time is now 7:30 and I'll call the meeting to order um adequate notice of tonight's meeting has been provided in accordance with the open open public meetings act by the following methods distribution of notice to the record posting of the agenda on school district website everyone please rise for the Mr Thomas roll call please Miss Troy Dr Misa Miss Molina Mr par Mr zepa Mr seel Miss Thompson Miss wild vice president Melman and President we have a also in in attendance as our superintendent of schools Dr gadens as well as our assistant superintendent of schools Dr caramanos as well as our board attorney Mr laa and we have all three student reps uh president Hannah Choy Emily gelbard and Renee Kim thank you that brings us to our first public comment portion on any matters pertaining to the agenda do you have anyone from the public wishing to speak please step St your name and address and you have two minutes quiet audience no one from the public I will move on to the Public Presentation by Dr hello good evening Board of Education esteemed members of the board sorry Dr G Dr caramanos and parents and students I thrilled to be here tonight to present our District's very first recipients of the Seal of biliteracy the Seal of biliteracy program recognizes students in grades 11 and 12 who have achieved high levels of proficiency in Reading Writing listening and speaking in both English and in their home language which is demonstrated by scoring a five on the stamp assessment a six on the Ulta assessment or a four on the AP language and culture test this program represents a significant milestone for our district it signifies our commitment to providing students with the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world this year 10 students have met the rigorous requirements to earn the Seal of biliteracy these students have demonstrated their fluency through standardized assessment in six languages seven languages sorry Korean Japanese Russian Spanish French Armenian and Albanian students please stand and remain standing when I call your name Tiffany B alante Rachel Kang edra Nishiki melen Tarion Erica un Sarah Katz Thomas mbon David granik Caroline Kim and may akamoto these students being honored today accepted the challenge to not only work diligently to meet and exceed graduation requirements but also maintain their Reading Writing speaking and listening skills in their native language learning a new language is an impressive feat but holding on to your home language while doing so is truly commendable it demonstrates a deep respect for your cultural roots and commitment to multilingualism please join me in congratulating our first ever recipients of the Seal of by literacy could Dr Gaton and Dr caramanos help me present certificates we have Leona's own certificates and we all also have the official state certificates these students was will also receive a seal on their transcript Tiffany Bel alonte Rachel Kang parents you can come up it's okay uh Meen Tarion Erica Sarah cats Tom m Caroline Kim and that's everyone thank you so [Applause] much e e e go that's amazing all right back to our regular program um we are now on item F Board of Education members any student rep comments regarding any agenda related items any comments from our board for student members we'll move on to approval of consent agenda items I have a motion and EXC are there any items that anyone likeo yes 64 item Finance item third world I myself from voting for that item Dr m L yes but yes Mr Park yes Mr z Mr SEO Miss Thompson Miss W vice president Melman and president Lee Yes motion carries on consent agend great it's good to see everyone congratulations to our seal by literacy students very proud of them Dr Gander the cly I I wanted to congratulate her she recently defended her dissertation she would would have been M Gander two months ago she's Dr Gander we're very proud of her and she deserves a lot of credit for seal by literacy you know part of part of my job is is to saying yes to Cas and she brought the idea to the table was very eion to say yes and she really b along the entire way so thank thank you Dr gon for that and thank you for the work that you've done there you'll notice on the uh on the minutes there I I mentioned um on the agenda HIV grade report affirmation of 1017 202 by n we're required twice per year to point out the fact that our HIV grades which we reviewed in the October meeting are on our website any member of the public could access the website and can see those grades so I met the expectation by saying that out loud for the purpose of the meeting and the purpose of the minutes um a few things I want to I want to touch on before we move on to the rest of the agenda first thing I want to um we will do this again in June but we want to make it a point to thank our Boe re for their work they've done for us the entire year they've been a wonderful group um and ton we're tell you that we're going to arrange to Dr car and I and Mr Thomas Sage if we could drag him away from his spreadsheets we're going to take you out for lunch one day so we're going to take you out for lunch um you get to pick the place to go uh the Palm is not one of them but other than that you get to pick the place to go um and the reason why the pal is not one of them I think I would I would like to tell this story is that last um a few weeks ago the high school had a spirit day it was a it was a Hawaiian fi and they played rock paper scissors Ro Shambo and they had to do the rock paper scissors and they did that and um a student won uh Luca won and we said to Luca we said you get to pick any restaurant you want to go to and he said the river pal um and so jokingly enough we're actually going to take him there at his sister Tia that we will take him to have a bit of a lunch there and Emily works there and she's a little horrified right now that we're taking