufacturer. We had to order some additional materials because the benches didn't come in at the proper sizes. We had some some installation issues. So, we're expecting that that material here this Friday. And the contractor is going to go ahead and proceed with trying to get the locker rooms finished up. Once they do that, then we can kind of finalize the first floor of the gymnasium area. Hopefully that'll occur here in the next next two weeks or so. Uh this is just the the gym again, the old gym, new gym. We're getting ready uh uh to start the roof on the existing gym skylight replacement so forth. That'll hopefully happen in about a month or so. Uh in the new

066gym, we're pretty much done. They got a couple couple wall pads to take care of and some some of the infills on the seating around the columns. Uh we're waiting for those to come in so we can finish up up on the upper level of the bleachers there. And we finally the weather finally broke, we were able to get some paving done. So, we're starting to get out of the mud. Uh so, we got the obviously it's the lower entrance road. We got the stadium lot in. Uh we got site lighting going in. This is just a binder course, we still have to come back and put the final wearing course in. Uh we've been been proceeding with sidewalks all around the building. That's currently ongoing and site lighting's currently ongoing around the building. Today,

067we paved a portion of the we call it the ring road that goes around the back where phase two will be. They got about half of that paved today. So, it's coming along there that that you know, we'll be able to get access to phase two for the phase two contractors that think dragging mud everywhere out on the street. And then this is over at the auditorium the retaining wall that you guys approved last month that that's kind of what it looks like in construction there. Uh we finished capping capping the top off today. I've got a little bit of backfilling dressing up. And also we have uh the curbs and sidewalks around the auditorium we're we're proceeding right now. We're going to start wrapping our way around the front entrance of the auditorium and

068start heading down along the uh bus drive driveway there across the front of the building. And this is your your band and choral areas uh they're basically waiting uh for everything else to catch up so we can put the ceiling tiles in and and start flooring finishes. Most uh everything's painted. We got got some a lot of finishes to do but uh we don't want to get get the finishes in there and then have to maintain them here at this point. And they're waiting on the roll-up door for the for the opening there on your right to show up. Those are we had some issues with some paint colors. They weren't making the paint color that we originally approved so that that got resolved here recently. And that's the the entrance. They got all the

069cornice framing done. Uh we're trying to get the metal guys in here to start putting up all the sheet metal on the corners and and start capping capping uh the roof coping and so on and so forth. Our storefronts uh they finished up yesterday with the with the aluminum and the glass. Uh so we have all the storefront so windows. And this is the weight room. Uh hopefully we're going to coordinate here with the school and and start moving uh the weights out of existing room into the new portion of new weight room uh so that we can uh use existing room for storage for some upcoming work in phase two. And this is the finishing up with the framing uh we call it the knuckle. Uh again all that framing should be done now

070and uh it's a metal guy's turn to start finishing up the front. The front should start coming together here in the next month. The four to six weeks I think you'll see a good amount of progress in there. But you know that. I think it's a And and I we talked yesterday a little bit about timeframe. We're still I've been looking at October. I know we were worried about pushing that back with some On in the auditorium? Yeah, I mean the one good thing originally uh the stage contract Pittsburgh stage wasn't supposed to come in until June. But he had an open slot. So he's actually coming in a little bit early. I'm not guaranteeing you that's going to get us early. You know how that goes. Uh but yeah, it's uh it's it's coming

071up. We're hoping to hold that date for sure. And I know we were talking about some of the hold-ups. We were talking about six weeks when we had to do some some of those changes but we're Yeah, yeah. I mean all in all because we got it resolved it I don't think it had any real effect on on the progress inside. Uh phase two uh we got the pool tarped over. Uh the plumber's working on utility reroutes on the exterior plus he's working on the tunnel piping in the pool underneath the pool cuz we had to reroute all that piping cuz it went through the new addition. And then the the general contractor started working on window demolition. Uh we expect the mason to here shortly to start doing the window infills. And hopefully here

