001jesus president mr holmes president miss hughes mr mckay thank you this special meeting is for general purposes now it has been duly advertised we'll start with public comment our first speaker this evening is good evening some context to my questions that i'll leave you with tonight my leadership style has always been from the gut led by passion practicality i have three kids one with special needs and a career i need to make a difference in my community policy has never been a key and focus of mine don't aware that to objectively lead and to be your go-to in situations such as we find ourselves in curve policy serves as that backbone and while it took me some time to understand yes policy overrides emotion and feelings and what often brings me in if you went
002at times when i do get emotional that is what led to my leadership success and that i make sure to keep those close to me whose strengths are my weaknesses following policy and procedures is what enables my son to not only participate but to receive a quality education with the support of the united key have you given thought discussed of how bringing in new council affects the districts open cases that now have to be postponed or continued so that new councils can be briefed on each of those cases each that represent a student in this district when a director referred to putting policy before the district and the students and what the public wants it made me realize that personal opinions and feelings are overshadowing policy right now and why tonight i asked president yani
003that a new chair of the special ed committee be named i have two middle school age daughters one who is already 13. the hardest thing as a parent is when they are left out intentionally when they are being teased or friend drama insurers i hope that after this we can all remain friends in social media so with already being blocked by one director's public age and unfriended by another i'm not quite sure i can't tell you how many people feel the same as myself or have reached out to me privately though i feel fearful to publicly state their thoughts and i get it the fact that those you serve are not comfortable with given opinions that may not align with the team that sits in front of me and have their comments removed or even
004blocked should be concerning to you all as you are representative of not only teachers parents and students the taxpayers as a whole in the past and even ahead of this meeting many have referenced this on china and being transparent about decision making though i don't recall communication and how the decision was made on seeking new council which is what you are formally voting on tonight or even how the interim firm was selected ahead of my question questions i leave you with this information i shared with some of you that pete's garage boxes are serving both this school you sit in an isaac drink ahead of the lawsuit that they stated they have no contact with our current bus provider i have photos my direct questions i hope you consider tonight are what is the process
005or rfp to hire a permanent replacement firm a solicitor does serve at the will of the board though for transparency and to break the ssd stigma i suggest an rfp how many of the decisions reached to how is the decision reached to vote on the current firm that will be used during the interim is the firm you are about to appoint currently advising the district now as to me that would be a huge conflict of interest to have any attorney advise you on a decision that is beneficial for them lastly if some board members ask what is more pressing than this may i suggest the four or five physical altercations my daughter tells me about daily students being physically assaulted on their way home from this school the deteriorating physical conditions that have left west
006and romania to go virtual at least once already the fact that our schools are drastically understaffed the lack of communication that continues between admin and board and parents and last but not certainly not least the fact that an official mental health plan has still not been shared with the public thank you thank you mrs williams [Music] my name is holly mead at montessori media school i would like to thank the board for temporarily hiring a new legal firm i think if you look back at every mistake that was made over the last three years it was because of poor legal advice that you followed i know you are putting the district's legal services out to bid soon and i would strongly recommend if going someone local has knowledge of scranton's history many of our current
007problems have stemmed from out-of-town council and out-of-town leadership a local solicitor is truly what this district needs on april 14th we have an in-service entitled three trains running cultural youth and pedagogy by dr lisa pickett it was outstanding i was on an equity committee zoom with many of you here last spring calling for change is how this district needed equity and diversity training last thursday only 30 of the 900 staff members were present at this training 30 people when i originally asked for it to be mandatory all for all staff i was told that large speakers have been unsuccessful in the past we're going to allow teachers to sign up for the training literally while i was at the training 15 people asked me where everyone was i explained the district did not feel it
008was mandatory this district and its staff will never change unless you as a board commit to professionally developing them on diversity i understand it's easier to avoid the issue due to your fears of the backlash from critical race theory enthusiasts so instead of stepping up and supporting our students and staff of all different races you ignore the training they vitally need finally each month a teacher has come to you with the continued behavior problems in our intermediate schools teachers and parents tonight spoke at problems at south western immediate and northeast the only solution to this chronic problem is to revise the middle school schedule that has not been done due to the cost how much exactly would this cost we are investing in many initiatives across this district but avoiding the one that would have
009the most positive impact on one third of our student population what steps will this board take to have this resolve by september currently the plan is just to leave it alone until 2023-2024 why i'm not sure again a plan of clean action is not a plan i really think choosing a correct solicitor is important because the issue of diversity and the issue of behavior problems in our schools can very easily end up in litigation and that's critically is this is a movie trap if ever there was wow good evening directors i would like to echo the remarks that holly he just made regarding finding yourself a wonderful solicitor that gives you good guidance and tempers his remarks uh you may or may not understand the fact that or maybe you do every time agreement is
010filed in this district that's usually step one and when the agreements cannot be resolved here it goes to grievance arbitration reasons arbitration out of money i have to pay a lawyer i have to sit for hours and hours preparing myself for that arbitration and the district has to do likewise and at the end of the day the district generally loses not sometimes most of the time and the reason you're losing is because a you're getting bad advice on what to do you're dragging out the process which it only makes the money go higher and higher because you're paying secretaries you're paying paralegals and you're paying lawyers the bills just keep going up and up and up when i filed my first right to no request on this situation i was floored better than 750 000
011dollars came back to the union in the original request the next right to follow up with right to no request to follow up the first one the bills were over 350 000 am i wrong in knowing that this district is in financial recovery and that we didn't sit down and negotiate the way you did with me that took five years and you nibbled and died every teacher and paraprofessional in this district because you had no money you have no money you paid over a million dollars for legal fees and this isn't my current number you have no money to pay the people who are in your buildings every day of the week working with the students in this district every day of the week working with their parents every day calming them down every day
012of the week and we have no money you have no money you don't have any paper in the schools you have no pencils in the schools teachers are ordering pencils from amazon by the girls for their kids people are buying paper for their classes because we have no money this is a school district we're going to give the state exam starting today where are the problems with the middle school people why aren't they ready to go and don't give me any salt pepper nonsense about where they are i know where they are but they're not where they belong where's the paper where's the pencil so the kids could do their pre-write for their exam before entering the data into that computer where's the penguin pencil so they can figure out their math before they enter
