Mrs norian would you lead us in the flag salute gladly I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Sunshine Law statement or requirements of the open public meetings act have been met for this meeting of the board ofed ucation of The Bu of ordell notice that this meeting was filed with the record in town news and all persons requesting such notice Mr Darian would you read the mission statement the ell public school district is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational Excellence through comprehensive Innovative curriculum and instruction the district is committed to providing opportunities for social emotional and academic Discovery to Foster curiosity courage and character our goal is to prepare our students become lifelong Learners who are self-directed resilient productive responsible citizens thank you roll call on the rooll Mrs aosta will not be here Mr Del Greco will not be here Mrs Downey here Mrs noran here Mr nutland here Mrs Walker will not be an intendance nor will Mr Walsh Mr Daran here Mrs Nichols here seeing we have no one in the public we'll um move forward to the superintendent's report good evening to begin I'd like to review some of the items on tonight's agenda item A2 is our annual school safety data submission identifying how many incidents of Hib Hib training restraint and school culture programs occur during the 2324 school year as a point of clarification for the board anytime a block or hold is used as a means of physical restraint parents do receive written notification you will notice an increase in that number this year I have delved more deeply into that to see how many students and it is two students who had multiple incidents Additionally you will notice that we did have twice as many Hib investigations as past years our rate of founded hibs continues to be 20% of all those investigated items A1 and A3 are annual submissions neither document has changed from prior years under Personnel you will notice the hiring of new curriculum director Miss Cummings brings 20 years of classroom teaching experience both in primary re and Middle School mathematics two years as a math coach and two years as an instructional assistant principal with her to Ops she began this week and jumped right in with our teachers on writing curriculum and has melded well with the team we will Mr wner will be joining us next week and our administrative team will be fully staffed at that time with regards to our other summer projects summer Explorations has come to a close 238 students participated in Explorations this year we will provide the finance committee with a closing report in the next few weeks and before I close my report today I want to take a moment to publicly thank Mr aell for the work he has done over the past month I because things have been running so well I think that the board may be not as aware that we are we continue to be a underst staffed in the board office our payroll coordinator will begin um the first week in August Mr aapeli has taught himself how to do payroll successfully enough that I have been paid so I'm a happy superintendent uh we are also transitioning a new accounts payable person in this person did not come with experience and he has also been spending his time transitioning her I refer to him today as a a oneman board office and many people look at the business administrator role as overseeing but to have somebody who can also step in and do all those tasks makes us a very lucky District I don't have to be worried and I am incredibly grateful for that so thank you Mr iel and with that I close my report business administrator's report it's been quite busy um so we are moving ahead with our construction projects the roofing project obviously is right now on hold if there's a 20% chance of rain they don't come uh to do the project we knew that when they came to start so that will be a little bit on hold um we have the flooring of the stairwells that's started this week and as U Miss Bose said the new hire in AP she's doing very well she's catching on quickly uh so she will definitely be a major asset once she's up to speed and that concludes my report thank you moving on to minutes we have the review of June 26 and July 10th any questions or comments please contact Mr aell uh moving on to approval of June 12th do I have a motion so moved do I have a second second any questions call the question on the role Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes moving to committee reports Mr Daran would you take administrative items uh yes tonight we have uh three administrative items A1 through A3 they were already reviewed by our superintendent um I'd like to make a motion to introduce these items I'll second it second by Mrs noran any questions call a question on the role Mrs Downey yeah Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Darian yes Mrs niches yes buildings and grounds Mr Darien yes um we have a lot of items I'm going to review so let's let's dive in um we had a building and grounds meeting a subcommittee meeting um let me get the date here July 16th um we discussed quite a few things the summer schedule for cleaning uh from our understanding is we're on schedule with all the cleaning of the billing uh we have the roof work you know that's dependent upon the weather as Mr iell had mentioned we have exhaust fans that are being um these are for the bathrooms they're being installed uh the stairwell renovation um we're still um uh we we started last year we're going to finish this year and they're in the process of uh removing and preparing the Treads um we had some recent HVAC issues um it seems like as soon as we get to 20 years everything starts to fail so you know throughout the building the rooftop units we've had a compressor go we had a motor go so we've got you know miscellaneous repair work that's undergoing during the summer we have uh camera installation uh I think on the update in the minutes we have 19 more cameras um and wiring being installed uh the bathrooms uh that was u a big item people had discussed uh regarding the cleaning we are we're uh scheduling deep cleaning of the bathrooms we're also looking to do some minor enhancements where we can so we