001meeting for May 5th. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. Mr. Borthwick here. Mr. Casey. Mrs. Chzik present. Miss Fox present. Mr. McCander present. Miss Merkel here. Miss Trisle present. Mrs. Yanni present. Mr. Holmes present. Eight present. One absent. I will now turn it over to the education community chair. Okay. Yes. Thank you. We are going to start with um number one. school. Give that to Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you, Director Fox. Uh, just an up update. Uh, I I was fortunate enough this past week to attend a preschoolwide state convention with Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Griebeck. Uh, right now there are no
002updates at the federal level. Everything is status quo, but I am proud to announce that as of today, we will have three preschool classes next year within the school district. one at Charles Sumner, one at McNichols Plaza, and one at John Adams School. Uh there will be 17 kids in each of those schools. In the next couple days, uh we will have on our website the procedure for registration to go to these schools. This is a great thing and I and I want to thank the entire school board led by director President Mr. homes for allowing us to bring something back to the district which is well needed and I think it will benefit the uh the kids that need it the most within the school district and with under Dr. Kading's leadership. This is
003just the beginning. We plan on adding more more classes as the years come forward but this is a great uh day for the Scranton School District and I want to congratulate the board on allowing this initiative to go through. Can I ask you a question? Yes, director. Will that be through Head Start or will Yes, these three classrooms will be through Head Start and any updates as I will inform the board if there are other classes that become available. Thank you for the clarification. Do you see that as a a strong possibility? I I would hope so. We are working Dr. Keading is working tirelessly on this effort and we are w working with uh people in the community to bring more classes. But we are we definitely have three and we're hopeful to have
004more, but we never count our eggs before they're hatched. I got you. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that information. Thank you, Director Fox. We will now move to curriculum updates, good evening. I never know how close to get to these things. Well, we've had a lot of curriculum updates this year and I'm really thankful to the work that the teachers did in updating the curriculum. Uh the ones that you have in front of you this evening are social studies and preschool. And coming to you next month or this month for June approval will be the music and the middle school art. And I'm going to hand it over to Katona to give you some updates on science. Does anyone have any questions about the music and the art? Okay. They will be coming to
005you in your packets this month and hopefully with a motion to approve in June. Thanks. Good evening. So, in the agenda tonight, you have the K through8 steels curriculum for approval. Uh next month, you'll have the 9 through 12 as we finalize on our last professional development day. Some fine-tuning to those curriculums. We've also rolled out the steels pilot for grades K8. I have about 35 teachers across uh 13 of the buildings in the district uh demoing out some of those units so that we can get feedback on ways that we can improve the roll out for next school year. So I'll be working um at the end of this school year through the summer with making sure that we order all the supplies, kits, and materials that the teachers need as well as organizing
006some future training for them as well. That's pretty much it that I have. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Go to the science of reading. Dr. Mick, I'm really excited about this. Um, the science of reading is a state mandate and we have been working really hard to plan and implement a very thoughtful professional development for our school district. This has to be um embraced districtwide. So this year we began with our elementary uh educators. So K through four were given opportunities to participate in for pay. They were paid to attend after school trainings for the science of reading. The teachers that still have to complete that will have that opportunity during our professional development day May 20th. Uh we're really excited about planning the next phase in training for our secondary educators. And what
007that will look like is our middle school and high school uh teachers will be provided an opportunity to have the same training our elementary teachers had. But based on the survey, we we surveyed our teachers and we asked what are they looking for, where do they feel they're strong, and where do they feel there's a need. So based on their feedback, we are going to be doing the science of reading as well as some vocabulary instruction and research-based reading strategies for our secondary. In combination with that, this first phase uh opened our eyes to things that our teachers were wanting. So the professional development committee who meets to plan the PD during the year uh received feedback from teachers and from the survey that now teachers are asking after we gave them the framework of
008the science of reading they would like specific instruction on specific aspects of reading. So next year in combination with the secondary, we are going to be running very tailormade trainings for our elementary folks to build on what they're learning, what they've learned this year. So teachers will have an opportunity to log in and have um a very interactive conversation and learn about different areas where they are asking for more professional development to grow as a reading uh as a reading teacher. So, we have a lot of things going on um this year around the science of reading. And I I need to do a public service announcement here. We're able to do all this because of title 2 professional development funds. And if we lose that from the federal level, opportunities like this for very
009important and necessary trainings for our staff go away. Any questions? Okay, I'm going to hand it over to Burke Jennles now. Good evening everyone. Uh I just wanted to give you a testing update. We just concluded the PSSAs on Thursday. We're in the makeup phase and I want to just let you know we had a very successful online testing uh experience over the last week and a half. Everything went very very well. So we're very very proud of that. This week starts the AP exam testing and next week Monday we'll start the Keystone exam testing in algebra, literature and biology and intermediate level uh algebra. Then what happens is we have a date a data timetable that will take place during the first half of the summer. So in June the preliminary PSSA file will
010be released. In July, the Keystone file will be released. I will set up data and I will report it out to the principles. It will be preliminary. In the beginning of July, AP data will be released. But in the meantime, from the official scores from that time, from the preliminary report until the official PSSA and Keystone results will come in. Keystones will come in right before school starts. PSSA will come in halfway through the first quarter. The principles will have some kind of data for me to share with them. In between that time frame will be attribution windows, correction windows where some students that did belong to us will be attributed to us. Some students that didn't belong to us will be attributed to other schools. So, the principles will still have some information to
011work on over the course of the summer with their lead teachers. Um and then in November is when a boatload of final data comes out as far as our PES result future ready PA index and our building level scores on dual enrollment. We are working very hard. Our strategic plan committee is working on our goals to increase the number of dual enrollment courses, improve awareness, improve articulation agreements as part of our goal oriented pro uh process with the dual enrollment. And we are going to meet an end ofear meeting with the co local college reps on furthering expanding our dual enrollment opportunities at the end of this month. And pretty much that's it for me. I just I just want to say to all the teachers, principles, IT staff, admin, everybody who put time in
012getting the PSSAs together. I know it's a big lift and it's a stressful week. So, thanks everybody for what they do. We have a great staff. Um, you guys are the best. So, thank you. Yes. I I also want to thank Mr. Sum and his IT staff. They did a great job overseeing the online procedure. It was it was it was great. It really was. We just maybe a little hiccup here and there, but it's nothing that we didn't overcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll have gifted procedures from Mr. Net. Good evening everyone. Um the special ed department, we have a couple of highlights for you. Um, we have finished our gifted procedural uh book and it has been approved by the state. So, all we're left to do is start implementing
013it. So, our gifted procedures and guidelines are all up to par and they are then approved by the state. Special ed will be running a boot camp for new and emergency teachers. boot camp will be August 18th, 19th, and 20th. Um, we will be offering IEP writing, Ames, web training, special programs training, FBA, and positive behavior support plans just to uh mention a few. Um, we will also be running a boot camp for PAR professionals and PCAs. That will be August 25th and August 26th. And that's offered by the NEIU. We're working in conjunction with the NEIU. Um we will also be doing safe crisis management training which will be May 19th and 20th for some paras and per uh paras and PCAs and then August 20 20th and 21st will be for the other
014ones that we missed early intervention. We have now brought in registered 166 early intervention children with special needs. Um our kindergarten readiness that we have been doing across the district has also helped us ad identify about 20 more students that we did not get through um the IU or the agencies. Um, for this school year, we are looking to open six elementary autistic support classrooms, one center-based autistic support classroom, one elementary emotional support classroom, one ages 19 to 21 transitional life skills classrooms, and one high school autistic support classroom. We will be doing ESY this year again. It'll be July 7th, 2025 to July 24th. It'll run Monday through Thursday from 9 to 12. And as of right now, we have approximately 300 autistic life skills and emotional support class kids um enrolled in that
015program. Um we are going to have a couple of special activities. We have Champ, the real writers mascot. We have the therapeutic ponies coming down and the last week we have an ice cream truck. Uh parent support group. We have been running parent support groups throughout the school year starting in September. Uh we run them about an hour before your board meetings. Um we've had very poor attendance for our parent support groups, but we have taken all our presentations and things and they are now on our website. So parents can look at them at their perceived at their at their will. Anybody have any questions? And I think it's really important. You said 160 early intervention transition. Four years ago that number was in the 60s or the 70s. You're absolutely correct. So So that
016number is staggering compared to what it's been in the past. We have we have increased over the last four years about 20 kids 20 early intervention kids every year. last year. Well, actually it double because last year we only had a we only have 91 and we went up to 166 this year. And again, how many autistic support classrooms are we currently running? We currently have 20. And even opening the new classrooms that we have, right, six, six, sorry. even opening those classrooms, our autistic support classrooms will be pretty much maxed out across the district. And they do not include Montichello. No, that's not Mon. That is just classes that are in buildings. Yes. So, opening up I just I need opening up six autistic support classrooms takes six full classrooms because you need 28
017square 28 square foot per child for those full-time classrooms from expanding prek from doing other things because we need to have those classrooms for our exceptional children. So our numbers are growing exponentially especially in the world of autistic support. It is very important that we all focus in on that. How is that affecting our space needs? It's dramatically affecting our space needs. And one other thing you have to include when you have an autistic classroom that usually comes with PT services, OT services, speech services, social work services, and behavior people. So you not only have the classroom, but they also need a space to work in. And when you have multiple services like that, they can't always share the same room. Although we do rotate them pretty good. And just so everyone knows, this is
018not a Scranton specific issue. Ours is always intensified and on steroids because of our size, but I'll be at the superintendent's meeting on Wednesday. you're hearing it from the smaller districts, from everyone, just the dramatic increase um in early intervention transitions in the need for full-time classes for autistic support and emotional support. So, this will dramatically impact space in buildings every time we need a room for our exceptional students so that they can have the education that they need. So, I just I wanted I know I know it's a long meeting, but I needed to make sure that that was very clear to everyone. And Superintendent Keing, um are there any ideas we're tossing around to uh what the what does the future look like for the district to address um this issue at hand?