072foundations will start in the next few weeks. Uh we and just really quickly want to talk about band and chorus rooms. Dave McClain and I met with Pittsburgh Stage, Graham Audio, uh folks from Musical uh and as you know Aaron Hughes chorus will have a room in the back and Chris Thomas whose band uh just kind of went through some of the the details and talked about a couple things that we might have to do before we kind of walk up the walls we're going to run data to a couple places and things like that. Yeah, we came away with a couple added uh uh camera locations and some data outlets and you know something like that. We just want to make sure everything's behind the walls we have that stuff in place so we

073can have them options afterwards. So thank you. With the with the locker rooms situation additional materials that we had to order is that just like nominal is that on the vendor are they sending it? Yeah, they're sending it. The locker manufacturer is sending So that's that's not an price that or or cost that we have to incur. That was all in that. And the mechanical unit over the gymnasium has that been resolved? Yeah, we had through the manufacturer's rep rep was out there I believe it was last Friday. He looked at it. He found an issue with uh uh a couple replacement parts that they're sending. There was some damage in shipping to the sheet metal around the unit. I requested that uh Legally our HVAC contractor get them back out here and make sure

074that it's sealed to the manufacturer's recommendations or or any uh replacement metal be provided in order that it it comes at as an undamaged situation basically that it's done by the manufacturer not just trying to get some some silicone up there to seal up an opening or something it was big. Is it open today? Yeah, that's actually a day that I can think. So for the day um as we begin to finalize these other entrances maybe me you Jamie and some of the other subcommittee for public safety we could talk about additional Knox boxes and police access. >> Yeah, we had worked out with Zach previously to have a Knox box up at the main entrance new main entrance and one back at the parent drop-off loop cuz I we had the fire chief up

075there and I don't remember one of your guys from your department was up there as well. As we continue to expand this we may get into a four locations. Yeah, right. Probably in phase two you'll probably need some seconds mean you know can be a big difference. And then kind of like a Keith and Dave thing um you know just kind of like cross over here but nonetheless important in this this this setting. Our school zone currently at the high school and this is something that Mr. Orr helped me with extensively when we got the electronic signs at the schools. Our school zone for the high school right now is only on Wigle Tail Road. So it's essentially from the exit to the old soccer field baseball field which is now filled in dirt and

076then it ends just just beyond the gate of the the main entrance exit. So I think the district needs to partner with I think that's a county county road to pass the state road. We need to partner and I think we really need to get that school zone expanded all the way down to the exits to these regardless of my feeling on the recreation fields so personally um and and I think it's something we should consider because the other day I was just doing some stuff during the daylight and I noticed the traffic coming by that's going to be definitely an exit and ingress egress for cars and just not for events but for students now that the bus garage is gone and I I think it's something that we need to look at. Um

077not only for school zone but like maybe an additional set of signs. And it's a period of statement. That's a statement. Yeah, 48 state road so school zones on state roads. accomplish that. Yeah, you should be able to accomplish that. Cuz I think that that exit would be getting used quite a bit especially by kids. Yeah. 48 by the action down by that new entrance. Route 48 is a county road. State road. It's a state road. Yeah, state road. Yeah. We have no control over it. The state has absolutely total control over that road. Yeah, but you should be able to get I've seen restrictions on state Yeah. We don't have a say. No, you don't have a say. You know we're responsible for it because we are not. Right. We can ask PennDOT for

078it. PennDOT can say yes or no or we'll do a study. Yeah. There is one of these down at any high school. Yeah, there is. I made my note to something that talked about extending the one on Wigle Tail and then we'll look at the 48. Just saying that there wasn't students going in and out of that area. >> Yeah, I mean previously yes. There's been a design change. And I think the signs were with the district and I And we're going to probably approach two things an expansion of a campus uh closing of others. Do we want to move signs and do we want to upgrade? And and that's like a municipality uh district you know they have collaboration committees now with some municipalities so you know besides the alert on and and all