them there they came separately very nice then they then they get another meal out of the way but that was a lot of fun so but we are delighted by the work of our reps this year diligent and above be missed very very much um the two that are graduating moving on R we don't want you going anywhere but we'll we'll work on that for next year so thank you um as you look at the agenda tonight uh we are moving away from this agenda format we have one more meeting in June on this format and then we're going over to board docs we've had some trainings going on in the board office uh Eric will reach out to everybody we need to schedule a training for board members um it's a virtual training we have some dates we're going to float off to everybody but we do want to do that training with our board doc representative and she has been and putting all that together um this Friday is the close of the njsi school culture and climate survey um I mentioned it last we meeting mention it again tonight um our our parental numbers are hovering a bit over 10% um in terms of completion we'll send another reminder out we have a huge student uh completion rate because we set we've setting time aside the PE classes in the high school and at ACS and LMS time is set aside and a strong staff member turnout too time has been set aside for that so those of you who are parents in the community that is essential feedback that closes at the end of the day on Friday um we are in the process of organizing ourselves for the Memorial Day Parade I know the board is involved every single year we'll talk a bit more about that if you've not yet done so um after the meeting singles me your intention if you can make it or not on that day and we will have a presence at the Memorial Day Parade I want to thank uh Mr thomasevich for this we've uh mashio is our food service provider uh we're very pleased with the work that they do um eat there several times a week um we've now put together the P where our staff members if they want can do the set accounts also as well through pay schools make it easy for our staff members to access their food um we tried it out we set it out tonight and that is working so thank you to Eric for putting that together um and I want to mention congratulations to our inaugural flag football team uh last night they won the division they are division champs onto the playoffs very very proud of our players there our high school sign is now beginning to show our College University graduates they our graduates where they're going next year happy for that we'll begin to populate that more and more as our seniors who are wonderful kids drag their Hills giving us their universities get those in seniors we also had a representative visit us from KC sign company that the sign outside of ACS is in need of repair it's hard to use the one in front of the high school several years old so and LMS does not have a sign so we're looking at maybe putting ass signs outside the three schools very preliminary we'll talk more about that and I just want to finish off by uh once again thanking Dr dander the SE by literacy students and also encouraging everybody board members students and parents and community members to really enjoy these next five weeks the final run of school right before we get to graduation is a wonderful time of year celebratory we celebrate our seniors as they're done with they're done with our school system we celebrate our teachers of their hard work this year so it's a combination of finishing strong for the year but having all those wonderful events and if you look at the school calendars we're right there going on every single night of the week we have an ACS event coming up this week we have LMS tomorrow night we have a lot of events that are happening um everyone's encouraged to get involved and really enjoy all the work that we're doing especially board members you put a lot of time and effort into your roles have a chance to sit back and enjoy everything you're do so thank you very much thank you try to Pi you up on that last Point um that brings us to Mr Thomas thank you president uh so I have two items to report to the board and to the public uh one is the capital projects update uh as we progress through through this year with you know the vision of the of the items that were needed identified through the 23 24 budget as well as some additional items that arrived over the course of the year uh two items that uh two projects going through Insurance one is the LHS electrical upgrade and the other one is and LHS exterior interior doors relating to Hurricane Ida both those projects were approved uh we went out to bid we awarded the contract pending Insurance approval I was notified about a week ago that the insurance signed off on it uh so we can move those uh projects forward so the architects in the process of contacting those vendors uh to submit a letter of intent for award so those projects can start moving forward both of those projects most likely will the summer project just this current summer uh relating to some additional projects uh these projects are going through uh the district's local fund budget in addition with uh some grant funding uh relating to Rod Grant as well as SEMA Grant uh the first project is LHS uh ADA Bathroom at the high school so that project uh we went through bidding we identified is bidder and that project is on tonight's agenda for award um and just to reiterate all these projects on once we you know they're they're required to go through the bidding process once we identify the lowest bidder uh Mr laer and his office they review the the bid specs of the lowest the lowest uh bidder to identify that everything's in compliance and they check out so that project is is in the process of getting awarded tonight that project is funded by capital reserve funds the next project is the ACs exterior doors