019Yeah, and I I've been on long-term and short-term plans with, you know, what what can we do to free up some space? Um right now, I' I've been on a road tour of a lot of different properties. I know I put that in my goals to you. Um to hopefully by the next time we're in a work session bring forward a formal a formal recommendation. Um but it's it's not it's not something people were planning for. And I think that's the big thing. Um I don't think anybody was sitting around going, "Oh, I'm going to need six more autistic classes for the 2526 school year." And that's six more classrooms where we're taking that classroom in an elementary school and and trying to create that area. And then on top of that, remember last year
020on the first day of school, we had 19 students who were ultimately classified as autistic um show up to our regular kindergarten classes. So that when Ann is saying that we may still have we we this six classes will get us kind of to where we need with a couple spots. It's not 19 spots if we had a year like we did last year. So, this is a very important issue to bring to your attention. Again, can I ask you Dr. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You sure? Ladies first. Um Dr. Kitty, Mr. O'Donnell, I I was encouraged when I heard that um there was participation in the parent support groups. So to hear, you know, Miss Janette say that it's gone down. Thoughts on how we can two different groups. Al has a parent group.
021Okay. that is everybody. It's global. ANS is just specifically a special group for special education children. Thoughts on how we can get that outreach to those parents. How we can get that? We've tried virtual, we've tried in person, we've tried food. Um, okay. Did your try food again and again? Because food is the food is a big thing. I I think with the parent support groups with ours, especially special ed, I think it's very difficult sometimes for parents to get out after hours because they have their kids and there's nobody to babysit. Maybe child care would be an option if we could work. That might be something to to think about. I don't know how we go about that, but Mr. O'Donnell is not having that problem. He is having full participation in his meetings.
022Correct, Mr. O'Donnell? Yes, we are. We have a great uh parent group. And what's even better than the parent group, we have a student advisory group. And actually, next Monday and Tuesday, we'll be having meetings. Uh, one with the parent group and one with the student advisory group. No offense, the student advisory group is much better to listen to the kids in the middle school and the high school. And they talk about some issues and things that they want to see. Uh, it's it's great. It's great to meet with them and have a lot them better than we do. Yes. Yes, I do. They get pizza. Yeah. Well, let's I was going to say, is it pizza? everybody think about that. That might work. So, Miss Janette, um, in response to something you said earlier
023that additionally with all these kids that are getting additional support going to classrooms, who is in charge overall of ensuring that we are allocating proper space in each classroom? For instance, if a kindergarten we're supposed to have space allocation every time we add an adult, that multiplies by two because we initially do it for a child. So, every time we had a ch adult, that's two. I've walked into some classrooms where I guarantee you that's not being taken into consideration. Who does that responsibility fall under? How do we ensure that we're not violating that? And what is the plan going forward to ensure that we don't end up on the wrong side of this with EMS, fire department or whatever zoning? Um this was brought up when we were um I believe at Robert Neil,
024one of the other schools where I specifically asked the fire marshall about this when we're adding the adults to the classrooms. What risk do we run of potentially violating safe space or violating fire code? So whose responsibility will that fall under? Well, the classrooms have to be walked by the department of education. So when we open up new rooms, there's actually our leaison will come out and work with an to make sure that everything is where it needs to be. That's at the beginning as it grows throughout the year because every time we move a special ed classroom or anytime we open a special ed classroom, I have to bring in Gina Giovenini from the state and she comes out with her little tape measure and she measures. So, as long as the room measures
02527.5 square foot per child, then she approves the room. As far as are you talking about the added PCAS and that in the class? talk about even regular in regular ed classes that we have additional I I I don't know that there's any regs as far as special ed goes for there's no space allocation for regular ed that's contrary to what we were told by the fire marshall that's why I'm concerned what was it two years ago when we that fire code would be different from PTE code okay but that's why I'm I'm concerned with fire code and screen I will not PD I will figure that out I'm worried about the safety here and that's something I think we've overlooked I want to make sure that we are in compliance but more importantly that
026we are providing that safety in case something happens. Again, our people have the ability to get out safely and we're not over stuffing these classrooms because I've walked by a couple and it was packed and there's no way you could safely evacuate adults and children out of those classrooms. I got it on my to-do list. Okay, if no one has further does anyone have further questions before we move along? Yes. Have we heard about any cuts in the special ed because of uh uh the Trump cuts? Nothing. Nothing solid. I haven't I haven't heard of anything. You know, they keep talking about different things, but I think until we actually get some evidence of it, we we have to go status quo. We could probably count on being less than more. Correct. I I don't
027see us getting any big increases in special ed. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. We will move on to um University of Virginia partnership for education update. Mr. Duker who was just coaching a little late game also. Um I was just going to say the board members I sent you the detailed agenda if you need that to follow along furtheration. Thank you. Did you win? Did you win? I left in the fifth inning. My son wasn't happy with me. We were winning. We were. So, yeah, I apologize for my attire. It's not something I typically wear to a board meeting, but I just stepped off the board. You're good. So, just a brief update on the University of Virginia program. I know we've been talking about this. Dr. Keading has discussed it for a
028little while. Uh, put some information in your packet as well. In March, we attended the Ignite program with the superintendent and the central office staff. Was a great program to really they call it Ignite because it kind of kicks off the program. Uh as we move forward, there's been some virtual trainings that myself and the central office as well as the superintendent has followed along with and then we're going to be attending the executive education um kickoff in July. Myself, six principles and some central office staff members as well. As part of this, we're conducting our school readiness assessments. Uh so far we've completed West Intermediate, uh Northeast Intermediate, and Neil Armstrong. This week we'll be doing Isaac Trip. Next week we'll be doing Francis Willard and then following up with South Intermediate as well.
029Those school readiness assessments are really important because at the end of them I give the principles a two-page summary of basically all the findings we had from different focus groups. We talk to teachers, we talk to students, we talk to union membership, we go through just some different things with each building principal and we identify some of the areas they're doing good and some areas for improvement. So, at the end of that, I give the principles a two-page document, and that document they're going to bring with them to the executive education program in July, and that will become the basis of their 90-day plans that they'll base for their systematic improvements moving forward. Really exciting program. Really thankful to PTE for letting us be part of this. Yes, this is really great information. Sorry for
030you rushing here for your two minutes, but we greatly appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move on to the middle school pull out instrumental music lessons. Miss Griebec, as a result of several meetings that Dr. Keading and I had with our music educators, some of the takeaways were a way to build and foster a love for music and start to rebuild our music program. So, beginning next year, we are going to be offering fifth grade pull out instrumental music lessons. And then the following year, uh, 2627, it'll be fifth grade and sixth grade. In your board packet last week, I gave you a rundown of we're also offering, um, after school if students are interested. And in addition to the contractual, uh, music offerings we offer
031during the day. um in a way to assess what students are interested in and to show them what's available. Uh we will be meeting to coordinate visits with the high school music students and the high school music teachers. They're going to go to the elementary schools and we're going to have an assembly and they'll show the fourth graders the instruments that are available, how to play them, and drum up some interest in who may want to play what. And then that will generate a a tenative list for the fall. So when students begin fifth grade, those music educators have a list of students that would be interested in um those pull out fifth grade opportunities. We're also going to uh eventually look to partner with one of the local providers and Ann and I need
032to do some research on that so that we could look for people to be able to rent instruments as well as get you some cost on some of the repairs that need to be done. Yeah, we're actually looking into that right now. Um, I have a lot of feedback from the music educators. Thank you for the the name. Uh, we're gathering information on who tunes pianos, who repairs instruments, getting some information from them to pass on to to our music educators. Many of the high school teachers have already had pianos tuned, but we still are investigating more uh research on who does what, so we can build that information in to provide to our teachers. Any questions? So, for for 2027 and beyond, are we looking at um the I know I know that's far
033off, but the possibility of year of year- round music for our middle schoolers. We would need to look at staffing at that time, too. So, essentially what this does is it gives us two years to start the lessons to see where we are in interest so that I have a better need of staffing needs to come back to you in that spring of 27 to say here's what we're going to need. It's a step toward building. Yeah. And um you know, one of the email correspondences that we had were that uh our our bands are growing to the point where we don't have enough room on buses for the kids who are showing interest and it's great to see that that interest is growing and that we're investing in it. So, thank you very much.