079the other stuff I think it's something we should talk about. I caught the tail end of your commissioners' comments last night about wanting four plans for a building for the fire department. Yes, uh one of the one of the things I talked about that meeting is just that um before we go ahead and button up to Mr. Novesel's point before we go button up these ceilings and closing in the um fire suppression systems just giving the fire chiefs from all the local municipa- I'm sorry the local fire stations like a look at what do these new sprinkler systems look like? Um how they how they energize? What's the difference in the standpipe system that previously existed to Mr. Novesel's thing. Well, we got to make sure we stick to the agenda. We can have that

080conversation a little bit later but I just want to make sure everything's Thank you. Appreciate the information. It's not that it's not important. Okay. Dave McClain. All right. Thanks again for the opportunity. For the board this could be your board talk. And this is the phase one um contract summary and um for for this uh month front of you we've got one change order. It's it's general contractor change order GC 18 and you had looked at it before. We've looked at it for quite a while. The Limestone rock drilling where the contractor made the case that the underground conditions were more challenging than than they would have assumed from the geotechnical reports. So this began quite a while ago and we saw estimates go from 77,000 to more recently. I think we had a $37,000

081amount. Today the general contractor submitted a proposal to close out the issue and and make that payment this $22,220 which we are recommending. I mean there was a lot of scientific analysis of of what happened and quite a bit of negotiation and and you know you're at you're at like a small portion of what the original demand was from the from the contractor. So there was a lot of cooperation in that. So we're recommending payment of that change order GC 18 and I believe we sent a copy of that for your review we don't have any other change orders this month for any of the other primes on phase one and and percentages of completion are at the very bottom here and you can see we're getting to where we're entering the average of 90%

082complete 90 low 90s in percentage of completion. Still a good bit of tedious things for contractors to do a lot of punch list work a lot of final clean up a lot of revisiting rooms where there's few small items to be taken care of but in general phase one is is moving along you know like we talked about the auditorium being available in October. So things are are in respectable in terms of schedule. So if we are to approve that new change order for the 22,220 then our combined approved and pending change orders brings us down to remaining contingency of 1.896 million. We've used 37% of our contingency to date and then the percentage of all change orders compared to the budget on the project is under 2% at 1.85%. So that's the summary for

083phase one. Can we go back to Can we go up to those those ones in blue? Yes. We had a transportation facility transportation facilities meeting yesterday. And there was a couple of those we just want to talk about and somebody reminded me that they're not allowed to ask questions but I am so I promised this person that I would ask you. Wait. If you could talk to us a little bit about that ASI 28 >> 28 yes. What that all includes and so forth and then also the one down at the bottom of the 60,000. Right. Okay yeah ASI 28 was a was a site civil engineer site revisions that added a significant amount of paving sidewalks storm water work to the project and what we did is as we developed a good bit of

084the cost of that was was for that um the back end of the site where the bus parking area will be. So that was a significant piece of that. As that estimate grew by by all of the items that were in the ASI was when we decided to take both ASI 21 and portions of ASI 28 that have to do with the immediate environment of the high school building. So added sidewalks up here we let the from from the ASI 28 the parts that were not the bus garage part but near the building sidewalks around the building paving around the building. So that between the retaining wall and that small portion of the ASI 28 came in to be that change order from last month of that 229,800. So at this point we're still holding

085that $300,000 amount for the bus garage area and there is consideration for with the scope of the work there. There's a there's some thought to are we better to bid that out and get competitive bidding on it. That way we know what our numbers are competitively and we always would still have the option to do it as a change order because by definition it's in the same type and framework of work that we're doing on the site. So I think that we may consider bidding that separately which in technically would come off of this contract sheet and be a separate freestanding contract. And the purpose of that would be to get make sure we have competitive numbers just to to you know root out the the best number we can get on that. And then