013it into that computer system this is nuts there is no other word for it other than hubris somebody better start paying attention to this situation in this disney and i need all of you everybody in this room for that matter to get a really good copy of webster's dictionary i'll look up the word drink what happened in this building was no drink it was a waterfall but it wasn't a drink and then i wanted to think about your stem program and maybe you better start the science portion of that stem with electrical energy because when water cascades through that roof into a light fixture and sits on top of it on that light fixture and the power was left on what are you supposed do you think electricity goes along with water how about the
014day had happened over here and we had a thunder lightning storm as well stem third brain science energy electrical energy third grade and we did that people's lives were put in danger the kids were temptation and there's no reason for anybody to explain it to me because i do understand electrical energy and i can get guys out of local 81 the ibdw people to come in here and give you a lecture on because everybody knows them and then the other thing i want to take issue with before i stop is this business of this was all along a summer record i have a list of summer projects i have to do but if my house is leaking from the outside in through my roof that's not going to wait for summer time i'm on that
015right now i'm going to call for help and get that everything is just punky dory and we should be thrilled about all of this stuff is also hubris when things learn then we'll talk about how great things are around here but when things are not working when teachers are told to cover classes this week and they don't even know what they're going to use to cover those classes that's nothing to employ that means sit down and figure it out with the people who work in your schools and who know what the issues are and how to solve them i thank you for your attention uh yes thank you president first first of all we did get a report of paper and when our maintenance staff went into the buildings we were told that there is
016paper in the buildings we also have paper supply room um the bid for paper went out and nobody bit on it [Music] so i believe that is the timetable but as far as the principles are reporting out that there is paper in the building so again we'll check tomorrow um but that's not the report that we are getting as far as pencils that's the first i've heard of anything like that so mr schultz you can ask tomorrow about pencils because i have not heard anything regarding that and as far as the situation here nobody's thinking it's hunky-dory um that's for sure we want the roof fixed yes it was a summer project yes this is a roof that should have been fixed along with many other things in this district that we now have the
017funding because of our esther funds to take care of some of those situations that have been left go for many many years so as far as the projects are going it is a summer project it will be taken care of in two phases with the first phase happening this summer and i am told by the operations department that as soon as the water was coming in the electricians cut the electricity correct mr rubber correct and so again no one is excited about that situation but to say that students and staff were in harm's way at no time was that reported to me or reported to the um by the people that take care of that so thank you that's all i have in this center a video was taken of that day here at this
018building and the power of this most certainly was not cut off you did not see that video the unique was supplied the power was on and the water was in the lane mixtures while the power was on so enough of this nonsense put up or shut steven's katherine williams as solicitor and general counsel and to appoint the firm of james frye herman's point and fall llc as interim solicitor and general counsel until such time as the board completes the rfp process permanently counsel for policy zero zero five dash b zero g dash three motion to be effective immediately to get detached for a second on the question yes i'd like to make a statement following two executive sessions to discuss services an individual i reached out to the president of the board and the superintendent
019provided on to answer questions and employment procedures in terminating our services i did requested a meeting with our legal counsel because i wanted to ensure as a new board member i would follow a proper policy the meeting was set up by the superintendent i did intend i was given guidance anything further on the question yes i may have several questions um but there are two in particular that i would like to ask one regarding the work case bride is currently doing and one looking into the recovery plan um dealing with the work that's currently being done in a january 25th letter from sweet stephen's cat's values to posin o'connor attorney montaigne advised that attorney leary has not been authorized to have direct contact with their clients and ask that he refrained from continuing to top
020school and district employees on further communications if the recent article is accurate president hughes contacted representatives of peaceful works directly may i ask a few advice to make that call i've answered that question to the newspaper but i'm certainly going to answer it to you i did contact pete's garage i think all nine board members here were made aware that there was a meeting set up with all of the parties all of the vendors that were involved in the rfp process so i did make that call to try to facilitate communication i care about the kids in this district i worry about how these kids are going to get to school i worry about how they're going to be educated if they can't get to school i worry about if they're going to be able
021to eat if they don't get to school i worry about their social and emotional health if they can't get to school so yes i did contact pete's garage and ask them to please reconsider attending the meeting that all my board members here were aware of and i am by no means questioning your personally to make that call and if so different because you are i was not advised to make that call i made that decision on my own to make that call thank you and you are absolutely right we were all aware that this process was ongoing i was under the impression that that is why i had brought things bright to the table that they were doing that but i i know that you're independent and they were doing that and my intention was
022simply to try to facilitate that communication and my second question as it pertains to the recovery plan i did share this with dr finan earlier today so that she have the information in front of her but initiative po3 states continue to execute the current cycle of soliciting requests for proposals for services provided to the district upon reaching the end begin the cycle again so dr feinman i guess my question to you is do you feel as though putting interim counsel in place before we execute the rfp process is in line not only with the bidding process that the board established prior to recovery but in line with your reference to it here in the recovery um let me just go back to the purpose of this this initiative in 2018 as a result of some
023of the auditor general's findings it was um discussed that we should have a solid bidding or rfp process for all the services that are conducted um that we hire for in this district um and and that listing does exist in with mr laffy in the business office the interim piece is a really difficult question for me to answer because i it's not an rfp and it's not a bid so i don't think the question about whether interim fits with this particular initiative i don't see how it does but i think um doing an rfp for any process for competitive prices and that's again bidding and rfps are are generally being confused here some processes require bidding and some for our pace the whole point is to get competitive pricing that's what the whole point is
024your question about intro does that take the place of this i don't believe it does but it is in from a step before you go to rfp that would be your decision i mean that's not i can't make that judgment at this point um i also think maybe it's a legal question that i'm not quite that what's in the recovery plan is to just an attempt to guarantee you the best possible prices for whatever services you're requesting from copying services to solicitor services transportation services and so you know i think the interim question is not for me to answer i think that's a question legal services rather like medical services are judged i think not only by christ by other factors i do not believe that i'm best served by having the cheapest surgeon operate