034Thank you. You know, just just to follow up on Director Borthwick's statements there, I I was just looking at that email that you sent us, Dr. meeting of April 29th regarding the marching band information. And I think you've indicated in there and our instructors have indicated that there may be a need for, you know, additional transportation if we want to take on more students in our marching bands and perhaps additional assistant directors. Um, you ask in that memo if we would want that on our March or our May work session. So, I'd like to recommend that we do have you add that information. It's funny, I actually just emailed today that recently the just this evening the two band directors to see if Friday they can meet with Anne Griebeck and I just to kind
035of get better numbers around some of those things because there were some percussion requests in there that I needed pricing on and stuff like that so I have more solid numbers. So I could definitely make sure Mrs. Ora that is on the work session for uh May. Yeah, I think that's great to hear that we have more than 48 students that are interested at both schools. So, I I think just as we look at our sports and arranging transportation for all the players on all of our sports teams, we need to make this a priority as well. So, I'm I'm looking forward to receiving that information. Keep working. Yes, I think this is really great and I agree. We need to even out where the the money goes in terms of extracurriculars and or in
036school um opportunities as well. So, I'm glad that we're having these conversations. Uh thank you for that. Uh next is partnership with Friendship House. Hello everyone. I just wanted to um talk to you a little bit about an exciting proposal that came in from Friendship House, one of our community partners to highlight May, which is mental health awareness month and to do that uh by partnering with our high school art program. So they have proposed that our art students create some artwork um to raise awareness about mental health and then they will display the students artwork in their new downtown center which if you haven't seen yet go and see. It's beautiful. The friendship house new um building downtown and then they'll choose one of the pieces of art and make that into some some
037t-shirts for their staff and for all of the students who participated. So, um, it was a little bit of a late proposal because it came right at the end of April, but they want to do it in May. So, I appreciate you, um, adding that to the agenda tonight. And does anyone have any questions on it? Just just I I think it's a fabulous idea. I was able to make it um on our first first Friday um to see some of our our high school students artwork down at city hall. So, I think this is along those same lines, but I I really like the idea. Great. And I I just want to say thank you to Friendship House for for coming up with the proposal and to our high school principles and art staff
038who are willing to partner with us. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And our final item at this time will be technology. Mr. Suma, I need to publically apologize Mr. Suma because leading up to the PSASAs, I was in his office three times a day going, "Are we ready? Are we ready? Are we ready? Are you sure we're ready? Are we ready?" Um, before I get to my item, I just want to again publicly thank my team. You're only as good as your team members are, and my guys did a phenomenal job of making sure that they could rest assure the concerns of the principles in all the buildings to make sure that the devices are ready for PSSAs. Uh, any of the kids that had issues during the time frame of the PSSAs,
039they were there quickly to change out devices or to address any concerns. So, from my standpoint, uh, I got a great team behind me. I am really appreciative for all the work that they did provide during the PSSA exams. Uh my item is just strictlyformational. Uh we've talked about the CIS evaluations, the student information system evaluations uh that I brought up a few times earlier. Uh we are conducting those evaluations right now. We had powers school echool plus in on Friday. We had skyward in today. Tomorrow we have infinite campus and synergy. and the committee has really been impressed with all the uh the uh new traits and new characteristics that these systems are providing. It's been a really eye- openening experience for everybody. That's all I got. As part of the evaluation, do we
040look at what uh other districts of similar size are using? Yeah, in fact, a lot of these partner with local schools as well. Uh Skyward today talked about their partnerships with the Wyoming Valley West. Uh Wyoming area, Pittston area, uh East School Plus has Walpack, Delaware Valley as their partners. Infinite Campus has North Pocono, Abington Heights, Forest City, um somebody else local that I can't think of off the top of my head. Synergy has Bethleam area. Uh Infinite Campus also partner partners with the school district of Philadelphia. Um they've got some you know a lot of these a lot of these vendors have a lot um they're more the nationally known vendors for the CIS uh programs. So we do have really a broad presentation of programs that are being used across the board. Thank
041you. Sure. Does anyone have any other questions? Okay. I'll turn this back over to President Holmes. Motion to adjurnn. Anybody need a break? No. Good. I call order board meeting from May 5th. Roll call. Sorry. Mr. Borthwick here. Mr. Casey. Mrs. Chzik present. Miss Fox present. Mr. McCander present. Miss Merkel here. Mr. Ley here. Mrs. Yanni present. Mr. Holmes present. Eight present. One absent. Motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second on the question. Roll call. Mr. Borthwick. Yes. Mrs. Chzik. Yes. Miss Fox. Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Lei? Yes. Mrs. Yiani? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Eight. Affirmative. Um, executive sessions were held on April 7th and this evening to discuss personnel litigation, real estate negotiations, and safety. At this time, I'd like to first and foremost welcome the new solicitor, Larry
042Moran. Um, please, Mr. Moran, floor is yours. Thank you, President Holmes. Uh, I'd just like to say uh thank you first and foremost to the board for the trust that you've reposed in me and in my law firm. I'm happy, excited, and proud to be here. Uh, I have a deep commitment to this Scrant school district. Um, I said this in my interview. Um, my grandfather, to whom I was particularly close, was president here before he started his long career of service in this community. Um, I'm happy to continue that. Um, I got hired just uh last month uh on a contract that began only four or five days ago, but um I've just been exceedingly grateful to to meet with your very very able administration a handful of times right now. Uh I can
043say that the matters that I've been involved in are almost exclusively personnel, litigation, real estate. So because of my duty of confidentiality and the fact that I'm not the holder of that privilege, the board is. I won't be commenting uh in detail at these public meetings about matters that I discuss with my client in executive session. Uh but uh if the public has any questions about any legal matter and I'm able to answer it uh with the permission of the board, I'd be happy to do so. Uh I think we are your partner in this community as much as anything else. uh and I have a commitment to transparency and I know that the board and the administration does as well too. Uh so we will always have an eye toward disclosure as opposed to
044non-disclosure. Uh but to continue just being general, I'm really only prepared to say thank you and uh I trust that we can work well together cooperatively for the betterment of this district and the community. Thank you, Dr. Katy. uh big pressure tonight because our two student reps are both very involved in student activities and could not be here tonight. So, I am going to try to do my best to fill in. Um so, thank you, President Holmes. Uh we are at that point of the year. I can't believe it's May. We're winding things down, but we are still very busy. Uh first, today I just want to let everyone know we did have a district-wide internet outage. Uh it was far outside of our control. It was not something that was internal in any way.
045Um it had nothing to do with the district, but we're on the way back to restoring that. Things are back up and hopefully everything will be running smooth. Um as we said tonight, we finished the PSSAs. I personally would like to thank students, teachers, principles, the IT staff, and everyone who was involved. Um because it is really a team effort to get these done. They are two very trying weeks in the education world, and everyone's patience and professionalism was greatly greatly appreciated. We started our AP exams today. AP exams always run the first week in May. So, here we are. So, good luck to all of our students who are taking the AP exams. Our Keystone exams, which starts the next round of state testing, begin on May 12th. Um, so you will be getting
046updates on those. Very important, the annual golf tournament is coming up on Thursday, June 26th. So, if anyone's interested in participating, the link to register is available on our website and our social media page. Please come out and support us. It is a very funfilled day. Um, today started teacher appreciation week. I'd like to take an opportunity to acknowledge all of our teachers and thank them for all that they do. Um, Harry Wong 101, the most impactful thing in a classroom is a teacher. I will stand by that for as long as I am in the education field and beyond because it is 100% true. Uh tomorrow starts nurses appreciation week. Uh these are folks that our buildings cannot exist without. Um when I was here in the past, I had the privilege of working
047with our nurses and overseeing them and I was shocked and awed at what they do on a regular basis. And I want to thank all of our nurses. May is mental health awareness month. It's also National Speech and Hearing Month. It is Asian-American Pacific Islander Month and Jewish Heritage Month. May is a busy month. I'd like to extend gratitude toward all of our mental health workers in the district. We can't exist without you. Um I'd like to thank all of our speech pathologists and our teachers of the hearing impaired. I'd also like to uh to give heartfelt appreciation to the Asian-American Pacific Islander community and the Jewish community who are part of the school district and the greater city of Scranton. Last Thursday was National School Principal Day. Um as somebody who served in the
048role of both an assistant principal, an elementary principal, and a high school principal, I can tell you that is not an easy job in any capacity, and we want to thank them for all that they do. I'd like to take a moment to congratulate West Scranton High School's Elena Lee. She was the recipient of $2,000 scholarship for the essay she wrote for the Stifle Public Finance National Fabric of Society essay competition. I'd also like to congratulate Scranton High student Josh Caro Espazito. Josh was selected as a finalist for the 2025 Congressional Art Competition sponsored by Congressman Rob Brushnahan. Some of our students will be attending the Holocaust Symposium tomorrow. This is an annual event and it's extremely important for our students to be able to attend to grasp the gravity and the seriousness of the
049events surrounding the Holocaust. Director Merkel is always an avid volunteer for this event and we are honored to be able to participate. We'd like to congratulate all of our sports seniors. Um there are a few senior nights left. Uh but for parents of seniors, this is a very emotional time as you're winding down into graduation. Um so congratulate to congratulations to all of our senior athletes. My next town hall will be held on Wednesday, May 14th. It is from 5 to 700 p.m. at McNichols Plaza in Southside. I'm very much looking forward to hosting this in-person event, speaking with parents and community members. there is an ability to submit questions and we're going to try to um be able to record the event um and then be able to post it for people to watch
050as well. Tonight is the Times Scholastic Superstar Ceremony. Zarina Mustaphina is the Scholastic Superstar from West Scranton High School. Three students from Scranton High School are there as well. Matthew Hill, Ivy Nerder, if I just killed your name, I'm sorry, and Declan Moran, our Declan, who's usually here. Um, Declan was also named the Scranton High IU Scholar of the Year. The West Scranton High School IU Scholar of the Year, is Valerie Ala. Tomorrow night, I have the honor of attending the IU Scholar event where I will be there to congratulate both of those individuals in person. From Scranton High School, I'm going to play the role of Declan. The prom is May 16th at the Hilton. The honor society ceremony will be held May 21st at 7 PM. Awards night is May 28th at 7