086these two here we're still looking to make them hopefully even go away. We're working with the general contractor to understand our position on these for 54 and 58 and then PCO 61 is a credit of $60,000 that in the phase one contract we had a prescribed allowance for all bidders at that time for the softball field fencing and the backstop and offset the cost of those to carry some of that into the contract. As we developed the phase two drawings we had better details of exactly how the backstops and the fencing and the bases and all that was going to work there. So we put that into the phase two contract and now have available the district has available to itself to take this $60,000 credit back. So we wanted to bring that here. We

087got a a deduct proposal from the contractor for it and I know the timing is important because we have that separate fencing bid that that came in to offset a you know a pretty significant portion of that by taking that number. So that's the phase one summary at this point. Are there any questions? Just really quickly Dave and I talked about just a couple of other change orders up there actually some credits because I'm always interested in credits. If you guys remember we had our two 12 foot signs on the side of the building that we decided against and then we decided on taking one 10 foot sign and putting it on the stadium. So there will be some type of deduct for that. That's right. The other deduct that I wanted to talk about

088was and it's related to the fencing. Rycon in part of their base bid part of that bid for the work that they were doing had some portion of that fencing as a replacement for some work they had to do under the fence. That's right. Yeah. So what we're going to do is as we're talking about this bid we're going to try to get through it next week know what that credit will be from Rycon so then you'll know what this fence minus that that part will be to get the real actual cost of this fence. That's correct and the hope is that between those two numbers your your your bid number for the fencing should be you know between the 60 and the and the fencing credit. So and the fencing credit we just don't

089have from them yet. So So this is then the phase two summary. What's the remaining contingency? Can you go back to that right now please? All the way down to the bottom there. Yeah I think it's What is the remaining contingency? If we go that it's on the second page there we go. Yeah yeah one 1,896,871.53. >> Okay so you have 1,919. Yeah that up here you do yes at the top. Yeah there's two comparisons. Here is what you've approved already. So that's as of last month we had official approval of change orders. That's what was remaining was that 191. If we do the 22,220 then that brings us in as that that pending change order and brings us into there. Okay my bottom number is still one. On the yeah is that a um

090There's a there's a another attachment for that. No and I think that what you have is is this that that that $22,000 change order came in literally this morning. So we had sent Yeah we had sent the up that sheet out last night but then today we got a new one. The one in board docs is the one I received from you yesterday. Yes. And that's the one we put in board docs so it would be available by you guys. The one that you see up there is because today we got the $22,000 and she gave a jump drive to Allison. So that's why the difference is. So it's just this is this is up to date with that $22,000 piece of Yeah so mathematically the difference that you see there is that 20 yeah

091that current change order we're asking you to approve plugged into this number. Dave what's that number? That you will be Oh yeah the remaining contingency number is 1,896,871.53. And we'll make this new one. Yeah. Hey real quick you want So that 60,000 field fencing that's not related to the stadium fencing. Not at all at all at all. No that's not. That is not. Yeah what it is it's similar work and we were going to cash that out eventually anyway because when we put it into phase two we knew that all contractors who bid the job carried that same 60. So it's it's the district's money to take at you know whatever time they want. So we thought offset the fencing we'd bring that in. So the GC sent an actual proposal to to get that

092back. So um Yeah so now on on phase two, we're just getting started. Nice clean sheet here, but um we have each of the uh the five prime contractors in here with their uh awarded amounts. And on uh the GC for this month, we have a credit proposal of $41,698.68 for foundation revisions. Um Dave can address any detail questions um uh better than I, but essentially after doing the over excavation there and review with the geotechnical engineers and the structural engineer, um the uh revised foundation approach they're taking reduces the amount of lean concrete, which is a like a liquid concrete that gets placed in under the footings. We owned a significant amount of that in the contract um because of how they were achieving bearing for the for the building. Once they looked at