already have an electrician we've accepted a quote to do some lighting um improvements into two of the bathrooms um and as well as general maintenance to the bathrooms um external projects um you know we were reviewing the watering schedule for the softball field and uh we're increasing the watering frequency just to help improve the grass regenerate and we get less dust um fencing um we're planning on putting more fencing on Center Street um there's a concern for safety when kids play outside during the day and it would be nice if we extended the chain link fence um all the way to the uh entrance to the Center parking lot uh the fence is going to be slightly different it's not going to be an ugly chain link fence it's going to be an aluminum nice fence with Gates uh but we're looking to have that done before school starts um uh we reviewed um a guest management system it's electronic it's uh with our uh security system it's an enhancement it utilizes uh you know background checks it utilizes driver licenses information uh you enter your phone number it captures your image it puts it on a on a um a visitor badge and we're trying to you know explore what is best for us uh the bottom line is it has to be more efficient and um than our current process as well as um give us some new features um and then we just talked about some general safety protocols um of existing security and I think that's about it if did I miss anything um no I don't nope that's it so without with all that let me look at the schedule or excuse me the agenda we have some uh facility use and uh where's my notes um I find it interesting that um on the 30th um we're going to have an event here uh the bureau is leasing out this Auditorium so they can utilize the uh largest highdefinition TV in all of ell to see the Olympics so I think that's pretty cool um but with that I'd like to introduce items B1 and I'll second any questions comments I have a question on the email that we got for the sprinklers um were the sprinklers going every three they were already on and set we were just so okay so the grass was wet in all spots where the sprinkler should have hit it in the morning and we walked it and it wasn't just do wet like it was wet um we did try to clean the cameras Ramy went up on a ladder to see if we could see the cameras but other than coming at 1:30 in the morning I have to just go based on the wetness of the grass right now so now on every day yes we said it on Monday so that it would go on every day it does have that little catch that if it rains it won't go on I have another question I'm verata um I was told this week by someone that Bata is coming out with AI recognition for their swipe in and swipe out I don't know if that's true is that true it is true so then we won't have to swipe in swi out or put in our phone number which is what we were talking about I was I'm trying to remember who brought that up to me today I was talking to someone um we can follow up what I did have Ramy do is call I called Monarch who is our installation person to tell them that the board wasn't happy that it didn't swipe out and were there any other products that were available um there's really only one major competitor there used to be two it was lobbyguard and Raptor Technologies and Raptor Technologies well Lobby guard they discourage us from going to that to Raptor instead Ramy called Bergen to ask them the same question they also gave us Raptor as the option they did offer the opportunity for us to go and look at Dumont which is what was the objection to the Raptor um it our te the person I spoke to had concerns about the kiosk and the programming of the kiosk and when there was a problem it took it out for days and had to be reprogrammed so are you going to have two or you going to have an alternate system so I what I did just as a possible in between I did ask them to reive me a quote on verata to give me a one-year quote and see what the cost of that is so at least maybe we could put something in place while we continue to search goes AI would that not solve a lot of our the issues we had I I want to know how how are they using the AI well yeah yeah but if they did that that would kind of resolve some of our issues right GG uh yeah it's complicated you know you have right to privacy issues you have data security issues you know we've seen cloud-based things get hacked I I said it all along you know we well actually I didn't say it here but I used to say it at work you know we moved all our applications into the cloud and and that's great on one hand you know we all have access to reports and we all have access to customization on the other hand so does your competitors and and and people who are wanting to do industrial Espionage and Etc so um when we move to a security system like a visitor system um you know how much data are we going to collect and what happens if it gets compromised you know so you know that's that's a concern I mean uh ultimately we have to make sure and we're going to discuss this at the subcommittee we've already discussed it in the past you know what works for I mean what data do we need um you know to effectively manage the visitors coming and going we don't need to know everyone's you know who they're related to and their DNA and all of that stuff so there's no point in you know looking for systems that give us that level of detail but at the same time um you know our current system needs Improvement because it's it's not adequate so you know we're kind of stuck right with these vendors I don't know what it is with um the school industry but uh it's remarkable that there's not more options because uh this is an important uh important aspect of school safety and uh to have two vendors is kind of like it's crazy I just don't understand it so uh we're still looking we're still we you know when we when we narrow down onto it um a solution we'll let everybody know yeah also can Mr iell give us an update on the stairwell since you had texted me and then he was going to email b& but I don't think we got anything today we were going to wait until we actually had more information tomorrow but we can give that today if you yeah you could tell the board what's going on