025on my eyes unless i weigh in other factors and i think that one of the things that we do with an rfp where the rfp have been used has been an over interesting price rather than totality services the second thing is does anyone here because i do not have this institution remembering attending school at the time but to my memory the replacement of the previous school service and ultimate school so this is for john flora by um sweets steven's cats and queens was done by an interim appointment at which point a representative that that firm became our solicitor for um i think an act 55 measure and then also general council services until such time as completion of an rfb at the time of that rfp sweet statements cats and were awarded it but this
026seems to me i i am a little confused on this because it seems to me that this is identical to the procedure we are following at the moment but i do not have the institutional memory um and i would just like to re-emphasize to everyone who has concerns about following policy we intend to follow the policy of the board operating guideline number five that was in there um without question it was never a question that would not follow the correct procedure the um board was in agreement to the appointment of um hughes fry as special counsel for the transportation matters which was something i think we all feel comfortable with um situations develop from there but i cannot for the life of me and i wish there were someone here with institutional background who could
027explain to me why what we are doing now leading interim council in anticipation doing the policy dictated rfp is different well as one could have it i was later and to my memory i believe sweet stephen's cats williams was brought in to guide us through the act 55 furlong process and after that point an rfp was put out for general legal services for special education services and i recently watched a recording of a meeting where many of those firms came before the board for an interview and mr menorah was so i do think the process is a little bit different than i don't recall why all three of those if i'm correct i believe it was in early december that sweet student's cats williams was appointed as solicitor and general counsel i believe it was
028a meeting after that into the following year that we dealt with council especially i don't recall why the timing was what it was but i think the situation of appointing king spry as special counsel to deal with dissimilar with this specific matter and then putting out an rfp would be similar to my previous experience i think what we are doing right now with this additional step is not i i think this if we just hire kings had a special counsel to help us with an rfp why why would we my opinion we can't we didn't have faith in them to redo the rfp why would we keep them around for a few months i mean i think people making people make mistakes or fighting and they made a few a lot of mistakes you have
029to fire something and i think right now that's what they're doing yeah there's no point to keep them around for a couple months we put another rfp out we just asked them not to do the transportation because we don't trust them at least so i have a few questions um i guess my first one i'll just talk about that i mean i understand sorry um i still have a few questions i'll just jump off a question i just said provide first um no point to keep them around for a couple months can someone discuss with the potential um increase in charges the district will experience for bringing this council in for i think until such a time that our free is finished um i believe that we've received some information on packet i don't think
030we received too much information on this firm can someone explain um they're gonna have to take on all the open cases especially cases are their travel keys included um i think the emotion isn't very clear i wish we're going about it but um so we're going to my first concern is if we're going to bring this firm in for a very short period of time just getting rfp out the amount of money that is going to cost our children in this district just because we're angry and bad and want to work out the motions rather than just working off policy procedure let's just get the policy procedure done and save the potential tens of thousands of dollars is it less is it more i'm not sure i'm not a professional here in this if someone
031can explain to me the potential increase the information from mr laffy stated that using the new firm for a few months would actually be cheaper that we would actually be safe yeah my understanding was compared to the same amount of time six months previous year and for all legal services it was more expensive if we were going through sweet speaking chats to answer your question regarding travel no i believe travel is not me we do have on our work session um this the opportunity to discuss all this further so we're making a decision right now we're usually discussing it here but no i'm happy to try to try to yeah so let me just clarify really quick so um the phrase are really similar but um obviously to bring affirmative for just a couple of
032months there's gonna be much much more time built to us because they have to learn the cases that we have open and then to potentially just transfer to another firm in a very short period of time and then have to pay those fees all over again uh how many open special cases did we say we have at the moment may i address that before sure um i have discussed this um i asked the same question and it is not and i have been informed that it is normal practice for the special education um cases that there is a handover period where a case is well advanced where there have been statements taken when people are doing that it wouldn't stand with sweet statements until it was resolved where it was just simply at the beginning
033of the thing taken over and shattered it until such time as the rsvp was done and anything that was needed to be done it would be done because as we all know the law rise very slowly but as i have understood that this is normal practice and it is the goal of mo of any firm taking over from this is not changing solicitors on the short-term matters is not an historically unusual thing i think that um i have heard anecdotally that sweden's capturing millions have a time taken over his spreading certain districts and then keeps buying taken over from sweden's there is a well-established protocol for doing this because there is professional responsibility that says we are all working in the same thing you don't go into education more to run up bills with the
034district so there will be i understand uh because the normal protocol is followed minimal additional expense in the special education area just one question superintendent just wanted to speak oh yeah just to answer your question director fox is that something um with the last transition we did have a transition so um the one thing that i found with the last time we did this was the lawyers work on that together as far as at what at what point should they pass over a case to another or does the current firm keep that and see it through and it all depends on where they are in that process and the last transition we had with our legal they were able in fact we still have a current legal firm working on a case from for at
035least two years now but wasn't that different like are we just cutting off ssk tonight that was a transition i do not i mean there are certain cases they're going to have to keep that's that's not so when you say cut off i i don't you know that word i think we go back to tonight my understanding is from now on um if the board approves this motion um king's bride would be handling anything from now on as far as current cases again that's analyzing what is where and then making the best decisions to not put the district into any position that's going to get us further in trouble so with all due respect i don't think this motion says that this motion says motion to be effective immediately that is i mean whatever i'm
036thinking goes right across my forehead i know everyone here is very clear about the way i feel and i'm very clear about what's going to transpire i've made my opinions about process crystal clear i have made my devotion to policies parent but i am deeply concerned and not to put to find a point on it the language could have been more stringent which is something i am going to keep in mind for the rest of my life those words have been reading in my ear but i'm worried that this language is not as precise or perhaps it is strategic and i am very worried that we are in a position here where we are making very definitive black and white choices rather than referencing anything about a transition plan about attorneys working together to transition