051PM. Scranton High hosted their top 30 lunchon for students and families. Congratulations to the top 30 at Scranton High. Neil Armstrong hosted a successful Title One family engagement night. Third graders at William Prescott had the opportunity to visit the Indra Loca Animal Sanctuary. They presented the sanctuary with a $50 donation as a way to help take care of the animals. Northeast Intermediate will host their honors night ceremony on Thursday, May 8th. From West Scranton, West Weston High School will host their senior scholar breakfast on May 9th, followed by the scholar ceremony. The prom will be held May 23rd at the Razin. Invader Awards are May or May 29th. West Grant Intermediate will host their honors night on May 14th. South Scranton Intermediate will host their honors night on May 28th. Sixth grade students in the
052Lambda House held an Earth Day cleanup at West Intermediate. Francis Willard celebrated Take Your Child to Work Day on Friday. And the Scranton Cyber Academy is hosting a flea market on Saturday, May 10th at Isaac Trip. Thank you all very very much. Thank you. I would say for the parents of seniors out there, it's getting very real right now. Is Dr. Sailor on? Wait, let me move this. Dr. Sailor, Dr. Sailor. Okay. Do you have anything? Okay. Yep. Yes, it has. We're We're in the middle of We're We've begun already. Do you have anything to share? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, PSBA. All right. So, on May 21st at 12 p.m., um there will be a building bridges webinar series one, agree and disagree better. Might be a good one. um safety and security
053board report webinar on May 28th and PSBA offer nominations are still underway. Um if anybody is interested uh nominate you can send um an application to the nomination committee no later than June 1st, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. That's it. Thank you. At this time, the board will welcome public comment. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to speak. Union officials will be allowed four and your time may not be passed on. When your time is up, we kindly ask that you finish your sentence and wrap it up. First speaker will be Lann. Good evening. Lan Heene, president, 32BJ Scranton chapter. Uh I came here tonight to talk about Operation Heroes. Uh it's a program that we've been using, but uh at your work session, I saw that you had some questions about it and I
054watch you at 3 in the morning when I get up. Tomorrow I won't have to watch because I'm here. But uh I noticed that you had questions about it and uh I wanted to share some insights from the committee. We were on a committee that included 21 employees from administrative, maintenance, teaching staff. It took six days and we all gave input via Google form at the end to to give what we thought of each program. We did this for each individual program and Operation Hero was the one that the the group picked. Uh initially we started out by discussing the district's needs. We examined the information provided by the companies that applied for the RFP and then we were we narrowed it down to choices to the top four I believe it was. Then we
055met with those companies. We heard what they had to say. Then we narrowed it down again to I think it was the top two companies and we brought them back and then we we just we had a lot of information in front of us. And we're not often given that opportunity to give our input. So this is what maintenance and teachers and everybody that was on the committee got together and thought was the best solution for this Granton school district. It provides not only work orders but asset inventory, preventative maintenance programs, event scheduling, and it's all in one easy to use platform. Uh based on my own experience with this, I put in a work order one morning at 5 to 6 and the plumber walked through the door at 20 after 6 to fix
056the problem I just put in. So it is working. You know, I can only speak to my own experience. But uh the program we had prior to this, which I won't I won't give the name because this goes out to everyone in the world and and they don't need me to say what company it was, but our prior company, I would try and log on and I was never recognized as a user. It just wouldn't let me in. And then when it did put me, I get in and maybe I get one work order done and then it bounce me out and say I wasn't recognized as a user. So it it just didn't function very well. Uh and I know you you want teachers to use keep calling your union. We want the teachers
057to use the system, but I'm thinking it might be a better option for them to email the custodian fors in the building supervisors so we can then go to the room and see what the problem is and decide if it's a problem we can do ourselves or do we have to bring somebody else in like the plumber or the maintenance or does the room, you know, does the room really need to be painted? That kind of thing. And then that's our job is building supervisors to kind of assess that. So, you know, that's one I'm not very good at this. That's uh one thing. But if you don't approve this, then we have no system to use. We have nothing because we no longer have that other program that didn't work anyway. And then if
058this goes away, we'll have nothing and we go back to the way things used to be. So if you want us to do our job and we want to do our jobs, you have to provide us with the tools to enable us to do the best job that we can do. And that's really all I have to say about that. We need the tools to do our job. I just I just have one question. Yes. I've love the feedback. It's a lot of Is there any cons to it? Anything you didn't like about it that maybe we can I have not really found anything that I didn't like about it so far. It's very easy to use. It's got a comment sess section so I can go back and forth with the tradesmen who came
059and maybe they said, "Well, we couldn't fix it today. We had to order parts and we're expecting the parts to come in tomorrow." And then I have that answer for the teacher. Okay. Or for for Mr. Coyle who who likes answers, you know what I mean? He likes answers. So, okay. And then that's all in there and I just have to really go to the work order. And the other thing is with the other program, I had to dig through it to find my work orders. This one I can't access the ones for West Grant High School. I really have no business knowing right what's going on here. I So I can't access theirs. So I don't have to but the old program I had to dig through all of that to get to my
060own. Okay. So I don't have to do that with this. So I don't really see a lot of cons so far with it. Okay. Well, that was very helpful. It's work. It's working really well. Okay. Thank you. In my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. I'm Van. I'm sorry. I was busker. Van Busker. Good evening, Superb. intended and school board members. West Scranton High School's production is coming up really soon. We earned the progress of Tech Week as we speak. We have our crew is downstairs painting our products. Our cast is working their hardest and their dearest. And the play date is May 16th at 7 PM and then May 17th at 2 PM and again at 7 PM at the Ritz Theater downtown. And we hope to see you guys come and support our
061lovely drama club department kids. They've been working very hard lately. I've been here every single night with them until 8:00 working with them and making sure that we put on a great production of The Wizard of Oz this year. So, we hope to see you guys come out to the Ritz Theater. It's $10 at the door. Thank you. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks for all you do, too. Thank you, Amanda. Could you please work with the central administration to ensure that they can we ensure that Sydney's constantly pumping this, putting it out? We want to make sure we're getting this out. So, Yes, we have it going through um Instagram right now. We have it going through our Facebook Facebook Facebook page on West Scranton High School department. So, I'm actually going to be sharing more every
062day. Perfect. Thank you. If I could just say really briefly, uh we don't usually get to be on this stage, but Amanda, when I was a senior in this high school, I was drama club president. So, um I was a cowpoke on this stage once before. So, um I really appreciate being here and um here are the great opportunities. Thank you. And I think we're also arranging transportation. Um now, are we doing that for students for anybody? How are we making that? Do a survey to see what students wanted it was working on that. Yeah, that would be great. And then down at the risk. Okay. Yeah. And I think that would help to get our students, you know, in the West Grant area, even in the Scranton area down to the play. So, that
063would be great if we could get that out to the students as well. Make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for April 7, 2025. So moved. Second. On the question. Roll call. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mrs. Chzik? Yes. Miss Fox? Yes. Mr. McCandrew? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. M. Tris Leki? Yes. Mrs. Yianni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Nine affirmative. Motion to approve the consent agenda. So move. Second. on the question. On the question, um just quickly in regards to the bill list, um we've had a full month of the electric buses. Um in terms of the monthly credit that we are supposed to get um how is that is that coming off of our bill? Are we getting a payment from the company? It's being applied as a credit against the bill and
064Miss Maloney is has created a share drive uh tracking sheet to show each month that that we receive it. Okay. Um, is that that I assume that at that point that's not shared with the board, right? That's just administration. Yeah, it's an internal working document. Correct. Yes. Roll call. Mrs. Chesik. Yes. Miss Fox. Yes. Mr. McCandrew? Yes. Mrs. Merkel? Yes. M. Trisleey? Yes. Mrs. Yianni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Nine. Affirmative. Now move on to Budget and finance. I think athletics actually. Sorry. Athletics. Sorry. Athletics. We have a motion to approve the purchase of band uniforms for for West Scranton and Scranton High School per the TIPS cooperative contract number 2310001. Purchases pending. Solicitor review of cooperative purchasing documents. The financial impact is $80,268.50. Um, did you want to speak
065to that at Mr. Levy? Um, no. Uh, just as we reviewed at the work session, um, and in the consent agenda, you inclusive of the consent agenda was a motion for a budget transfer. So, we the board did just authorize the funding of approximately $80,000 from our budgetary reserve into our student activities funds to uh to approve this or to fund this purchase. Um, again, this is a we feel this a very warranted purchase. Um some we've been hearing that some of the band uniforms could be over 10 to 15 years old. Um and again this is a tips cooperative per our per our policies in the in the in in business is we are allowed to use cooperative purchasing and tips is an authorized cooperative purchasing document. I have downloaded all the um the
066bidding documents that tips has conducted and we are piggybacking off them. So I will review with solicister Moran the compliance with the PA procurement and once we get that green light we'll issue the PO. Thank you. Second. I just need a second. I got it on the question. Did you I'm sorry I didn't hear. I just did it on the question. Roll call. Miss Fox. Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Sleki? Yes. Mrs. Yani? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. Nine affirmative. Budget and finance. Okay. So, we have a motion to approve the legal bills of attorney Noah Katz as independent counsel during uh the legal RFP respectfully submitted. I'll second on a question. Roll call. Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Miss Tris Leky? Yes.
067Miss Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Yes, Mrs. Chzik. Yes, Miss Fox. Yes, Mr. Holmes. Yes. Nine. Affirmative. Education. I'm sorry. We will have a motion to sorry, motion to approve collaboration with Friendship House in recognition of mental health awareness month. As part of the collaboration, Friendship House will display artwork by district students and will be featured on t-shirts and displayed at the Friendship House downtown location at Biden Street in Wyoming Avenue in Scranton. Second on the question. Roll call. Miss Merkel. Yes. Miss Leki? Yes. Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mrs. Chz? Yes. Miss Fox? Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes, Mr. Holmes. Yes. Nine. Affirmative. We will have a motion to approve special education settlement agreements following legal review and negotiations. Settlement summaries previously provided to the board for review.