that was another project that was also funded by capital reserve funds that project was awarded April 30th and that project is moving along the the architect submitted that previously uh to the vendor with the letter of intent to move that pro project forward and started uh the next project is the ACs roof replacement that was a rod Grant project that project's on tonight's agenda for approval that was identified through also the bid bid process uh relating to the lowest bidder uh so that's going to get approved tonight and that's going through Rod grant funding and that will will be uh signed off by the architect with a with a letter of intent uh the next two projects are mitigation projects at the high school and middle school both these projects incorporate capital reserve funds as well as FEMA Grant funds uh those projects the first project we went out to bid we identified the lowest bidder uh that is in the process of getting reviewed inter ly and with the architect because it is over the B the uh budgeted funds so we would have to identify if there isn't if there is um ability to either contribute to the um that bid and add cap additional capital reserve funds through the finance committee or possibly reduce the scope of the work uh the next project was the LHS mitigation project that would went out to bid we didn't receive any bids so that's currently going out for a second time rebid bid and that we the bid opening at the end of the month and both those projects all three of those projects are um scope are projected to to start over the summer and completed before the start of school um the next items there's four projects that were in the process of of creating bid documents and scope that's the New Media Center at the high school uh updated cafeteria student lounge uh relocating the fitness center at the high school uh the cafeteria Lounge is also at the high school and also making some improvements to the old Media Center Renovations so that's in the in the process of working with the architect to put it out to bid and identifying the scope and the budget the last item is relating to the Food Service management company uh as far as the process so this year we're were're we were required to do a new RFP which all districts can do an RFP every year but they're required to do it once um every five years so we were up to do it a completely new RFP part of that RFP process is with which is a little different than a bid process the RFP is not just based on lowest price it's also based on a uh a lot of criteria that is um weighted it's a weighted criteria that based on the different criterias it's it's um through evaluation committee we basically wake those criterias and and the vendor who has the highest score is awarded that contract so as you see tonight on the finance agenda letter L so basically through our RFP process the district received one eligible RFP that vendor was masi which is our current uh Food Service management company so that that's getting awarded tonight um and as you see here it is with still a guaranteed break even so the overall uh cost impact to the Food Service program the district will not have you know required to contribute to that to that operation and that's it to our committee reports student representatives buttion congs to the football team as they won division championship and oh um and then Senior will begin on Prom which will be held on May 30th at the old man so that'll off part breakfast par some more for us and then congrats to the team as the girls team te of theek on May 23rd to high school this is a really fun event where L students celebrate different countries vultures different foods and traditions but we also do a little recal in the little theater and then C LS J UB will be hosting a mental health at the high school on Tuesday this is a Saturday more info will be shared soon I have to talk to her more to get more information to share with you guys and also thank you we haven't met since last meeting nothing new to report builds so the the LHS mitigation that we didn't receive yeah yeah the LHS was the project we didn't receive beds the LMS we didn't the LMS we did receive bids the lowest bid was over our budgeted funds combined the stea Grant and what the capital reserve was contributing which was 10% of the total project part of that is redoing the courtyard so it incorporates re repaving the courtyard it it incorporates kind of closing in that area from um I guess that driveway when you enter that courtyard so it's closing that in um minor Landscaping you know relocating certain thank you Eric spot on for that it's worth noting for the purpose of the LMS for the work we're going to do there is that when the LMS work tund was built they built it with the trees and the lines and and very very nice looking for adults they didn't really build it with the idea that hundreds of children were going to be there every single day right trees run into mud to trip on things like that so with the fence that's going up combined with the work that's being done there in the Landscaping we're working on making that a much more student friendly place I just want to and and I think I'm only sharing that for the purpose of I think it's good for the board to know that we're we're tilting in that direction um it will require some work to be done we want to thank Mr sat Miss King for their input our Architects Dr armanos thomasevich but we really have to work on that you know um the basketball court we believe is going to be installed we we able to put that in other things we want to do the students love playing football and soccer we're going to paint down some lines right because they're um there's really no guidelines out there so children will walk through a game and of flying ball with something in the head and things like that so we're really working hard to make that outside part of