037cases i i don't see any different i see motion effective immediately and that seems very very strong i understand but that's not how i you know again i understand what you're saying on the paper but that's not how it was explained to me that's not possible what you're saying is that it just cut out there are like i said we are far along in lawsuits where that wouldn't be possible and not in the best interest of the district so that's not my understanding but what you're saying and what was explained to us in both these active sessions is not what is written on this question this quotient says should be effective immediately so when this is passed then what's said in terms of certain cases that are that i have that are well progressed continuing
038with ssk is there anything else on the question uh yes um uh my first question is um could you please could somebody clarify what information that we have received i just wanted to clarify what information the best board members we have received on this firm besides i know i mean i just probably just explained so um everyone's wearing the information and done that we have received on the firm yeah i'm just asking the first recording okay sweet questions yeah so that in the packet there was a scope of services and compensation agreement for scranton school district interim solicitor there was a response to requests for information for legal services and there was an educational legal services packet and then all all of the board members received from mr laffy on saturday via email and analysis
039again comparing um going over the legal fees going over uh what a retainer fee would mean this is a general summary that i'm giving everybody right now um and again i just want to remind everybody that when you're comparing legal services you're you're looking at the cost of emphasis from the last several months but understand that that can change based on what comes up in each fund so that not necessarily can we say this is what we're going to spend next month we don't know what we're going to foresee in legal services so what mr laffy tried to do was take the information that was in the scope of services and compensation agreement and summarizing the board as far as what we are paying now and what we will pay for equivalent services i don't
040know if that was what you wanted but that's that's the summary of what the board has received thank you anything the comprehensive uh handbook of their legal services in the education field and the information that was in there um is very impressive education lawyers i am learning to migrate sugar in an incredibly specialized area and i think that if one is wishes to um i think we would be hard-pressed to find a more credentialed firm in this way this does not mean that they will not hopefully um there will be an rfp according to our board policy i think that some a majority of the board expressed that they had lost confidence in our current previous current employment and really still goes on this motion and having been around them all all my life not
041a lawyer but having worked with them and and produced legal shows and had many many lawyers as friends once you have lost confidence in your legal world you cannot proceed to conduct a business and whatever individual board members feel i believe there is a majority of this board that feels that their confidence in our current lingual provider does not make it possible to proceed i'm delighted to hear that the board's confidence in mr menorah was confident which is wonderful because this is where we as individuals get to put our point of view but ultimately if a majority feels that it changes um i think that we have to abide by or the district to function i don't think anybody here is looking to disparage anyone we are speaking about process but i i do take
042exception to the notion that we discussed this at late in executive session i'm not going to recast what went on and try to figure out how we got from one statement to another version of the statement to a plan from may 2nd to now well that was right that was the next question i was wondering if um could please be explained um because on april 8th it was uh by the ward to put on a statement that said the scranton school district believes um that an award of transportation contracts the lowest cost throughout the process i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry um stated that um we were awarding our special counsel to king spread and that we were keeping ssk as our legal server for all other legal services and we didn't have another meeting
043from then until our last committee meeting um where this information came out so well i would like a timeline of from the last statement that was approved by the board to put out that david khan would be our solicitor um come here this evening so was this decision made before this evening since your vidcon isn't here we spoke about this at the last committee this this is the process that we need to follow would you like to have attorney khan here to put him through any kind of humiliation i'm trying to for this board i believe he's trying to follow the correctness was really hard to get thoughts across um tara if you could please provide a timeline from that statement that was released that support approved um to our last commit to the phone
044call you gave to me katie and sarah say the decision was already made targeted meeting can you please say that board members reached out to me individually so there was no no private meetings board members reached out to me following executive sessions at which time we did discuss all of this to say that they have lost confidence in sweet stevens and cats and that they wanted to switch legal services so as board president i then took that to the superintendent so i did i did call you because i felt that that was being transparent i thought calling you and explaining to you that i had been contacted by wardrobes i think you did that several times during your presidency you called me there were actually times when you would call me and say i preached
045consensus my process was to always call the vice president of the board and then if possible reach out to the behind my back [Music] to recess yes this is cleary yes this cruise why are we recessing there's a motion in a second on the floor please vote yes yes you yes mr mckander yes this is johnny yes six affirmative three negatives recess for ten minutes and there were those who didn't want to make the change at all but it was very clear to me and i would be happy to do a poll of the other directors of this table that the majority of the directors who served in that room have made that decision now i do not think there is anything wrong with individual directors who wish to make reached out to the director
046to the president i don't think anything that we can handle these discussions um the fact of the timing have done perhaps on our all consensus at that time we didn't but the president did reach out later and taken president obama consensus as it happened the uh consensus was reached early on because i knew that the majority of the board was wishing and i do not believe that um anyone who was in that room could have reached any other conclusion but that a majority of the members felt that it was time in interest of the district to several times and i do not think this is any reflection of the work that sweet students have done up to that times but it is in the nature of the industry of school solicitors it's a nature of
047the industry of school districts that the biennial addition of new members to boards and other members can change um people's confidence can change people's attitudes desires and it is not at all unusual school wants to move on probably against legal advisors in this context so i just wanted to clarify that all of that is true and it was absolutely apparent that we will be making a different decision in terms of our legal services but the question i have been asking is why do we have to take this step why can't we simply initiate the process that is defined in policy as we will do to learn it and i don't i don't think we're going to get an answer to that the only possible explanation i don't get forward is that when you have a
048majority you have lost confidence the legal advice they are again it may not you a little bit concerned about the comments that mr coleman earlier and unless i misunderstand it forgive me if i am but mr folks you said you reached out and requested a meeting with legal counsel is that your own legal counsel or i reached out to the president of the board because first of all allow me to finish this a client has a right to discharge a lawyer at any time with or without cause subject to liability for payment for the lawyer services for future disputes about the withdrawal may be anticipated it may be advisable to prepare a written statement cited reciting the circumstances that is quoted directly from the pa rules professional conduct of attorneys stated under 1.16 declining for