0683013105HW. Second. Second. On the question. Roll call. M. Dlesky? Yes. Mrs. Yianni? No. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey, yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. McCander, yes. Miss Merkel, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. Eight. Affirmative. One negative. Motion passes. Operations. All right. We have E1. Motion to approve West Grant Intermediate School ceiling design fees to CH CHA for the design and construction of the West Intermediate uh gymnasium ceiling change order. Financial impact $2,892.83. 83. And the breakdown is total total change orders cost was $80,13181. Fe on construction administration was 3.61%. And the change order fee was 80. Well, you times that together and you get um $2,892.83. Second. On the question. Roll call. Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Mr. Casey, yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. McCannrew, yes. Miss Merkel, yes.
069Mleki, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. Nine. Affirmative. So, E2. I don't have an E2. I have E1 on both sides. That was my my bad. My typo. Sorry. Oh, I got it now. Never mind. I see it. All right. So, this would be the motion to change order. Okay. Um motion to approve change order for costs associated with work to remove the acusolay in the ceiling and provide an opening ceiling for West Grand Intermediate School renovation project number 033029. Um the the breakdown below is GCC00005 cost $19,42710 to the general construction contract. MCC co003 cost $1,979.50 50 cents to the mechanical construction contract. ECC00007 cost $38,400 to the electrical uh construction contract. And PCCO00004 cost $20,32721 to the plumbing construction contract. Financial impact is $8,133.81. Second. On a question. Roll call. Mr. Borthwick. Yes. Mr. Casey.
070Yes. Mrs. Chzik. Yes, Miss Fox. Yes, Mr. McCandrew. Yes, Miss Merkel. Yes, Mr. Leki. Yes, Mrs. Johnny. Yes, Mr. Holmes. Yes. Affirmative. All right. Next, we're going to have E3 motion to approve purchase of groundskeeping equipment as discussed at the April 28th, 2025 work session. This equipment has been proven effective in me in meeting the district's needs. purchasing using PA state contract co-stars number 4400000038 or sorry 28329 financial impact is $49,435 second on the question on the question Mr. Rucker is Mr. Rucker here. Mr. Rucker, and this equipment, have you asked the city if they have this equipment? Uh, no, I have not. Um, seeing that the fields that are in question, mainly most of them, uh, belong to the city of Scranton, uh, maybe, uh, we could table this motion, uh, until we get
071an answer and whether or not, uh, the city has been contact about the care of the fields. I believe with, and Mr. Mr. Laugh, I don't know if you can jump in and assist me with this. The contract that we have with the city, it puts the maintenance of the field solely on the on the school district. If they have the if they have the equipment though, I mean, we could. So, the way that the I'm going to go back to last year, and if Mr. John Le is here, he may be able to help me, but we used to have a lease agreement for the fields and the lease agreement was a three-party lease agreement. It was between the city of Scranton, the Scranton School District, and then the local little league associations. I
072believe I I don't believe it's a lease anymore. Bert, you you may be able to help me. There's another document that they're using, but it basically assigns the city assigns the the right of responsibility to maintain the fields to either the school districts through a certain period of time. Let's say it's from March until June and then to the um then to the local neighborhood little leagues from the next period where we assume all costs associated with that including any utilities, any trash removal and obviously the maintenance and and and upkeep of it. That's a little bit on the the agreement in place. Whether the city has this type of uh equipment, I'm I'm not aware that that they do, but we certainly haven't reached out to them. It's something we can do if you'd
073like. And I just want to also highlight that this isn't just for the lease fields that we get from the city. This could also go to working on our practice fields at both West Scranton Intermediate, also Scranton High School, the softball fields at Scranton High School, West High School, uh the baseball field at Scranton High School. There's there's other fields and other locations, not just necessarily owned by the city, that this would allow us to service better, including even the grass in front of I fully understand that. Uh but if another government agency would actually have uh this type of equipment or uh comparable equipment um before we go out and spend $40,000 on this equipment. Uh I'd rather us do our due diligence and find out where we can get this. Matter of fact,
074uh there might even be places that we could rent this equipment. I'd rather see the $40,000 go into a school like Westside High School that we need it. And at this uh with this motion, I'd ask until we get the suitable answers that this motion be tabled. So the the fields that the city owns, we do all the maintenance on it. We use our own equipment. We've never used our equipment for anything. Never. So this would be Okay. So it's never in the past. We've always utilized our own. Okay. I mean, that's probably a discussion worth having. I'll I'll second Bob's motion. So, the motion currently is to currently to table this motion. So, is there a second? Is there was second on the question? Okay. Roll call. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, no. Mr.
075McCandrew, no. M. Merkel? No. Mlei? Yes. Mrs. Yanni? No, Mr. Borthwick. Yes, Mr. Casey. Yes, Mr. Holmes. No. Four affirmative, five negative. Um, motion fails. No, five. There's five affirmative or five. Four affirmative, five negative. Five negative. Okay. Motion. You're right. Yes. Motion fails. You're right. So, the mot motion failed. The table. The table. Okay. So again, on the question of the original motion, yeah, I mean, because we have so many fields of our own, um, and I think you said there's attachments we can get to this equipment to do other things in the future. I mean, we're a 200 some million dollar business or company if you want to look at it that way. We I want our fields and I want our landscaping. I want when people drive up past our schools, they're
076like, "Wow, look at that school." I want to make sure, you know, that's your first impression when you see a school. So, I want you got to make sure we have the equipment to make keep up on it. This isn't necessarily also just to make it look pretty. This also provide additional safety. Oh, I know that too. There's more. Yeah, I know. And saves a lot of man hours as we discussed before. Correct. I have the one of our groundskeeper here now if you ever have questions on on process on how this could save time and and effort for him and his team. But, uh, it's it would absolutely pay for itself in just in labor over the next couple years. And and I think it also speaks to all of our students that are
077in little league uh that use the fields that they're all our our West Grant students, our Scranton students. They're they're playing little league. They're playing all different types of spring and summer balls. So, I do think that that's important that we think of that when we're purchasing this equipment. So, it's helping our students even when they're outside of school. And and just using using today as an example and the weather we had over the weekend. So if we have any type of rain event or anything else that could impact the sports, the grounds keepers only have a very limited window to get in there and get that done. So we have multiple, as we just highlighted, fields across the the district and very little time to get them completed and get them up to playable
078surface. That's a safe surface for students to operate on. Rob, I'm just want to make sure that the due diligence on um this equipment is being done that somebody else doesn't have it that we might be able to use it or rent it instead of paying $40,000 for it where we can use it for uh other items uh of a longlasting nature. But it it's definitely the u the wish of the majority of the board and um uh I call for a vote. Anyone else? I just wanted to say um I'm not opposed to this purchase. Um I am concerned about the price and especially um priorities. Um it took us all these years just to approve band uniforms like to come up with that money and everything. So like I said, I'm not opposed
079to it. I'm just concerned about that that cost upfront. Is the quote is the quote that you have a time-sensitive quote? Do we have a limit on I'm I'm having a very difficult time hearing you guys on the back. I'm I'm so sorry. Does it have a timeline? The quote is it is it time sensitive? No. Uh I would say no. No. This is something we could refresh if needed. I believe on the quote we had I'd have to pull it up, but I think it was a net 30 or a net 60. I can't I off top of my head, I don't have that answer, but I do not believe it's time sensitive. in director shocki with it being co-stars I'm I'm assuming that pricing is probably firm through whatever the term of that
080co-stars contract is okay that they have with them unless there's additional discounts that have been applied below the co-stars pricing what type of discount off list are we getting off the top of my head director Casey I I don't know the the exact discounts um it's certainly something we can look at again it's it's in line with the co-stars contract pricing which just like the band uniforms I I will work with solictor Moran to make sure that um you know all the required due diligence has been done by with the co-stars or organization. Roll call. Miss Fox. Yes. Mr. McCandrew. Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Leki? No. Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? No. Mr. Casey? No. Mrs. Chzik? No. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Five affirmative, four negative. Motion passes. All right. Uh E4. Uh motion to
081approve elevator service contract to Otis elevators. The the effective date of the contract is 11:15 2025. Financial impact is $9,360 annually and for five years is $46,800. Second. on the question. Um, yes. On the question, um, when reviewing this, it says early signing discount, a 5% discount will be applied to the above price executed before 6125. So, if we're approving this tonight, would this change the 5-year financial impact? No. I believe the 5% discount's included in the pricing that we have currently. Let me pull up the quote. I'm I'm looking at So, I'm just looking at what the motion says and the price on the um contract. It says 780 per month payable advance in advance and then if you scroll down just search 5% because that's what I did. It's um I asked the
082same question of the contractor and that is included in that the 5%. Yes. Okay. So, could you just can someone explain that then? I don't Well, yeah. So, let me just read the email from the um from the Otis rep. You will still receive Okay, so let's see. Um push the warranty period back to 99 to align with the two buildings. You will still receive the early signing discount of 5% off of the listed price of 780 per month. So, it should 5% should come off that 780. That's the way I read it actually. Right. So, then the final five year won't be 46. It'll be 44,460. Yeah. So, we can update the motion if uh I think were these bid it's a service contract. No. And Otis uh Otis is the elevator manufacturer that
083the these are for the three new elevators that were bid out and constructed over the last couple years. Otis is the manufacturer and this is a service contract with them. It's a $9,000 annual cost that falls below any quoter bidding requirement levels. Is this a time and materials contract? Pat, Rob, you have the answer to that. Uh, for there are some consumables that would be included um if something happens and I'm just going to get to an extreme and say that the entire motor fails. Uh, that would be something that would then be TNM. Uh, but your normal consumables, your normal smaller things are included in this in the service contract. Let me ask you this. We just put these in, correct? Correct. What type of warranty do we have? The warranty we have with
084the construction comes out to the one year and that ends and they actually pushed it back, moved them and adjusted them. We're actually getting a couple extra months of warranty uh on a couple of them and they put it at the date of the last u substantial completion which is November. What we're voting on doesn't begin until 11:5. Pardon me. What we're voting on tonight doesn't begin until 111 of this. Doesn't begin till November. I'm having a real hard time hearing on this. It is difficult. I'm sorry. It doesn't start till 11:15. So, we're voting on it now, but it won't take effect until November. So, we're doing an early ownership of the U elevators. Can you repeat that? I'm sorry. Pardon me. When did we take ownership of the elevators? We took ownership of
085the elevators early winter. It was 11 in November. It was November because they they took it from the substantial completion which of the last elevator was uh in November and then they moved the other ones up to just make all the warranties and all the the contracts and everything align into that November month. So it's not Director Casey, it's not starting until November of this year. No, I understand that. and and we're just getting ahead of it to get this done so we have it in place because this is an annual requirement of all the elevators in our buildings. Erin, I understand what you're saying, but what you just said it was early winter and November is still fall and we had some problems with even accepting the elevators. Yeah, in my head that's when