with the stairwells yes so the stairwells last year when they did the stairwell project when they pulled off the other uh Treads The Landing when they pulled those off the landing the tiles stayed in place and did not come up now the tiles are coming up and crumbling which now they become Frable because they do have an asbestos content so it looks like now we're going to have to have we're going to confirm and get the numbers but it's going to need to be a full abatement which will take that number that we did have for cleaning and abating at 18,000 I'd imagine it's going to be significantly more but we don't have have that number yet um it is all four places so when they must have different adhesive this time around as opposed to the last time um but they are crumbling and that's an issue are they doing something differently considering none of them did it last year and all of them are crumbling this year like it's kind of odd that none we had none of this but kind they could have been done at different times and that was the adhesive they used on one set and kind of odd we did ask Paul to watch at each stairwell because I thought it was odd that one of the stairwells which to me is most like the other four the H stairwell I would link of the same age as these original hallway stairwells um but he watched at all four and it happened with all four wow about about how big of an area are we talking about it is just The Landings it's not the actual Treads of the stairwells and they were able to do the stairwells in the hallway so if you came in through the board off the board lot today they were able to do those stairwells they were able to do the really small stairwell um outside the gym area they were able to do the stairwell um there's like five stairs to the third grade Wing those were all fine because there was no Landing it's just the tread any other question yeah are we maybe considering putting carpet you know in The Landings I mean we did that instead just covering it with carpet instead of pulling up the ACT tile or BCT tile whatever it is I think the the concern I would have there like you could do that on the way in but would you want to do that outside the library on that major Landing so these are relatively small areas right so yeah I mean I don't see you know I think last time last summer I think they put up plastic barriers and all of that right so until they test it yeah so they can just do it again I mean you know I don't think this is going to be it it's a different with the EPA like there's a different process we have to go through in terms of a permit I was told and things like that so that's why I was waiting until tomorrow to find out the exact plan so they don't know they didn't give you approximate timeline we literally learned this at 10:00 this morning and when they left the site and said we can't do anymore we have to send photos of what occurred today um I have a you know a couple of questions since our last uh b& meeting so we had the fans uh they were being installed right are they are they completed no no so how far along are we on those uh this application and payment that's just for 53% but they're further along than that the question question is their last there are four fans or three or four fans that need to be in place but it's connected to the roofing project so the roofers are going to remove the fans oh I but they have to put them on so right now it can't be completed until they're way ahead of where the roofing project is okay so right now that coordination is the issue okay can to ask a question on the fans before you move yeah that's fine um they replace the fans by the multi-purpose room bathrooms not yet yeah nothing is functional they're still tying in they still on the control side they're still minimal process you know they're not anywhere near there the actual installs are way ahead of the tying it in in the controls um I have a question Peter also uh we had a um um we had I think this was I don't know where I read it was it in an email I know that we went out to bid for the hbac in the rooftop unit for the kindergarten Wing correct and I I think at our last B&G meeting we just talked about getting some bids back but we didn't know how much they were right that was the bid opening right now it's with uh our attorney he's reviewing s completion the number I gave you and what I sent that's where we are doll wise right um he's now going to see that everyone is responsive and he'll sign off that this is land well land gives it land reviewed it they believe right now these are the lowest responsible biders uhhuh but then we send it to our attorney to review to make sure all the paperwork is in order yeah so is there a way that you know we can have an like a second opinion on like an engineer look at the uh equipment they did the landard the engineers came out and they agreed that it must be repaired this this year that one that's the why we went out that's the one that has the the serious issues and you know what's on we're just putting Band-Aids on it now to get it through the summer because we had to put some money into that what's killing me is that you know the bids I think were high you know it's a lot of money just for one unit and I was thinking maybe if we could wait a year because this year everyone's doing the work and it's the scarcity is driving up prices and if there's a way we could let this slide until next summer um but that that's not an option you're also still going to see projects because just because people got Rod grants doesn't mean they're doing them this Summer because think about it they couldn't go out to bid until they got their rod Grant right so so you're talking probably not even just next summer the summer after that there's still going to be high demand for hbac and our HVAC contractor that we have on site he didn't bid on it because it was just one he decided that you know they have so much work even though they're here because of the timing they're not going to come back to do just one how much square footage is this one covering this this is one unit it's one un square footage well it does all the kindergarten classrooms which is what I don't know the square footage off top