049termination representation discharge number four i after two sessions in reading what the judge had provided was extremely uncomfortable moving forward with the legal representation so therefore i personally reached out to the president to make a motion on the floor because it was apparent to me that we could not come to consensus or any agreement in executive sessions so therefore yes i did reach out to president gianni for guidance i apologize that's not the question i'm and she did answer your question if you just answered your question so did you have a conversation with the representatives to determine the path forward [Music] to determine how to replace the current house no i took a meeting so that i could find out my actions going forward so that i could get the correct terminology so that i
050could make a motion from me because that's how i felt as an individual board member and a new board member i wanted to see exactly what the process was and to get guidance so that i could ensure that we could move forward once i made a motion right and in full transparency when he reached out to me i immediately reached out to superintendentarian to involve her in the process so i'm not sure what you're what you're asking a director may i answer the director had questions so i reached out to the superintendent to ask for guidance then on how to get those questions answered i know for a fact director gilmore that you've reached out to attorney audi several times when you had questions and you needed an answer okay so i'm not sure what
051your legal power you're asking there was there was no research there was nothing done um in a malicious manner we were trying to do this in a proper way but it comes across that way if we try to do this well we tried to do this in the most respectful way we could to sweet stephens we have the rfb has to go up we've done this i really i appreciate that that some of our colleagues have questions about how we got here the point that i would like to make is that this is where we are and your point that you feel disrespected that you feel the political not treated properly is noted and in the future we'll take it i moved the previous question would you please take paul hung moving the previous question
052which would revert us back to vote on the original ocean a motion has been made in second and we need to take roll call the motion on the floor is to move the previous question mrs cleary yes miss cruz no this fox no just good morning no mr holmes yes that's you yes mr mckay andrew yes this is chessy yes would you like to read the motion again and we will go right to roll call yes okay motion to discontinue the service of sweet stevens cassie williams as solicitor and general counsel and to appoint the firm of king spry llc is interim solicitor in general counsel until such time as the board completes the rfp process the permanent legal counsel for policy zero zero five dash p zero g dash three motion to be effective
053immediately you see attached forward defeated bob thinks mississaura this cruise no miss fox hello justin martin no mr holmes yes miss hugh yes mr mckandra yes this is yes spirit yes this is motion to assess the legal needs of the scranton school district and initiate the rfp process as outlined in zero zero five dash e0g-3 on the question so i wasn't allowed to explain why i'm concerned about how this decision came out out of public it is parliamentary procedure oh so i can't explain my my thoughts and my feelings about how we got to where we are because we can judge people when you don't want to hear what really happened correctly i was elected to be here and to follow policy procedure and not being shushed because we want to talk about what happened
054here but people who are involved in it don't want to hear it they don't want the public to hear it they want to touch okay is there anything else on the question for this motion just keep it i'm very pleased that we are potentially voting to start the rfp process as outlined in our policy policy governs everything every governing body us at any organization any business that is what that is what governs everything or at least it should if we don't pass we are following lockstep self-serving status flow so by numerous iterations before us i would like to propose a friendly amendment that the motion to assess the legal needs of scranton district and initiate the rfp process as outlined in zero zero five dash e o g dash three as soon as it's decided
055by the that's why i listen that the friendly movement second second happened can you specify it so there's no no start date here yeah [Music] all right of going through the rfp process however we are dealing at the moment in a transportation devices that is something that i think is a higher priority at this stage i am not saying i think there are two alternatives either we amend this to be at the degree timeline at the discipline at the decision of the board specific timeline as you'd like but we need to do that alternatively as this motion is virtually identical to previous motion we could vote to uh postpone it to a to a meeting in three months to put it there it to follow the is is the intention of the board to initiate
056another effort i do not feel that tying the ball to a specific date at this time advances the position of where we are i am trying to deal with the realities of where we are i i think that we can vote in the motion to take information we can make a friendly america so you're going to direct your mobility on the table do you want to withdraw that friendly amendment is there anything further on the question for the motion at hand yes [Music] but we didn't discuss it in public my concern with this is an attempt to um set a timeline that may not be feasible and will put the board in breach of its own emotion the refusal to accept the fact that the board has a good faith intention to do what is
057in our policy is to use your own words directed or not possibly um perceivable as disrespectful is there anything further on the question of this motion yes ms good morning yes mr holmes no issue no mr mcandrew no this is jessica no this is cleary no there's cruz yes this is johnny yeah three in front of anything they're gonna teach at this time i'd like to ask attorney freund if you would if he would join us here since he has been appointed as our interim council yesterday thank you for joining us this evening attorney john troy is the education chair of king spry a general practice law firm with a heavy concentration in education law with offices in bethlehem and stroudsburg attorneys is well respected in this field and joins us this evening with extensive
058experience in the law's governing public school education the education law group is the firm's largest practice area and includes special education and law the journeys of king's cry are prepared to assist our administrators with all legal regulations and service options we appreciate you joining us this evening we look forward to your legal guidance as our board administration and staff continue to work towards our common goal of providing a quality education to meet the needs of all of our students well thank you thank you president uh let me say that i appreciate the opportunity to serve the expanded school district and uh now standing uh out back in here procedurally i can assure you that we'll do our best to advise the board represented and assisted in its mission i've been doing this now for 42
059years i can also assure you from some of the comments that were made concerning the increased costs and delays and special education cases and that's not going to happen um director hume i think correctly uh indicated that both our firm and the sweet statements firm have had a long history of cooperation professionalism and i can assure you that that will continue uh in our services thank you attorney fine well i look forward a plan to deal with the 40-plus open tax success in the pmc oh it's really absolutely thank you i can say that also with me is my partner john you know show up at a meeting or if there's a call from the superintendent or someone else that you can get as rapidly responsible possible i will say that uh attract uh is
060recognized as one of the leading uh lawyers in the sense of commonwealth is very very active and uh yes i mean you'll get aggressive representation from us as we move on to new business i wanted to start out by asking attorney to provide the board um with an update of where we stand with the transportation rfp process yes earlier today i said a draft of a revised rfp to superintendent and to the business manager we expect to be able to issue a new rfp by wednesday at the latest possibly even tomorrow that rfp has some modifications uh to add some of the some more of the aspect of an rfp i think the original rfp was drawn perhaps too tightly to represent more of a marvel public bidding process which is not really appropriate to