086it gets cold, so I apologize that. No problem. Yeah. Um, but it there is a discount associated with this, Director Casey. So that's the other reason we want to move forward on this right now. Save a little money. So can I make um a motion to amend or can can I amend the motion to include the 5% discount? Um so the 5-year financial impact will be $44,460. Second on the question. Roll call. Mr. McCandrew. Yes. Merl. Yes. Mr. Leki, yes. Mrs. Yanni, yes. Mr. Borthwick, yes. Mr. Casey, no. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. Eight affirmative, one negative motion. That was a vote to amend it. Now, I'm going to still vote on getting a question on the pending motion. Nope. Just to clarify, um the parts coverage as was just briefly
087spoken about, it says due to normal usage and wear, they will repair or replace parts such as motor brushes, operating switch, relay components, plug-in relays, special lamps for cars, hall fixtures, things like that. Just so we have an understanding of what's covered under this. Additionally, there's an exclusion section in that contract. I think it's section seven or four. It's it's in there. The exclusion exclusions. Rob, considering how much money we paid for these, please make sure that we have everything in writing uh going forward. Anytime we spend money in this district um with vendors, there should no be just verbal communication. There should always be a paper trail for everything so that if something does go wrong potentially if you're not here, I'm not here. They're not here. Whoever comes after us has documentation to
088fall back on and say, "Here you go." Yeah, that's what we've been utilizing the work order system to do. And that's our kind of our system of record to hold all that information in one place, easily accessible. Thank you. Thank you. Roll call. Miss Merkel? Yes. Miss Leki? Yes. Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? No. Mrs. Chzik? Yes. Miss Fox? Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Eight. Affirmative, one negative. Motion passes. All right. Uh E5. Motion to approve a one-year contract for operations hero for our work order system. As discussed at the 428225 schoolboard meeting, financial impact imple implementation is $14,883.65. Annual cost is $34,41.60. Second on the question. I have a question. Um, this system, what made it stand out above the other because I know you said the top two
089choices were vetted. What made it stand out above the other choice? just because it's such a financial cost. So, we did a thought exchange. That was the Google form that uh Miss Henahan referenced and the thought exchange and I can go back and pull it, but uh when I looked at the results earlier today, it was ease of use uh getting it uh simpler to just get it out and uh usable by the lowest common denominator on people that are techsavvy. We still have some people using flip phones. So, we want to be able to get it into people's hands and actually accessible and usable because if we can't get everyone to utilize it, it's not going to work correctly. So, the ease of use was a big driving factor in it. If people are
090using flip phones, what are they going to stop their day, go find a computer, and then utilize the system? Are they are they're going to be required to use it? Correct. Yes. Okay. So how so if you've got somebody who uses a flip phone I can't force anyone to utilize their own uh own device but um so we don't have 100% uptake that's similar to what the raptor system correct you can't you can't force anyone to use their own device but we can provide someone with a districtbased device that they can do the work on. Have we have we done that for employees who don't have smart right now? We I know I recently just put an order in for iPads for each one of the buildings including all of the trades positions. Uh right
091now what they are doing is they are going to a computer and utilizing it. When when you were reviewing this, you had a committee, correct? Correct. How many people are on the committee? Believe it was 21. Okay. Costwise, is this a modulebased cost or is it like an all-in package? Is it a modulebased cost or an all-in-one package? Thank you. It's easier to hear you than it is. Everybody in the world hears me. Thank you. Um there are different modules to it. So the hero HQ is one portion of it. The events is one portion. Um the automation section which will allow the events to control out the HVAC systems, that's one portion. And we're purchasing all of that. Yes. So, I have just a couple questions um to to that. Um I I feel
092as though I missed something because I let the work session we just talked about like the work order portion of this and now there is um inventory, planning, event automation. Um that's a there's a lot here. So just the work management is about a third of the cost of the entire package. Um so I'm just curious on when someone is speaking about trying this, did they only try the work order part of this? Did we test the other things that we're about to approve? And then also, can you speak to the inventory? Because I'm I'm not really um I know we talked about having one system for the entire district in regards to inventory. Um so I don't know where we're at with that. And is this the goal is to use this? Um, so
093sorry, there's like five questions there. Okay, so let me let me hit the inventory section first. So what the inventory section would allow us to do is let's let's use the HVAC for an example. The HVAC, we could say that in our store room, in our warehouse, I have 300 air air filters, 24 by 18 air filters. So instead of them having to go out and and wonder, are they going to create a a purchase order, go down and order these air filters, why have 300? And as they go and they create the tickets or not create the tickets, but as they go to work the tickets, they're going to say, "Well, I need to complete this. I need eight of them." It draws them down. It creates a ticket out for the supply room
094to have those eight ready for them and takes it out of the inventory. And it allows us to establish that PAR level. So if if the filters get below a certain number, let's say we get below 50, and we know it takes us five months to get these things. I'm just throwing arbitrary numbers out here, guys. if if um we know it takes us however long to get it, we know that we already have these in on order so we don't run out of them. So that's one portion of it and that ties directly into the work order system itself. So we don't do that right now. We don't have any record of doing that. We just know that we have air filters and once we get low, we go that route. I I'm just
095gonna This is why these are these are issues that I'm we're identifying and we're trying to make a correction. Don't we have though? I I maybe I don't remember this correctly. I'm going to look to some of my colleagues who've been on the board here. Didn't we approve an asset management system through was it Frontline? Yes, I thought we had one. And are we not utilizing that one? That was right before I got here and that is being utilized right now. Operations is not utilizing Front Line. No, no, no. The system you previously purchased. Are you utilizing that system? Fru uh Front Line was for the IT side. Operations did not have anything that did this. I think they were using Front Line for like the Chromebooks and stuff. Correct. Correct. Didn't you just get
096an inventory system? No. I'm I was fairly confused on all this. I was trying to go back to our meetings and our memos. And I looked back exactly one year ago, we got a memo from Mr. Rucker saying that Mr. Suma did not like front line and that we were going to be presented with two options. And then I went to the next meeting and the next meeting and I didn't see anything. So I don't know that we were actually I'm confused on where we're at with that. The only thing we own system correct she asked if you built your own system [Music] inventory. How Okay. So I guess one of my questions is would go to you is the last conversation I recall we had is we wanted some type of districtwide inventory system
097that's when the committee started. Is that still the goal or does it make more sense that operations has their own and it has their own? I just feel like we like it's clear that we get too too much all over the place because we don't even know what we have or we don't have and that's a problem. Um so we have to get this straight and stop having things thrown at us. understand what's what and I feel we need to get our heads together. So, Katherine, I agree with you and for some reason I believe that the former board did buy an inventory system and the complaints that I've been hearing from the IT people and the people who basically try to run it is that uh it wasn't user friendly. So now are we
098spending all this money now for another inventory system that we don't know whether or not it's going to work until we get Wait, just one question. Front line was the HR recruiting tool we had, didn't it? Wasn't this just another pack like part of the package we could you utilize? Front line has many components to it. Yeah, HR was one of them. We had at one point I think a textbook management system with front line. We also have and it's expiring in June the IHDM solution including asset management and help desk management. So it would have been approved in March of 24 because the start date was April 1st of 24. And who did that? That's the question. For for HR, are we getting a we moving away from Front Line for HR? Correct. For
099recruiting? Yeah, we went to Red Rover. Did we talk about that? Yep. Red Rover. Okay. Yeah. So I think I I think it looks like we're kind of moving away from Front Line on almost everything. So, so that was approved, right? I came here April 8th. Can you repeat what you just said? The April 1st was the start date for that. And what was it called to come? It we were we're we're on a quarterly billing cycle because we, as you noted, or as you said, we were looking at alternative solutions to the asset management. We switched from an annual billing cycle to a quarterly billing cycle, which would allow us flexibility to pivot to a new system without locking us into a long-term contract. The current the current invoice is for the second quarter
100of 2025 which expires in June June of 2025. Can can you repeat what that system was called and then can anyone answer if anyone is using it? Mr. Oh, it is under front line. It's under front line. Oh, okay. I thought you were trying to say there was another Okay. HDM solutions including asset management and help desk management. Start date 412025. End date 6:30 20. That's the last quarterly billing. Okay. So this is the system under front line and I understand that it does not like it. So is this being utilized by anybody in the district at this time? I do not utilize it as a superintendent. That's what I can tell you. So we're paying for this and not using it. I believe it looks it looks like it was at one point used
101as by our asset manager for his inventory which while we were demo demo operations hero we started utilizing the operations hero and it looks like we've been using it for IT help desk Mr. Suma's coming up because I'm reading actually an email from him so I'm glad he's stopping up it's okay more important why aren't you presenting this instead of Mr. director. You're the IT director, correct? I am. Yeah. And this would come under your Bailey Wick. So, the the program itself is a a product that comes out of my budget. Yes. And in the conversations I had with Mr. Laffy were at the very least from a help desk standpoint that we need to get through the end of this school year before I can implement another help desk that is free of charge
102that we're going to transition to and that we can eliminate that piece of that frontline contract. And I believe at that point the only thing remaining would be absent management that we're using front line for which is ASOP for substitute teachers right and that's it does what work for the inventory am I correct from for our standpoint of what we need for inventory with our Chromebooks in particular we're utilizing the student information system and we assign each one of those devices to those students in their demographic record. So, if you went into our student information, brought up a student, you'd be able to find out what device was assigned to them. Outside of that, we know we have active panels in every classroom. We know we have printers, copers, where they're located, but didn't we
103have an inventory system for the Chromebooks and there was major complaints that the people couldn't enter in the proper information on it? At the time prior to my arrival, I believe it was being used through Frontline, but when when it was being utilized through Frontline, yes, through that asset management piece. So, I'm correct in what I'm saying. I would I would say so that that's again that's prior to my arrival, they were using frontline asset management for the Chromebook inventory. Basically, it it's a lot of confusion right now. So, I think we need a motion to table this. More information needs to be provided, more research because there are too many questions right now that we are we're having this many questions 30 seconds before we vote. More information needs to be provided in writing.