093everything that they had and were able to revise the nature of the excavation under the basement, they then equalize all the foundations to the same type of bearing um and in doing that, they eliminate a significant amount of that lean concrete infill and they also eliminated eight locations where we had pilings and a small grade beam to straddle what were old and abandoned utility routes that went under the building. Now with the the uh updated foundation approach, those eight eight eight special foundation uh in the uh locations are no no longer necessary. So, that's the the structural detail of it, but recommending that we take that credit for that 41,000 um $698. And then this is a one-pager because it's so you know, the project's so new, but if there's our initial snapshot of all

094things as awarded. Um contingency at 1.475 million. If we take this, obviously it's a credit, we actually improve our contingency because we've we've realized this a credit. So, that's uh that's the phase two. And then you can see on the you'll see each month we'll update this, but we have this is based on only the initial the first month uh payment uh requests that were received by each of the five primes and they are just doing their mobilization, their bond costs, permit costs, shop drawings. So, they're at these beginning percentages as far as completion goes. So, that's the phase two summary. Do you have any questions? Just on the first um phase in terms of the contingency that's remaining and just in terms of percentage-wise, I mean, where are we industry standard in terms of

095spending our contingency on a project of this size? I mean, I don't know if there's any industry standard in terms of how how Is this on average or is this better than average or just just curious? It's definitely better than average, especially considering it's a renovation. Cuz renovation, we always carry 5% whether it's renovation or new construction. And often you'll see renovation projects where you use all of your contingency or go over because open up a wall and and unforeseen conditions. It's a little more predictable in new construction. So, if you do a five with new construction, you hope to come away with with you know, leftover dollars there. On a renovation, high school renovation, multi-prime, um it's it's very very um a solid look situation for you to be in to be under two

096when you're at 95 and 97% complete. The hope being that there's no big ones laying out there. And as we come to grips with some of the site stuff and say, "Hey, we're going to rebid that bus site." Right, we we you know, getting a pretty reliable snapshot of coming away with these dollars that then are the district's to use for anything. You know, whatever whatever um they would offset it with. >> there'd be at least a million dollars left out of that? I I you know, you're not supposed to predict anything, especially at a public meeting, but I would say you're in very good very good position for that. Yeah. for the for the bus Is it possible that that cost could be higher because of the cost of oil and the cost of

097everything? So, if we if the if the bids come in more higher than that 300,000, we don't have to accept any of them, we go with that. That that Well, yeah, this is just an estimate. The estimate that we're carrying at the 300, but but you're right. You would you would normally you'd compare your your change order proposal to a bid number. Right on, plus an additional 5% markup. Yeah, I just I just wonder what it's what what our Well, but it's been Yeah, it's like I don't know if it's 15 an hour, man. I don't even know what the cost of the asphalt would be. Imagine it's a Yeah, it's volatile right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're all trying to get the paving much paving in, you know. >> Right. Yeah. Oil and

098ducts and you're doing the the asphalting, but the new asphalt plant so you know what the version the most current version of that None of us have this availability of it right now. Right. Okay, cuz I'm looking at one that says 4826. And then there's one that says revise. The word revise in It's probably the one that should REV1, revision one. And like we said, we got that change order this morning. So, we I hate to do that, but we had to because Revision one is the the one the up-to-date one? Mhm. the one with that Phase one one has a revision one on it. Because I You walk out, walk back here. Well, I have the I found the time exactly. And then yeah. Um Al, so you make a motion? >> I'm not

099understanding that if it's a deduct, why are remaining contingency The deduct is on phase on phase two is is the deduct. So, on phase one, the 22,000 is an add is an is an add change order. So, on the phase one document is where if you look at the top left corner, there would be REV1 on page one. I think some of the issues we have here is a lot of times the the deducts are in red. Right. So, that's That's That's 60,000 in parentheses. Yeah, we brought this whole thing in red just to pop it out, but you're right. You're right, that >> All the deducts are red and that one is not a deduct. Right. >> But it's in red. Yeah. And and that's true. That's really true. And then the parentheses are