061services as complicated and nuanced as transmutation so we made some modifications there we've also identified about a dozen [Music] vendors in the area we'll be sending them directly and as well as doing some advertising uh for that um we have tentatively uh but technically we hope uh that we will be able to uh have responses to the arkham rfp by may the 20th that's that's the injections and do you feel that with this rop process we are meeting all of the judges um requested in in his order are we following the judges it will be a competitive process that will be a fair process but it'll also be a process that respects the prerogative of the school board to choose a vendor [Music] not necessarily exclusively on price but on service price and integrity as
062our chief recovery officer the member of the transportation rpg are you able to provide this board with insight into the department of education's recommendations or resources available for our district moving forward to ensure we have transportation in the fall recovery officer and a member of the transportation rfb today are you able to provide this board with insight into the department of education's recommendations for resources available for our district moving forward to ensure we have transportation in place for the fall i can't guarantee anything if you're asking me to guarantee transportation for the fall i can't guarantee that i'm hoping that this rfp process as miss attorney freud just described will provide competitive pricing and some options for the fall but if you're asking the department of education to provide business that's up to the local
063school district um attorney ford i just have one theory there's been some questions raised that the decision of the board to ask him to restore other consciousness for the arab solution to this issue rather than doing that while we were preparing the rfp which i think you really needed to be carefully advised to avoid potential reaping um that the decision to explore all options was somehow or rather culturally to the judge's border i my reading of that is that because it was a good fail attempt to resolve the issue but we were not in compliance we were not in contraction with the judges as i understand it no i don't i don't believe that the district was close to any kind of a violation when i say that uh in my view now with regard
064to the direct condition there is nothing more important than joining the scranton [Music] the overwhelming number of civil matters in fact in the 90-some percentile are resolved through negotiation resolution not not through court decision so uh if there were a possibility of resolving the issue that would certainly have been done um with the idea of ending that litigation so that we would have been violations however uh that avenue uh is no longer being pursued but there are there's certainly the thoughts being given to uh back up the contingency plans uh if this doesn't work but i have every confidence that you will be successful in getting a candidate i'd like to say that i said to the newspaper as well i've been talking to quite a number of vendors in fact nine nine different possible
065possible vendors who are sure of the general area uh asking them you know whether if they got our and i think that that's you know an essential thing that needs to be done to ensure that we have people who are actually interested in providing the service as i also said to the reporter uh the procurement of transportation services uh is uh a different and much more complicated nuance than purchasing passage paper [Music] speaking to the vendors directly to see what the possibilities are and their capabilities are i think it's an essential part of that thank you very much so anything further under your business may i have a motion to adjourn the second apology okay so we're gonna move right on to our work session i'd like to call the work session on monday april
06625th at the scranton school board this is where should we stand for the pledge of allegiance again under the consent agenda we will have motions to approve the bill list the exception bill list bill list the capital improvement bill list delinquent tax treasurer's reports repository sales budget transfers in any disposable baskets we have a discussion and possible motion of real estate assessment approvals at this point mr laffy has reported that if there is anything to come before us he will provide that information in our consideration yes that's correct yeah thank you we have nothing i i did check with him so i have nothing to report today i'm sure he appreciates two [Music] would like to report two items the first is a one-month contract with direct energy natural gas contract for 14 of the
067district's building as previously reported in the board memo dated march 24th 2022 the district gas contracts were expiring as of march 31st the district secured a rate of 0.6281 per third for the month of april without a contract rating determined based on the monthly index rates based on average costs per month the current 12 day average natural natural gas stock rate for the month of april is 0.64416 percent so just uh the second item to report is the approval of a quote with stem academy painting one quote was received from jay's painting [Music] this includes the painting of the walls in the area designated for the stem probably in when mr latin reviewed this to me with me i did ask him about our own pagers doing work and whoever appropriate have communicated and that
068actually they felt they needed support thank you education director cruz thank you um under consent we will have a motion to approve a donation from the crystalline foundation slash water boys recipe solutions motion to approve permission to attend if they're already um a motion to approve out-of-state field trips including west high strip to canada new jersey and scranton highs to washington dc we will have um under not consent people have a motion to approve the 2223 career technology center budget i'm directly prepared do you have any issues about that i think you've all received it i believe it came to us in the mail if you have any questions i am happy to get you the answers to them if i can't provide them but i i do believe there was an increase to the
069districts of course ctc's budget is significantly impacted by the supply chain issues we're all facing inflation plus materials and supplies that students use but as dr bailey's committed to doing he held the increase to the districts overall the increase for our district i believe is about ninety seven thousand dollars yes that's correct there would be an increase of 94 522 uh dollars a year our adm went from 247 and 2122 to 257 to 22-23 our tuition to the ctc is about 1.7 million over that and that's approximately six thousand seven hundred and thirty three uh per adm so uh we have budgeted two million and with based on the currency tuition of 1.7 billion um a little over 1.7 million in the debt service 22 as 357 373 will total over 2 million 87 000
070approximately i feel like mr laffy tonight but yes so that's where that kind of explains overall just to clarify i don't want to be confusing the two percent increase is representative of the overall interface to all districts our share of that is beyond two percent because of what um and then lastly we'll have a motion to approve educational and educational assault for title two services agreement with kimberly um this is a dollar statement please speak to the benefit of having um sure thank you very much for considering this um kim walk is a pde department of education monitor who does work with other districts not ours and that's why she's able to consult with us the main purpose of title ii is to train and get professional development to teachers and principals and sometimes a
071little bit of administration and this the purpose of this you know after recently going to the pafpc conference that there's going to be changes in the upcoming monitoring and we really wanted to be able to prepare be proactive and help our principals to be ready for those monetary changes and part of that change is the schoolwide plans are going to be more in depth and the state is going to be looking for more specific information on budgets and things like that that um i believe this will help the principals to build their capacities to understand how to make those life fans more fun thank you yep okay thank you that's all i have to do thank you director cruz director hume operations um thank you yeah we will have a motion to approve the 2022
072lack of one by contract and we will have a discussion on the east front of little league dirt understanding is actually not gossip i'm sorry um but uh mr could you fill us in on of fun obviously we don't own the east grant little league and we have found that when we use these fields uh there are no contracts no paperwork uh to show what we're responsible for what the city is responsible for what the partner is responsible for so right now where we are with this is uh nobody is saying no to the dirt but we're trying to do the proper way of handling this so mr genelez i believe will have a meeting this week with the individuals pertaining to this east grant literally to get the details and then we'll have a