104So what I would make a motion to table this I make the motion. I just have a question. What's the Hold on a motion. Yeah. If we don't we don't vote on Yeah. What's the pro like what's the like we're going to have nothing to use? Correct. We're we're voting on front line for this piece of this contract. No, we're voting on Is there discussion after a motion to table? I'm sorry. There's Is there a discussion for the motion to But I was point of order real quick. Point of order. Anyway, point of order. There's a motion on the table. There's at least one if not three seconds. We will go around and do a roll call first. Call the motion to table. I need the mo I need the person who made the motion.
105I did. A couple of us and a second. I'll second your name. Thank you. Kevin's here. You can help. Okay, now we're going to roll call vote motion. There you go. Ready? Y. Uh, M. Trisleey, yes. Mrs. Yianni, no. Mr. Borthwick, yes. Mr. Casey, yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. McCandrew, no. Miss Merkel, no. Mr. Holmes, yes. Six affirmative, three negative. Motion passes. So I can I ask my question now like what are we going to be using going forward now? That's gonna be my question. Rob, when does the demo end? Next week. Can we call them to get an extension of the demo and tell them that this is coming back up on the motion on the June 5th agenda? I can try. We've we've been with them six months now, but
106I I absolutely will reach out. You can tell them the board has required additional information to make an informed vote which will happen on June 5th and we will provide the information that was asked here today. There's a lot of questions. Is there any way to request a list of the individual questions? Yes, there's also board minutes when you get a cop you'll get a copy of the board minutes. Okay. So, we also have Mrs. Maloney is also taking notes for our our tomorrow. Is there a way to back up the information or take down before we lose? we would have to export uh an Excel or something. Okay, it's about 6 months worth. Moving forward, we we can't put ourselves in position when we're up against a wall like this though. If we don't
107approve of the motion, technically we could potentially lose this. We have got to move um on any and all of our systems um faster and sooner. I understand six month trial, but we should have been voting on this or at least discussing this three or four months ago. Now we're to the point where our backs against the wall. We're kind of being forced and we're trying to get away from that. Not just I'm not coming at you, Rob. I'm talking about in general in this district. We have to get away from that last second, you know, shot that if it goes in, we win. If it doesn't, we lose. We can't operate like that. So, just moving forward, we really truly need to give ourselves a lot more time going in so that instances like
108this don't happen. If we're having this many questions, 30 seconds, we have our duty and responsibility to table if if we need that many questions answered 30 seconds prior to voting. We can't have that. that that doesn't reflect well in the district on us as a governing body. We need to do better. I'm going to ask a question. We are going to ask for an extension to June 5th. We have a work session the Tuesday after Memorial Day. We have a voting meeting the first Monday in June. If there is a nominal fee to extend it, I am going to ask the board for consensus so we don't lose that information before an informed vote could be made. Agree. Agreed. C can I just ask a question really quick to you because um there was
109a jump to table it which I understand but we also could have approved this with just the work order um aspect. Correct. I'm having a I still I understand why there was a jump to table this but we could have we could also approve it with just the work order management system. Correct. Um if I I see on the contract that we have there were four or five additional parts added such as inventory and such but we can approve just the work order system which is what we've been talking about. Um I I think that's information we need too if if you have conversations and it comes back that we need to take a consensus on just approving the work order and not all of the other parts which could probably be added on just
110like front line at another time but it seems crucial that we have a work order system. So I'm just stating that we we might need to come back as a board and just approve the work order part of this and I agree and that's why I motion the table because again that's a thought until we get something in writing. I don't believe we act on thoughts until we get something from the company in writing. And I have said this a million times. Emails save our lives. Until that company responds with an email saying yes, we agree to this or no, we don't vote. We shouldn't. They're responsible. So until they say you can vote on just this part, we will accept that. Great. But until I have something in writing from the said company, I
111don't want to guess and I do not want to vote on a possibility. Wait, is is that correct that we we we don't have anything in writing say or you don't know for sure if we could just vote on the work order system part of this? Well, as as U director of Strleki, did I say that correct? Okay. As uh she said, this is module based. So each one of those parts of that quote that you see are individual modules. It's all broken down because the work order management system would have been $7,441 per year starting July 1. So here's here's what I did. Um on our staff meeting tomorrow, there are two directives for me. First, we are going to need a memo um of all of the components of front line we own
112and who's currently using them and how. That will be in your board packet for Friday. Next, we're going to have a breakdown for Mr. Rucker of the parts of operations heroes, who's going to be using them and how in in detail. will also answer the specific question of can we partial this out or does it have to be bought as a full package and how would the partiing of that work okay in addition to that the only other thing that I need to clarify is we can't lose that information so if there is a nominal fee I will be coming to President Holmes to ask for consensus to get us to June 5th but also we do have the ability to if you get this information do a consensus is in lie of the voting
113meeting and then ratify it. So again providing I understand all the information is presented to us in writing send it to us so we can answer get all the questions answered we can still do a consensus right now so that we potentially don't lose anything and then ratified at the June meeting but the point being again if we're having this many questions that is why the motion was tabled it was not a jump I just can't stand to see we have this many questions on something we're spending money on we have got to stop doing that is why it was Dr. ing. I have one question. Yes. And I really don't know that much about it. Yes. Except that I predicted that the system would fail when everybody else said it wouldn't. Um why is
114this under Mr. Rucker and not Mr. Suma? Well, because it started the committee was put together for a work order management system. Director Casey. So if the HVAC system breaks in West Scranton High School, it's going to go in the work order management system. There are other pieces to this. So that is why I'm saying you're going to have a detailed memo with all of that information. If you have a detailed memo explaining what we own in frontline and who's currently using it and a full breakdown of all the pieces of operations hero and who would be using them and an answer to if it can be partialed out or not partial out would that answer all current questions. I I want to add one I I do have a question on this and I
115understand that it's from Mr. Rucker's department, but Mr. Suma is the IT guy that we brought in. Correct. Because we we wanted to upgrade our IT department. But now it seems like Mr. Rucker is calling the shots on the IT department. And if it doesn't work, we're going to come back and we go and say to Mr. Suma, "What happened?" Because nobody's going to remember this meeting here tonight. Mr. Suma is ahead of all it. It's that's what it should when when it came about it should have been brought together and Mr. Suma should have been given the information and he should have oversaw it in conjunction with Mr. Rucker. I'm not arguing which is why you're going to get answers to all those questions. I think Mr. Sum is using a different thing for
116it. He's using the student information management system. Mr. Borthwick. So, um, one of the things I I didn't get a chance to bring up that I think is relevant for all of us to hear is I, you know, and I brought this to, uh, Mr. Laffy's attention. There have been multiple times where I've heard from educators who have used the system that things are getting checked off as complete that aren't being done. So, that's another thing that we need to be looking at because if if there's a work order that goes in and then it gets marked as complete but wasn't completed, we don't we're not going to know that. it's going to show as complete on on the administrative end. Um, but I've had more than one teacher bring that to my attention. I
117brought it to Mr. Laffy's attention as well, but I I think that's worthy of of our consideration because we need to have check if we're going to use the system at some point. Was that though with school dude, the previous system? No, this one. Who's that's with this new operations hero? Yeah, operations. Who has access to the operations hero right now? Is there is it everybody in the district? Currently, we have the maintenance staff using it and that's it. The only people who are putting the the ones putting the tickets in are the maintenance the building supervisors and all that. We don't have really many teachers in the system. So, no. So, so if a teacher says to a maintenance person, I need this done and then it gets marked as done. It might not
118have actually been done. So, we need to check and balance if we're going to utilize this system. Like I said, I I that's more of a honestly it wouldn't be a system fault. That would be more of a manpower checking. Well, currently right now, it's really only been tasked out to the maintenance team, right? It's only been ted out to the maintenance teams. So, if there's any teacher requests, it would have to be reported to their building supervisor, much like Lannne just probably requested that they do. She spoke in public comment. Okay. All right. Mr. Rucker, can you please get back to us as soon as possible with written information so that we can potentially either one have consensus or if needed a a meeting. But just going forward, I just I have I have
119one more question. I'm sorry. Please. Regarding the contract, is a one-year term typical for this company or can we do extended terms only because the implementation cost is so high that I feel like a one-year contract, if we decide not to go further with it after that, it's a waste of $14,000. The answer is yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We can extend it for longer. Oh, yes. Yes. Is there a discount if we extend it for if we do a contract for a longer term? Is there going to be a discount? I'll get that information for you. we have it in writing that we can extend it and that that's another thing I wanted to note too as we look to take out some of these modules there may be some additional there could be like