of my head it does the hallway there not the hallway the classroom so five classrooms five class and each classroom is approximately how many feet by high many feet I don't know but they're using the unit that is necessary to cool that space and heat that space I mean the engineers designed it for that space it's not like too big it's not to small 4,000 square feet for $200,000 seems like I mean do we know what we used to pay for these like is it just that everything is crazy it's like four or 5,000 sare feet maybe maybe but the last time you did the project was 20 years ago so I don't know what the prices are yeah but if you did a 10,000 s foot home which I know it's different units and stuff you do a 10,000 foot home you're not paying $150,000 like we're talking about we're talking about Heating and Cooling 4,000 feet maybe it's $200,000 yeah to make it worse it's it's a replacement it's not a a new install so the wiring and the location is already there but yeah like everything's there they just have to drop a unit in I don't know it's everything is getting so expensive can we um do a call with uh Lan at some point in b& sure we could set something up and sure you could talk to them I'll talk to him everything your mic um actually Chris I think it's the heat exchanger is the issue it's Rusty right so yeah so they got to replace the entire box right it just does seem like a lot Yeah Yeah from 100 to 200 300,000 it's great to bid to public entities in New Jersey because I'd love to be it's unlimited funds but everything done is at prevailing wage so the electric on the job they have to do it at the prevailing wage that's like $165 an hour how many days are they going to be here it but the the dollar that they have to use are significantly more than anything that you could possibly think you could look at the prevailing wage rates are off the charts I mean we're talking like 165 an hour for an electrician right but how many days are they going to be here and how many people are going to be here it's still it's it's $200,000 you could you could just say you don't want to do the project I mean I don't know what we do next year with the Heat and the air conditioning I mean I don't know what the I don't know what the alternative is what do you think Greg uh I'd like to you know we'll talk about it the subcommittee it would be nice just to get someone on a call and see if we have options if we don't have options then we have to bite the bullet we can say that we were backed into the corner and we had to spend I don't know whatever the bids were going to be what I think the cheapest was 110,000 was that right Peter I can't recall no it's 99,000 and then there's the cleaning that they recommended for the okay duck work he said not to put the uh they didn't recommend because I guess on some of the units there's like a screen that goes around it yeah and that was incredibly high so a visual screen you're talking about yeah to like cuz we do have them on some of the units that was an option in case yeah I don't think you can't see that I don't even know if you could see that unit from anywhere to be honest with you yeah so so you know bottom line is if we have to spend $200,000 to replace one rooftop unit there six more the same yeah please not all the same size but the same AG don't say that you got to jinx us so uh um if if we're the point that I think I'm I'm I'm trying to make right now is if if we're if we're going to spend $200,000 I want to on one unit I want to expend any option you know and and be redundant in our efforts to make sure that we have to do it and there is no other way that's cheaper and if and if that's the case if that's what they tell us like you know hey wake up you know this is 2024 and blah blah blah and you know inflation and whatever and whatever if that's what they say that's what what they say and if you know and then we Contra and and and then we could say we tried everything right that's fine that's why the two HC contract two HVAC contractors come in they gave their recommendations that it needed to be replaced then we had land come with their mechanical engineer they reviewed it and said it needed to be replaced so we did beforehand we did exhaust looking at contractors getting an engineer opinion and they were all on the same page that's why we went out to bid to start with because there were no options for that one that that one has an issue and if it's also giving heat you know what we there's nothing to say that now we get to the winter and we have heat issues and then you know AC right now we had issues with that so we're putting money into the unit as Band-Aids to get it through the summer and I think a bigger concern may be you know heat for kindergarten classrooms because we've been band-aiding classrooms with airds with window air conditioners like we could put a window air conditioner in those rooms to get us through cooling we can't look airds and window air conditioners are two different things it's they're not synonymous so let's let's just um let's just talk about this in subcommittee we'll ex ex just put another nail in the coffin and and uh and then we'll write a check but in the meantime I think there's a little bit of queasiness about the 200k that's all any other questions call a question on the rooll Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutlin yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes curriculum Mrs noran uh yes it uh we're attempting to set up our meetings uh we have two that we're working on setting up I don't know that they've been uh we're going to move forward July 14th and July 28th August August I was going to say July 14th I think that already passed August 14th and August 28th okay Finance Mr Daran would you take that uh yes uh we haven't had a finance meeting recently so there's no minutes to review uh so I'd like to introduce items D1 all the way through D13 and I'll second second by Mrs noran any questions I have a couple okay uh can we uh just quickly W walk through D9 through d11 I I know that these are partial payments on projects just to yeah I have the payments here okay so not a problem so first payment uh Patman that was $14,700 that entailed their performance