LMS a more student friendly place which we hope will have an impact on student behavior and choices during recess so thank you for asking that question I'm happy to talk about it thank you I actually didn't receive an update today um not great news but it's still moving in the right direction so they're in the process of because we we needed to do a spec change because the model of the buses that uh we were going with to Electrify the the bus electrification uh we had to do a spec change by the vendor that was holding up the delivery so because of that any time we had to do a change it required the grant funding to kind of change so we needed additional grant funding because now the the prices of the buses increased because the grant award was two years ago so we we needed the New Jersey D to kind of approve this change um they provided an update the gentleman because I kept answer you know emailing him back and forth so he says you know it's kind of at the left step it's moving in the right direction and hopefully they could give me an answer that the amendment has been approved and and the goal is to get it on the next board agenda to amend the grant to accept the the revised Grant which will hopefully not require the district to contribute additional funds um with that being said the vendor said we're probably about 10 months nine to 10 months Le time and when I spoke to him back in April he said it would probably be give or take end of the year calendar year so it keeps you know that's why you know with the New Jersey D I'm like you know we need to you know figure out and and St the ball rolling but I need the grant approval in order to revise the contract that's Amendment we also have 11 we have indeed met um last Monday May 6 uh we were able to discuss a number of policies of which one of the outputs is basically the first reading and section M of the agenda topic a of a number of the policies there special thanks to the committee and we continue to evaluate the changes policy that can be brought up you know based on questions and needs of the district doesn't always happen when coming to down fromon rather speaking of policy our next comb I have a motion a second in favor oos Orion new bus does anyone have have a motion for new bus does anyone have anys for this Miss Choy drista Miss Molina Mr Park yes Mr zepa yes Miss SEO Miss Thompson Miss wild vice president Melman and president Lee Yes motion carries on new business BR to a second public comment anyone from the public wishing to speak okay seeing seeing n we will move on to board comments on any any school district related matters I do have one point of congratulations to our very own Mr Isaac Park um who is now an officially certified board member with the SBA that's been an achievement it's a testament to Isaac's dedication to the board there's a lot of classes with County and state meetings um workshops and a few other things that you have to attend um to achieve that is a great thing to have congratulations um so we talked about a couple of capital projects related to uh flood mitigation we probably talked about it a while back I just want to uh confirm with with this effort uh Are We Now protected from the flood Hazard uh if something similar that had happened before are protected with these projects so the mitigation project will obviously mitigate the water so hopefull I mean depending on the amount of water um what occurred with hurricane Ida these mitigation projects should um I don't want to say prevent 100% but the areas where it was impacted um through Kevin through the architect we identified and obviously this has to get approved by FEMA um they did identify the the scope of the work that we are doing will present the amount of water that we were impacted with but depending on the level of water there is it could be susceptible of still getting into those areas those low areas in the high school which I believe is more the Southside um so I guess my question was really for like design criteria like did we have like Idol like event as a design basis so anything anything beyond that of course we can we can guarantee there's no words going to sitting it but if it's similar event corre oh great cor thank you correct and then the other thing is obviously the budget that's where we'll bring it to the finance committee uh based on the architect with the scope uh there's more we can do but we would have to add to the funds because FEMA will uh when we submit a project FEMA only will award a district to mitigate up to what got damaged so let's say the total cost of the stuff that got damaged let's say it's a million dollars femur is not going to mitigate it for $2 million Mak the cost to mitigate you know so obviously cost and all that um is impacted with the project in the scope learning every day thank you for that um my other question is um uh so there are quite a few constructions going on including the New Media Center which is very close to cafeteria I did notice um um the item that I recuse myself from voting um so is it a safe environment to have a a church congregation to come in have the worship there uh or do we need to update anything in an agreement to make sure that we're we're protected and they have enough uh you know has up or warning that this is going to be a different setup because there will be construction going on so as right now uh we had a walk through Mr Woods had a walk through with uh the church representative and they walked through the high school building he kind of went over you know the areas that will be impacted that they don't have access to that we know about so like the ADA Bathroom that's that's not going to they're not going to have access to that um classroom wise the utilization of certain classrooms will not impact um any of these projects the other project uh relating to that gym area um LHS gym as of right now