100what what what mathematically kicks it in as a deduct like in Excel. So, we brought it in in uh red just because that's the column that it's in, but yeah, definitely could be a cleaner way to do that. That is our actual cost for that change order. That's a that's a cost. Yeah, that's 60. We haven't moved that over yet. Okay, that's new. That's right. The 60 is just an estimate. If if what I'm hearing next month, we would bring that 60 over and cash cash that out. Anything else for Mr. McClain or Mr. Basile? Thank you, gentlemen. And also kudos to the the animation on the on the presentation from Mr. Basile and the drawings for the auditorium. I much appreciate it. I'm always so bad. I don't know why everybody's so amazed that

101you do that. All right. Uh yeah. I'm done, Al. Okay, uh 7.2 is standard item. It's the uh approval of any additions of operators or um monitors, additions or deletions for our STA bus contractor. Then going down to 7.4, it is to approve the high school stadium fence. Um we actually went out to bid on that. I could put this on one of my sheets. On March 18th at 2:00, um so we got three contractors that responded to this. It was a public bid. The bids were received in time. They were sealed, stamped. And the three contractors were Red Rock Fence, Ameripride, and FYE Fencing. The winner, Ameripride, came in at 76,300. The other two companies, FYE Fencing, was 111,340 and Red Rock Fence was 110,560. So, Ameripride won. From what I'm hearing, that's pretty

102standard when they're bidding. Um they normally do come in substantially lower and they do good work. So, >> And Mr. Valen at our facilities meeting has done work with them. He's he's happy with their work for them. And as um was discussed here, we're waiting for to find out what the credit is from Rykon because they own part of that. 7.5 is to approve the purchase of Seco choral risers. Uh these risers are identical to the ones that we're using at the middle school. Those were covered by our file proceeds, but we had no need to use them because the middle school auditorium is now the high school auditorium for the time being. So, they're there. Well, now we need the uh risers for the high school. The cost is 35,810. That's for eight of

103them. And that is Co-Stars pricing. No, that is not Co-Stars pricing. What was that? You what? I don't know. I'm trying to shut this thing off. Um it's actually Sourcewell. It's a Sourcewell contract. And that pricing is actually less than what Co-Stars was. Any questions? Um 7.6 approve the purchase of music furnishings. These are stands, chairs, um stands for the instruments, and then also acoustic panels that are needed for choral because the room's so big to deaden some of the sound. And that pricing came in through Omni Partners. It's through Wang Winger Corporation, 67,793. And they're on attachments in your agenda if you see that. Why Just a question. Why wouldn't that be included as part of the insurance claim? Did we lose equipment in that or did we lose those types of or anything?

104So, I have to tell you the truth. I don't know the answer to that. I was actually trying to look at that while we were sitting in this meeting. That should have been covered through the insurance and paid for because they were items that were there as part of the band music and all that. I just honestly don't remember the details. Okay. And then Some of those did not get They were They were remediated. I know that some of the music stands and things like that, those were remediated through process. Okay. So, so some of the stands and some of the chairs are still there. They're not obviously They're not questioning the need for you. I was just asking. We can check to see if we either paid out for those or if they just

105need a cleaning. I I actually was interested in that myself. And 7.7, this is the electronic. This one was tabled last week. We need to bring that back and go through those process legally. And again, guys, we're just looking for guidance. If this is not the option that the board chooses, we're happy to go in a different direction. I can have Mr. Toth come up with some alternatives, uh some pricing for you as well before the meeting next week. So I I would actually like to make a comment about this. This may not be very well received, but I obviously I'm in favor of doing something because I believe that all the investment that we made with our district and the uh the entrance with with the making this information available, I'm I'm in favor

106of the original proposal by having all of the peripherals installed. Whatever everybody else's thoughts are on it, I understand it's expensive. Uh I also understand that, you know, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right, and we should do it now. My two cents. I don't know No, I I'm not not in favor of 7.7 as it's presented, but I would prefer 7.7 to be with the original quote that Mr. Toth and um Mr. Marco worked with. Is this Is this Would this come out of the general fund? Yeah. This would come out of the fund 39 as part of the owner provided items. It would fall under Our soft costs are 20% of the project. I believe 20 or 18% Dave. Mhm. Um We have room there. And our owner