073formal contract so the school district knows exactly what they're responsible for the city is going to be responsible for i'm assuming um and then there's no questions because what ends up happening is uh individuals within my staff come to me and say we need dirt at scranton little league and i say okay what's our obligation and there is nothing in writing so we're trying to clean all of those contracts up um and that's where we're at with regards to that mr rucker do you have any other details you said everything i was gonna say i'm sorry can we be prepared to have a motion do you think we should have a motion to address that uh mr general what is your meeting with these individuals uh we are we are right now i've talked to
074the east grand elite president and we are in the process of starting and contacting city hall and we're in the process of trying to begin the process of a lease contract these grant which we talked about okay so let's get to the chase will we get will we have something to vote on by monday oh no the contract is that can't be done overnight that takes time um i seem to remember last year we had a dispute with one of the other little things where we did have a contract so i'm right about there is is have a pony farm they have a league they have a tino league and sophomore they only use two we use the other two our we have four teams that use the other two and they asked [Music] back
075there in the summer at all so our softball teams use it two softball teams and two baseball teams use the other two fields and they ask if they since they do all the maintenance when we have days of the game are maintenance disposal drags the field and blinds it which is very minimal so they do the grass cutting the garbage cleaning up the painting whatever fixing the fences so they just asked if we could do mr jealous do we have a dollar amount that they're asking for i believe a bucket starts yeah that's right so the plane fields are getting low in the dirt there so they says we can help them out in the meantime in the meantime i like to work on getting something in place for next year and that's something i
076i just know how west grant will lead the contract with the city it just took just took a lot of time my only concern was that we didn't want to have kids playing on fields where the lack of dirt by the moves that's what it's painful if that's the case let's process play out but i think we can we can probably reassure you ultimately yes we want to be good partners we just want to do it the right way and the process is we want to have it in writing what our expectation is so would we be able to do a motion then i guess that's my question how can we um do this the right way well i think it would just be at this point it would be the board which we are
077doing the board making a motion to have us follow through to get a contract to work with these individuals um so that we come to a solution so that the fields are taken care of for our kids i just made that up but that's always scary yes all right thank you thank you the next the next time the environmental task force was formed in 2019 2020 suggested pretty quickly just when we discovered that our asbestos situation district was not perhaps as ideal as it could have been the task force was comprised of myself as president our co-president co-chair co-chair was a member of the public and we had teachers we had staff members we had administrators and all of that the idea was that at the time we as we as a new boy took
078over a january there was the revelation that we had really serious issues with asbestos with the ledger thought and with other environmental actions as people will recall that then to the closure of east intermediate school for some time um so in the two years and three months since the environmental task force was formed it was a forum for [Music] me for ideas for meetings for report the most valuable members were our own maintenance people um and the rocko de pietro from chinese i've written a report it will be posted on the website so i'm not going to give you all that we but on our meeting on april 20th rocco from now pennoni sounds like some sort of italian pastry presented a powerpoint um report which is going up on the website and be under
079the environmental passport uh including the management plan summer abatement plans and minor abatement works at their armstrong the land in water report from 2021 2020 to 2021 we had 16 points which had largely over 15 times per million 14 were rectified by the rucker and his maintenance staff even before the report in venoni the other two were retested and found to be safe we installed during the pandemic a series of i think was 180 bipolar ionization units these were not in the old buildings where the evacuation was great in the new buildings where the modern systems could handle rock ventilation but in the middle aged buildings where it was more difficult to get adequate air replacement and ventilation during covert um panoni ran tests on these set in several classrooms and they showed that there
080were improvements in many of the areas that they tested and they were found safe to use there was no increase in data they were an extraordinarily effective use of our things i think there are neil armstrong but that it's going to be updated but the decision of the district to install uh finally the environmental monitoring we authorized the purchase of can no more launching devices we're getting moved around and they're like tiny through anyone who lives blackberries and they measure both carbon dioxide levels and um relative humidity the effectiveness of that they can be ran by are very efficient they were 500 each a great investment um i tried to ask rocco if we needed any more he said five more would be great but we don't really need um but we may look at
081doing that at some point the past course will come out with a recommendation but the level of carbon dioxide in a room is a very great indicator of air refresh rate and you can tell when we're refreshing the air enough to all this is posted to the website we also discussed the upcoming hvac improvements um both funded by s funds and our own capital funds which are going to make a huge difference to the environmental air quality of all of our works which has been shown to lead to um improved academic conductions so after we patted ourselves on the back in the fact that we were extremely proud that we got three decades worth of asbestos remediation in two years and three months which is an extraordinary thing and that is congratulations to everybody from
082data to chinese i can now tell you that we removed over 100 tons of asbestos containing material we're now in a pair of compliance we had no management plans for any buildings but we now have management plans for all our buildings we have seven buildings that no longer require management plans and our goal is to get all of our schools into that situation but as of now there are no medium or high risk and acne incidents and we really did we turned a tiger into a kitten because when we were there in january 2020 we found out where we were with asbestos we are now so squeaky clean we are so in compliance with everything and most importantly of all our students are downstairs was done under director kim martin's guidance so i think it's
083important to note that if you put countless hours and energy into that work so thank you thank you thank you appreciate that so the last thing that i really want to talk about was that the environmental task force has been an extraordinary productive way of being private communications between the public the school community and the professionals but what we've got left to do isn't much the contract systems have been worked on so what we thought we would do we had two choices either to recess the environment into past course or to refocus it and the decision was made by the committee to refocus our efforts to a more proactive approach and look for ways that we can positively improve the student's environment so that we can improve their quality we get into recreational spaces we
084can increase the general environment for our students in industries uh and and and do some data measurements to whether this helps us with our academic outcomes so we have planned our next meeting for september as much we need to do between them but we will be looking for expressions of interest from members of the public professionals in environmental areas parents taxpayers administrators students anyone who would like to join us there will be a link i haven't told you this is all but there will be a link under the environmental task force button on the website we can just put a link there please um but also you could email virginia.org at [Applause] just ssdeu.org please contact me i'd like to be an environmental task force um i was so proud to be a part of