bond their submittal and uh David Pereira from Lan reviews everything copies me and then signs off on these that everything is a legitimate cost so there was the retainage so that was just the 14,700 next wait a second can you say what that was for again Bond and all the paperwork their submittal that they put in that Pitman is putting in that Patman put puts in okay and the land expenses and land because not land this is just Patman well that's why I question you because you're talking about land well land signs off on it oh okay they sign off on all of the payments okay prior to the next one is this is where they're actually doing their work so Patman uh this is for fif this is 53% of the project in total um after the second payment so demolition work that's 95% complete 19,000 exhaust fan materials those are all on site that's 50,000 ceiling opening and closing of the floor that's 30% that's 4,500 exhaust fans labor 45,000 there's 75% complete on that power and wiring 50% 12,500 the control work ATC this is the tying into the metasys building management system that's only 10% of the way and that's 7,000 so that equals the 153,000 then there's the retainage and so the payment due is 135 240 and then Mac Group what were they doing I forgot I don't remember Mac group is doing the roof work um they've only submitted they haven't submitted all the paperwork required to get signed off for application to um so they're actually they held themselves up from not getting paid this is just a initial payment and it's essentially their bond and insurance for 23,500 um and that's all that's just the retainage so they have done work but they haven't submitted the proper payment I mean the proper paperwork required to get paid for their actual construction work that they've done okay and I've seen the correspondence back and forth with David Pereira and Mack and MC team's missing something in the submitt they don't submit all the invoices because they need to see all the invoices of all the materials everything stored on site David pra has also come back and he has taken pictures and he verifies the material is on site um so he's not satisfied with what has been submitted so that's why there's no payment number two okay I have a question on D12 um unless I missed it I didn't see the financial reports can I like to balance them out so that needs to be so if I don't think if we don't have them we should take remove this we could take that that's not there sorry about that uh so then any other questions or you want to ask do you have any questions I'm going to re re amend my yeah let let me look and see so you want to make a I'll amend my motion yeah I'd like to introduce items D1 through d11 and D13 and I'll second again thank you so any questions now call the question on the rooll Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Darien yes Mrs Nichols yes Personnel Mrs noran would you like to take that uh yes um you have a copy of the Personnel report um in your packet um and with that I would like to um move on F1 second second by Mr Daran any questions I have a question um for science of reading we're sending four people is there a way we like is there a reason we picked these four people or we're not sending them that person is coming here and we are training as many people as we can so that's a a second group of people we have 14 people overall who will be attending the training actually I were they on the last agenda is that why okay two of the individuals won't be being paid because they are in their first year um they're not yet Association members so how many people are trading in total it's either 14 or 16 and then how's the rest of them going to get it um we'll we'll have to turn k at some point during the school year any other questions call a question on the rooll Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes delegate report anything Mrs noran for delegates no right no nothing okay uh policy Mr Del Greco is not here Mr nutlin anything from policy I he texted me earlier that we have to set a meeting uh no there's a few things that but uh okay I guess we have to set a meeting and public relations Mrs Downey so we we reviewed the survey results um and we probably should have a meeting yeah we should talk about how we want to present them if we want to present them how yeah yeah um well no one's here from the public so any old or new business um I actually I had sent a message to Peter and Mr iell and I I figure he must have been pretty busy and it was just that um I get hounded a little bit um if orell hasn't registered for Workshop yet and I wondered if we were going to be registered since we've only had you were the I sent out an email and I was going to follow up again you were the only one responded that you wanted to go so then to pay like to pay for the group rate is 2,100 but if you had fewer people attending it would be cheaper to pay individually so I was just waiting to see the difference on how many people we're attending compared to the group rate um because say there's just four people that is cheaper than paying the full amount so how many are going three right now I only have only Mrs noran has confirmed but does the four people include you no I didn't I don't have any people right yet I only have white Mrs noran Right now no one has said if they're interested and I was going to send out another email things sell out I mean the hotel sell out so we got to do it I mean in the meantime do you think you can make Mrs Dorian a reservation where she wants to stay and then if we have to swap it to do something else is that possible I'm I'm this is not necessarily where the reg um where the hotel registration is it's just to register for the convention itself um because I'm on the county uh board um they they asked me to check into um the stats because they noticed that orell was not registered I know but what about your hotel reservation uh well I figure that'll work out as it gets closer you can't get you know all right we'll just deal with Mr iell okay any other business anything any you need to go into a Clos session all right Mrs noran want to take us out all in favor I I good so Mrs noran Greg good oh I did have old business