107provided items are I'm I'm going to say significantly more than what we originally had projected, but this would be one of those items that would come out underneath that. So, this would be outside the gymnasium. Yeah. There's actually blue tape on the wall when you walk up there. We did that just to kind of so you can get a visual. Am I right? So, when you walk in the front doors, right in front of you it actually is the the side wall of the concession stand. The the the food service is on the left of the concession stand. That'll go back to the locker rooms. Straight in front of you is a big giant brick wall. It will be as high as we can go on that top wall without having it blocked with the

108uh with the lights cuz they have those panels and lights that hang And then the 7-ft screen that was a part of the original proposal that we talked about, the 7-ft screen would go between the two gymnasium doors. That's something where we could uh you know, I know Matt Matt Toth and the folks from uh New Line? Um they talked about the ability to you know, actually take the huddle cameras and put them up there so you could watch the game in the lobby. We know there's been a lot of people that eat out in the lobby. Uh we'd be able to do that. And then some of the things we talked about was uh just being able to communicate with the kids through these big screens and provide information to that. That That would

109be the 70 two? I don't remember that number. 72 was the original one for both screens. This one for the 44 is just the 15-ft screen. And then we would find some type of alternative for the other wall. Could be, you know, if we can get 100-in TVs and and pay for it like 15-ft diameter or 15-ft wide by 4 and 1/2 ft tall. And the blue tape at the high school on that wall would it would give you the general idea of it. I was I just wonder if it's it's more about a holistic conversation cuz we have we have this lobby and then we're going to have the auditorium lobby. And so, I think we need to have technology in both. I agree. So, that's exactly the thing. So, if we do this,

110I think we have to do it for the I agree. That's why I'm saying can we talk I'm not disagreeing I'm saying do it right. You're buying four screens or whatever. Like get Mr. Toth to kind of put together a schematic of what do our the auditoriums look like? What's Again, what's the brand experience we want to have people come in, whether or not we want to say that that this is our front door and we want people to come in and have wayfinding or want to make it easier for people to enjoy the space. Or if we want to rent out that space, that those those things could be used for a variety of things. So, I think my thought is looking at the entrances holistically and what is the plan for the entrance?

111And I'd love I'd love Dave's perspective on this from a design element. I What What What should we do? What's What's the right thing and what's the approach? Um He's He's looked at the auditorium. I think at this point what we did was add the rough-ins that would put them in the right spot cuz there's a nice vertical plane in that space. That's a unique space that lobby is. I I just think we The The auditorium lobby is very different than than the gymnasium lobby. There's much less wall space. >> That's great. Yeah, I yeah I just I'm I'm just looking at it more holistically as one big item. It's a purchase. We know Well, we want to make it right. We want to make sure the technology probably works is the same cuz we

112have people using They're going to have people inputting it. I just think looking at this as one item. That's just my That's how I look at I think it's a good idea to table it until the auditorium is prepared to have that type of And so We have the rough-ins. Yeah, we're we're planning on doing the rough-ins. And we have the rough-ins for the stuff. We knew we were going to have some type of screen in the auditorium space. Or I'm sorry, the gymnasium space. So, the rough-ins are there. Yeah, the locations I'm I'm finding a way What I don't want to do is I don't want to come up short. I know I don't know what I'm not I'm not I don't believe if you if you go to whoever's been in the auditorium

113lobby lately, you'll see the difference. The screen that we would that that they have put rough-ins for will be much smaller um just because of the makeup of that lobby. And perhaps just have a grasp on what 100% completion of the project is. Who knows what else is foreseen. We also have a phase two with a lot of gingerbread and bells and whistles. Um this is something I mean, I personally haven't seen it in any high schools or even colleges. Um I I I Some of the descriptions of what you talked about utilizing it for, you would need an iPad. So, there's iPads. And again, we talked about doubling the project and doing the same for the arts wing as Yeah. as the uh athletic wing. So, I I just to approve something like this