085this task force to sort of cope with the crisis to see monitor to see the input from our professional partners the value that they found in it uh and i'm very proud to leave it further into the future before thank you for all of your work as well director a lot of time and energy on that so thank you thank you guys for being so emotional describe the high five suppression system replacement project um uh yeah we're gonna be opening updates for expression this is some the last time it went out correct uh foot was well over our budget and uh we tightened up the scope uh limited to a couple of different areas and put it back out we'll be opening those businesses on which day is the record this week 27th of april
086this week yesterday [Music] uh the bids have been out the this will be the end of the third week it's been publicly announced for three weeks uh they'll be opened 27. oh they'll be over yeah exactly so so you hope to have a information for us at our meeting next week yes thank you okay now we will have a discussion of the west high roof replacement project center of tamil relocation and resetting costs oh yes so uh t-mobile at least is an area of the roof on top of west grant high school uh currently we have an agreement with them that we wouldn't even have to pay for any type of resetting we're gonna be looking to speak to legal counsel just seeing our current options and we look to have a motion for you
087yeah so just to uh clarify this this will be one of the first tasks that we asking to take a look at in reading the over the contract we pay approximately 1500 we get 1500 a month from t-mobile but in order to relocate it would cost us what's 165 000. math to me doesn't work so we're gonna we are going to pass the contract over to uh king's pride to take a look at it to see exactly what our next steps would be so at this point that's really all we have to report we hope to get more information but we do need to do this and ethan i i don't know rob i don't know if you want to explain what you're doing we have no option we have to miss correct and this
088leasing memo that i was given today by mr lafias from february 19th 2017. so um i'm going to pass it forward and ethan i don't know if you have anything else that you'd like to say yeah you pretty much covered it t-mobile has a communication antenna that's on the top of that roof where the school district does have a disagreement with and in order to replace the roof the equipment has to be relocated and to me the relocation fee is outrageous so we want us if we want to even see if this is something that we even want to continue is that t-mobile is charging that fee to us it's t-mobile's fee yes so they give us fifteen hundred dollars to have the the t-mobile what would you call an antenna on top of the
089parts communications amazing fifteen hundred dollars [Music] that was part of the discussion that we hoped and then informationally we will have a change order for the memorial stadium nature upgrades to approve 3048.78 permits and for the west ground intermediate small temperate parking lot change order 2092.02 cents per permit this is per our usual process of not including perfect fees but adding them as change orders okay mrs orr um would you hold the motion to approve the 2022 blackout baby with contact contract from the consent agenda um i would need to vote on that and abstain this my husband has volunteered with that organization oh sure it's not under is that yes thanks uh we're gonna have a motion to improve the personnel report a motion to approve the human resources 218 student discipline 220 student
090expression explanation experience teaching personal control assumptions 237 electronic devices and eight of late services thank you director [Music] okay so the first one says possible motion legal services so that was just there well i think the questions regarding fees so i think if those questions are there we can have an attorney sure sure as i understand it we received in our package to fight alternative things which fairly clearly set out what the thing is for the interim period um i think it's just a question of the board to make this to make a motion and our meeting next week as to which of those two persons if there's questions regarding the two options were there questions or would you like attorney foreign to explain those two options i'm surprised we discussed them with voting motion
091to approve mama power contracts if any and motion duplicated paper bit yes may i just add i did get a little bit information because there's a statement made that we don't have any paper and i was just told there are 2.6 million sheets of paper in the supply room and that does not include what is in the schools so that's the information i just received i will definitely check on pencils i have not on pencils today was the first day that i heard that so i just want to make sure that i stated that also with regards to the bid i did state that the first time we've been paper and maybe that's where there's uh confusion that we did not get any bidders so we didn't put that back out we did do i
092believe have one i don't know who that is but i do there's there's one that i believe mr laffy will be preparing for the painting on monday is he always the process for paper is it the principle gets it from so um basically what happens is the the building principle uh puts in a request like they all of the requests during the summer and then those are fulfilled and then there's obviously we ordered more paper because we always go over and we look i know mr laffy does a really good job looking at the trend data as far as what we ordered here and then as far as paper in schools again i'm going to have to ask one of the um one either mrs greenbeck or mr schultz just to help me because i
093haven't been a principal in a while um but i i i'm assuming it's the same as teachers go to the coffee room there's paper as far as what the concern is i don't know i i know there was an email that was sent out and again i don't know if this was the confusion but there was an email that was sent out basically saying stating that we did not get any bids on paper so obviously when we sent that out to the principals to let them know that just just be aware if you have paper in your building beware really get a bid on it and i think that caused panic a little um because what i understand is the next day mr clark connor clark in the supply room got several uh request for
094a lot of paper all of a sudden because i didn't even panicked but again maybe mrs greenback you have more information on exactly what happened but if we have 2.6 million sheets of suppliers i'm not really sure whether we're is actually true typically the paper is stored in a central location and due to covert we have had an overabundance i don't know what this current situation with this remarks of not having paper art but the process she explains is what happens um the purchase orders are created in the fall uh they come from the general pipework paper pencils crayons the basics and then those orders are fulfilled um and arriving at the schools before the year starts and should we have any kind of assurance during the year just as uh superintendent said the teacher
095would report to the principal materials would be designated to most schools and there is a sad pile of materials at least there was when coven was here of various materials that are held in central supply that would be sent to those schools and in extreme emergencies some schools that have boxes of paper that they don't necessarily use um would send into a slow if it was an emergency if it was a shortage this is the first time i'm hearing of it as well but she was correcting what we usually do am i correct that you just spoke to mr connor clark and the information that i gave is accurate yes ma'am thank you one person once again and did paul tell you a bit but you were rejecting the emails to be double-checked that went
096up to the faculties in the different schools saying there's no data also teachers have emails to say not to send any big and let me know because i wasn't even here besides which the teachers have emails i don't have to call on them they're sending emails out to the teachers what are the teachers supposed to do i understand so you know when you call me i will always i have a motion to a giant i want to acknowledge director clearing and director holmes for traveling to harrisburg today and i as an advocacy ambassador i was very proud to have scranton so well represented so thank you and i between us we visited with the state senator the legislative director for our own state senator and three of our representatives we had some really great conversations
097and you can spark some good ideas so before it comes it was it was a long day but it was a it was a benefit to the district and our students um and it's a good chance to charge our spark in regards to what our needs are because we know that we have needs thank you all for attending today and for sending us yes thank you so much bye [Music]