they will have impact depending on how the project is progressing so if the project is progressing where at some point there is no egress then they wouldn't be able to utilize that gym which they are aware of you know so depending on construction how you know it might be either the whole uh some month some part of July it could be July and August uh the media center uh the New Media Center is actually um we're trying to relocate the old uh weight room into a new Media Center so that really is not going to impact them so certainly areas will not impact them but they do understand that there is change of availability and um to add on top of that and thank you like for bringing it up the um as you just point out they call flood mitigation not flood prevention right so we're doing we're doing our best that we can to prevent an idol like stor impacting us again I think going forward this is really building the grounds we'll talk more about this is that we have to work diligently on hardening the school if you will right that new roof at ACS you know do we need backup generators do we need to do proactive Landscaping do we need to look at all those different areas because there's the the expectation that these storms will arrive with certain Force you know that's had their situation where we couldn't get the LMS one morning that Friday because of the down to lines that were surrounding the school luckily the other two schools could operate with no problem at all I'm very grateful to the police for their assistance in making that assessment but I think as we move forward as a district it has to be about the aesthetic part like making the buildings look good and be presentable but also the idea like what can we do and look down the road and I think that's a really important thing for us to focus on because you know the the unexpected should become the expected um we we really like the idea of pro mitigation project because it's very proactive um I was not involved in those calculations but I see the diagrams and the pictures and it's really designed to push the water away from the school we have to look at other opportunities for that also so I appreciate you bringing it up and giving us a chance to talk about it out that just to add to that the mitigation uh projects is not necessarily designed to enhance the building but the way the architect will design it is will enhance the building so it's not going to be like an isore you know it'll add Greenery it'll it'll revive the that area of the high school as well as prevent I just wanted to separate topic just you recognize District's commitment diversity one of the newest clubs at LHS is South Asian Culture Club and you know the district was able to grant them permission to have a cultural celebration called holy Milan that's taking place May 31st at LMS so ATM so it'll be a great time please come if you can um it's be cultural performances Bollywood music and street food which temporary t but just another example of just having C have encourageing to get that fire me I send that out to our mailing list so as soon as they get that done I'll get that right out so thank you oh you got it right there excellent thank you Mr Thomas had a question about the um RFP for the Food Service I think you mentioned that only Mas had put out a bid you have any background for why other you know food service providers may not have so part part of the RFP process which um I could elaborate so the the the State Department of Agriculture they require us to do an evaluation Pro um committee for an evaluation committee based on that evaluation committee which is in the packet to the board uh identified how many uh requests we got so we actually got two two requests so masio and another vendor requested an RFP packet but Masha has only submitted one um it could have it could be areas So speaking to all districts um there's another one of my colleagues he was going through the same RFP uh process for next year also and it's close close to Leonia and they same thing they only received one um so I don't know if it's area um but I could just tell you not every vendor could submit an RFA so the state approves certain uh vendors that would approved by the State Department of Agriculture that meets the compliance requirements so there's a list of um I don't know if it's 20 25 in the whole state and I don't have that number I could provide it but so so the ven has to be on that so it can't be like a local valy um or a local um catering company they actually had to be pre-approved and then they have the ability to submit an AR so it's a little and because we're part of the national school launch we're part of brand uh program there's a lot of regulations that they have to do and a lot of companies just don't want to deal with it so if if some districts that are't part of that program because of you know lowincome uh threshold so they don't need the grant funding they basically don't have to utilize U and go through that National School launch and they could kind of go how we do any Professional Service vendor and we could open it up to you know it gives us flexibility but you know in Leon we will we will lose that that reimbursement amount from the state and federal government any other questions or comments BRS us to the session for those people that are watching on YouTube and for members from the public the board will be going at Co session for a period to discuss um personel contct for okay uh for about 15 minutes if you do want to wait and watch but for those public and our student members you have to ask Mr par Mr zepa Mr SEO Miss Thompson Miss wild vice president Melman and president Le motion carries on personel so for the public that are watching we are going into second session for discuss of person items and entally the meeting for the public no further action will be taken in the meting can I have I did