114right now, like it's it's just opening a About And let us maybe maybe Let me talk to Matt and just get some options for the entire space, both spaces, and and come back with you know, maybe option A, B, and C that we can have a discussion again. And I guess I really just wanted to grasp what it introduced. It was alumni and and and I think let let me qualify because when we were in our committee meeting, they they both went into great detail with it which I'm you know, I'm obviously not going to be able to reiterate everything that they had mentioned, but I think that you know, we should have them come and re-explain things with the detail and the availability the information. I think we put it together for you guys.

115It's just educational what the purpose of this is. If those providers if those vendors can provide us with a video of a screen that's in operation so I have not seen cuz I think I've been seeing one in the I have. They actually have them at the IU. I've seen them at Point Park. I've seen it It's It's becoming more of a of a college thing. More of a Just in general. It just you know, having screens in in a in a lobby just for updating. I I just I think I agree. so many budget issues. And I think we have to raise taxes this year, right? Pardon me? We have to raise taxes this year? I do not have an answer on that yet until I get finished with the budget. I'm working extremely

116hard to try to keep things at bay. But I I can't I'm not going to say yes or no. My guess is probably a little bit. Uh Let Let us put together a packet. If I could get you know, I think the Pittsburgh into the new airport has it on steroids when you if anybody's on in new new airport it's bigger than this twice the size of this room. I know that's steroids but if we can get a video of what this might look like that might help you get that kind of visual I think. Let me somebody do the poll about that. I don't want to get off subject at 77 but the reason why I asked about the bulkhead you walk in there that's a big long bulkhead. There's not much room like

117there is in the uh in the in you're talking about the auditorium. So yeah. >> Okay. So I'm thinking before we go boarding up we only have wires here and here. And then correct me if I'm wrong you said we can't get in there. How about running wires in different places because that's a long bulkhead. I think something in the future we got these two little small TVs over here before the uh gymnasium we're going to have your own TV out there. Let's I I just want to say it before things are boarded up that's all. Yeah I think it's because of the the sunlight comes in through the windows. Oh and the okay and those locations are where the air plane on they're kind of shielded by the masonry up front so that the

118it didn't hit the monitor. >> Okay. And I and I think we were clear that like when you walked in the lobby too I think this is David We want to write it. We didn't want them as soon as you walk in the first thing you see is a big monitor. Right. Because you know it's I think it takes away from the space. I think we all kind of agreed on that. Putting them on the outside still gets you the information but it does that. So but we can look if there's any any we know we talked about this with the band and of course folks musical. If there's any kind of wires we need to look at. Thank you. All right moving on uh we have section 12 policy. Dr. Sheski or Dr. Perry.

119Yeah so policy 209.2 is a brand new policy by PSBA diabetes management. You know we mentioned it last month with the approval of the other uh medical uh policy and uh this is a brand new policy related to diabetes. So we're asking the board you know first reading of this. It is identical like I I didn't tweak it you know I pull with the policies. I didn't tweak it at all. It is identical to the recommendations of PSBA. Dr. Perry do you want to take 12.2? Homelessness. >> Uh I've got this one. Um So I I I think I think Mr. Conick explained the last time yeah about that homeless uh the audit process process and one of the things that they said to us was that we needed to update our homeless policy. So

120um PSBA has a policy that was very comprehensive and touched had the touch points of everything that needed to be mentioned in the audit. It's the requirements of the audit. Audit. Yes. Yeah. Last one? Yeah we're retiring some policies last month board approved uh searches and I think I told you that there was actually three previous policies related to searches and we're asking the board to retire these other policies. All right. What I have is can I have any any other information on the agenda? Thank you everybody coming. Thanks everybody have a good night. Thank you.