120bundling discounts if you buy all so you know not only can we look at an extended term if you know to see savings but if we if we bundle some of the features there could be some volume discounts there and I understand we want to move on so I just really quickly just wanted to clarify that this says that we could cancel at any time with a 30-day notice I agree with a very high implementation fees, but I would just want to actually confirm that that's nothing we have ever says that really says that. So, I'd like to confirm that. And then just back to what Mr. Suma said. Um, he said that he uses the student information system for the computers, but for everything else, we just know what we have, but this was
121a huge thing when we brought him in that we were going to have a district-wide inventory. So, with your information you're gathering, can we just get clarification on that and what we're doing moving forward because that's concerning to me. Thank you. I I think one last thing too on that just just to build on that kind of like what you've set up Dr. heating for the the tiers and the RFPs. And I'm not asking for this to be in our packet on Friday or anytime soon, but maybe you could think about putting together something for all of our systems for our asset management, our work orders, our ASAP, our student information systems and what components there are and as you said, who's using what maybe for all of our systems that might be helpful for
122us. There's a lot. I'm going to tell you something. I'm still struggling to get my arms around everything. So, think about how we feel. I think we talked about that when you first got I'm going to I'm going to tell you I'm I've been here over a year. I am still struggling with who has what system in what building and is using it for what. I I will not sit up here and say I have my arms around that. But as you learn if you could share that with us as a board, I think that would I can I can through the principles and everyone else I could I know Rob Duca and I started working on something like this last year with who's using what. So yeah. Okay. Um before we move on I
123just I do have a question. And something was stated during public comment that I feel needs to be addressed. So, not to backtrack, but with the former system, um it was stated that um some individuals were never recognized as a user. Do we know if anything like that has been investigated as far as like it not recognizing the users or were they just unable to use the system this whole time? Like did we contact the the support team from that um system or anything like that? All right. So, it's hard to hear, so I'm going to try to I'm going to restate what your question is. With the previous system, did there were users that were not identified such as Miss Heahan? Um, and if we reached out to support. Yeah. Like, did we do
124anything to help um fix that? Yes, we we did we did try and it was still unsuccessful like did we contact the company itself? Yes. So, I know that there was with Miss Henahan in particular, and I I don't know if she's still here to speak to it. um she would sign in and one day she would be identified as a user and then she could go in later that same day or maybe the next day to go to sort her system and all of a sudden she's no longer accepted and then it'll be like that for a couple of days and then maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn't. And then there were there were high latency issues where you would log into the system and then it would pinwheel and then time
125you out and then it would it just there was multiple multiple issues that we tried. Okay. Okay. So that they didn't have any sort of solution for that. I'm sorry. Say the company didn't have any sort of solution that would it was pretty much presented that it was functioning as intended. Okay. All right. Thanks. Okay. Um next we have E6. Let me just find it here. All right. Motion to reject the approxy floor bids. The lowest responsible bidder offered a price of $398,812.90. Second on a question. What is this for? I couldn't hear him. Reject motion to reject the epoxy floor bids. That's what we talked about earlier. We're going to reject the epoxy floor bids. And there is a second motion to accept the change order for the court's tile. Okay. One question. Roll
126call. Mrs. Yiani. Yes. Mr. Borthwick, yes. Mr. Casey, yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. McCandrew, yes. Miss Marco, yes. Mr. Trosky, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. Nine affirmative. All right. And finally, E7. Motion to approve change order GCO005 West Grant Intermediate Flooring to modify hallway and cafeteria carpet to quartz tile flooring. cost is $132,32041 plus bond increase cost of $1,98481 which brings your final um financial impact of $134,3521. Second question. Roll call. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mrs. Chzy? Yes. Miss Fox? Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Zi? Yes. Mrs. Yianni? Yes, Mr. Holmes. Yes. I affirmative. Personnel. Okay. F1. Motion to approve personnel report as attached. All hireers are contingent upon all background checks and clearances. Second. One question. Roll call. Mr. Casey? Yes. Mrs. Chzik? Yes. Miss Fox? Yes.
127Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Dleki? Yes. Mrs. Yanni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Nine. Affirmative. vendor relations. Um, motion to reject the Excuse me. Instead of a motion to reject, I think we're going to call for a motion to table. Motion to table. Pardon me. Instead of a motion to reject, that should be a motion to table. Motion to uh table the uh security services bids. Second. Second. On the question, roll call. On the question, can we just clarify that we're slow just slowing this process down a little bit to and that's why we're tableabling it at this time. Correct. We're slowing the process down to gather additional information. So that's why we're changing to a motion to table. Roll call. Um, Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. McCandrew, yes.
128Miss Merkel, yes. Mr. Mleki, yes. Mr. Johnny, yes. Mr. Borthwick, yes. Mr. Casey, yes. Mr. Holmes. Yes. Affirmative. Okay. H8. Motion to approve food service equipment bids. I saw move. Second. On a question. Roll call. Sorry. Uh, Miss Fox. Yes. Mr. McCander? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Zky? Yes. Mrs. Johnny. Yes. Mr. Burke Borthwick. Yes. Mr. Casey. Yes. Mrs. Chzik. Yes. Mr. Holmes. Yes. Nine. Affirmative. There is one more. H9. H9. There was an attachment. That's what I was looking for. Okay. Um, the award of food service management contract for the 2025 2026 school year to Aramark Education Services LLC based on the results of the request for proper uh per proposed uh process proposal process total uh cost is what is it? 4 million. Yes. What is it, Pat? 4,955,253.11 with a guaranteed profit
129of 1.5 million. I shall move. Second. On a question. Roll call. Mr. McCandrew? Yes. Miss Merkel? Yes. Mr. Sleek? Yes. Mrs. Yianni? Yes. Mr. Borthwick? Yes. Mr. Casey? Mr. Yes. Mrs. Chzik, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. Holmes, yes. N affirmative. Thank you. All right. There are two things that are remaining. One, I want to first and foremost say to all of our teachers in the school district, first and foremost, um, thank you. None of us are up here without you. Every single professional on this planet owes a debt of gratitude to a teacher, whether they like to admit it or not. you are the backbone of our nation and of our just everything that we are. So we appreciate the incredible hard work you do. Um sometimes it goes on thank on people don't understand
130or respect the incredible work ethic and job that you have but again we're here because of you. We thank you from the bottom of our heart for all the work you've done. Now I'd like to take a moment to offer condolences on the loss of a remarkable woman who served the district for over 40 years. Her impact will not be forgotten. Miss Sandy Tommpkins was not just a name of a name in the office of Northeast Intermediate. She was a heartbeat of it for decades. She p she poured herself into the district working tirelessly. Even through the summers, perfecting student schedules. It was something she took great pride in. She once said, "If the school is going to run smoothly, it has to start here." And she truly lived that. She rarely took time off,
131not because she couldn't, because she wouldn't. She believed that school needed her, and we all knew that was true. She was tough when she needed to be, but always fair. And then everyone who came back to her desk, she offered the same compassion, structure, and support. But what many do not know is what quiet kindness that defined her in her spirit. Each year, she privately mentored one student, giving them encouragement, guidance, and hope. She gifted jackets, shoes, and clothing to children in need, never seeking credit or recognition. At one point, she even helped support an entire family quietly and selflessly. Mrs. Tommpkins resisted retirement, not because she feared change, but because she has she has, excuse me, I know her person, so forgive me. Because her work was her passion, her purpose. She wasn't here
132for a paycheck. She was here for the children, the staff, and this community. And when she finally stepped away, they weren't just big shoes to fill. They were irreplaceable presence to be honored. There may never be another Miss Tomkins in that office, but we carry her legacy in every hallway, every classroom, and every memory. Behind her strength was an immense heart, and her impact will be felt for generations. To the Tomkins and Mendes family, on behalf of the Scrant School District, please accept our deepest condolences. Your family's loss is our collective loss. We will mourn with you, but we will also celebrate the life that she gave and the little she asked in return. She left all of us a little bit better with her departure. Rest in peace, Annie Tommpkins, and to the family.
133Again, our thoughts and prayers are with you. With that motion to adjurnn ty before we adjourn, uh I would like to address something similar to what you just did. Um and it was kind of close to me over the last couple weeks. Uh we lost a former school director in Marian Sinclair. Um Maryanne uh was lived right across the street from here. Maryianne served with me for over 12 years. Um her heart was always with the Scranton School District and Westside. Uh if there was ever a person that uh believed in Westside, it was Maryanne. Um but more important, she believed in all the children and the employees of uh the Scranton School District. Marian was a very unique individual that uh if she u believed in what you were doing, you had uh somebody
134that would back you to the hilt and god forbid you'd be on the wrong side of the table from Maryanne, she wasn't afraid to let you know it. uh the super Miriam was the type of person that gained the respect from everybody and matter of fact uh Alan Donald's father who was superintendent at the time um um coined the phrase of Mary and Sinclair as queen mother. You did not cross Mary and Sinclair whether or not you were for against her. She believed in what she did. Uh, I'd like to extend the sympathies to her husband, Jack, and to her family, uh, her sons and daughters and her grandchildren. And, um, the district was better off for Maryanne, not worse. That's all I have. Lost to a journey.