Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance and Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Date: Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/833472466?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-22. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:19] Good afternoon. Welcome to the Tuesday, June 6, 2023 Finance Operations Committee meeting. We'll start with our remote participation. I understand Ms. Corvo is currently remote and would like to participate. Ms. Corvo, if you could tell us where you are, whether you are alone, and what type of exemption you would require.

[00:00:36] Thank you. I'm at my daughter's. I'm alone, and I'm asking for remote participation due to an ongoing ADA-approved disability and medical position. Okay, I will entertain a motion to enter Ms. Corvo into the meeting due to a medical exemption.

[00:01:01] Is there a motion? Okay, I'm not seeing any motion. Do you want to come in under a personal exemption? I'm requesting remote participation for personal medical reasons should suffice under ADA law and, of course, our school board policy.

[00:01:18] So, thank you. Okay. All right, we'll move on to item two for procedures for public comment. Is there anybody here from the public who wishes to speak? The house is packed. I don't see anybody. I think we'll move on to item three. So we'll start with the draft minutes from January 31st.

[00:01:35] Is there a motion, Mr. Mejedevi? - I move that the committee approve the draft meeting minutes from January 31st and May 16th. - Okay, there's a motion to approve both the 31st and May 16th. I'll second that for the discussion. Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye and raise your hand.

[00:01:51] - Aye. - That motion will carry 2-0 with Mr. Corbo absent for the vote, thank you. All right, let's see, approval of consent agenda. Is there a motion, Mr. Mejedevi? I move that this committee approve the consent agenda posted in the board docs. I'll second that. Further discussion?

[00:02:08] Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. That motion will carry 2-0, with Ms. Corpo absent for the vote as well. All right, we're on to action items. 5.01, Business Financial Services, RFP, back-of-the-envelope audit renewal is their motion.

[00:02:24] Mr. Hedevy? I can do it. I move that the Finance Operations Committee recommend that the Loudoun County School Board approves the renewal of back of the envelope audit to CMTA from July 1st, 2023 through June 30th, 2024. Okay. Motion has been seconded. Further discussion. Mr. Mejedevi. So I'm trying to remember, Chair, why did we move this to action versus consent? Was the reason we kept it on action

[00:02:57] versus consent? Good question. Anyone recall? I believe it was because there were a few questions that came up and staff submitted those as an attachment concerning what was the overall guaranteed savings, the amount of savings from the PV array, and then a comparison between geothermal and the traditional HVAC. That rings a bell. Okay. So, and the attachment, you know, has the whole 30-year run out. So, further discussion? Seeing none, all those in

[00:03:33] favor of the motion, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. That motion will carry 2-0 with Ms. Corbo absent for the vote. Okay, on to 5.02, Business Financial Services, RFP R21268, Security Guard Services Renewal.

[00:03:50] I move that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend that the Loudoun County School Board renews RFP R21268, Security Guard Services, from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. I'll second that motion, and that is with an increase in 5%.

[00:04:09] uh so i think that's that's pretty reasonable further discussion all those in favor of the motion please say i raise your hand i that motion will carry to zero next up superintendent's office adoption of policy 6730 school crisis emergency management and medical response okay we'll start with a motion and then we can talk about the content on that i move to the finance and operation committee recommend the law recommend to the lowland county school board recommend the

[00:04:46] school board approve the staff and committee I move that the Finance and Operation Committee recommend that the Loudoun County School Board approve the staff and committee recommend their divisions to policy 6730 school crisis emergency management and medical response I will second that discussion there's only a few feedback we received on this one I see they incorporated the first which was to change the name from plan just to response and I agree with

[00:05:22] that the other one was to add some more definition to the situations which could create a crisis I think one was written threats and verbal threats and I didn't see that those were added so would staff like to speak to their thoughts on that Mr. Mr. John Clark is going to address those well sir so in looking at other situations there are so many I didn't think we could properly quantify them by just identifying those two. There are so many different possibilities that could come into play when activating a plan. Okay. I noticed when I was thinking through

[00:06:02] other situations that occur, very few of them were in there. The ones that were in there were the fire, the threat, terrorism, and the large examples. Those that are very easy. I think the challenge with calling anything, any bullying situation or any perceived threat might be in the interpretation. So I think that they're important for us to investigate, but I don't know that they would immediately be captured under a crisis plan. So I think that I'll be okay with the language as it is, but we can talk with that fully with the board for discussion. I agree. Any further

[00:06:40] discussion on that? No. All right. So we'll place that motion to vote. All those in favor of the forwarding of policy 6730 to the board, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. That motion will carry that will be forwarded and I believe it's for the June 13th information item so we'll see that at the full school board next up is a revision of policy 6220 student safety and discipline on buses is there a motion mr. Maheddie seems like it disappeared yeah okay so we don't have

[00:07:18] the motion in the package unless it's out of order let's check and see if there's a zero one yes please see so we're definitely going to need I think going to need the uh the attachments as well so that we can see the red lines um what's the time

[00:07:56] criticality on this uh there is there's we can wait to the next okay because i i think it's there were there were some there were uh there were substantial changes um can i see the i would like to continue it on as an information item but there is one section the highlighted section on the back page right there that's the the piece that so i guess i guess the concern was that we we were pushing the action from the bus drivers to staff and from staff to the principal and the

[00:08:29] principal or the designee shall make any kind of decisions. Was there, was that something that was added due to the comments that were provided? No, that was originally proposed by staff and that is generally how it's practiced. The bus driver, when an incident occurs on the bus, the bus driver will file an incident report with their supervisor. The supervisor then puts it into the student information system for the school administration to take action upon okay and we were clarifying in the policy changes that this that the incidents that occur on the bus should be treated the same as if they occur in the classroom okay as an extension of the classroom so so what was the

[00:09:07] purpose of the highlighted language then do you recall mr that's the language that that says that the the principal shall take appropriate disciplinary action consistent with procedures of misconduct in the schools so the bus is an extension of the school and they should be treated

[00:09:42] the same okay so that highlight was a result of staff wanting to highlight that not the response to a comment from the public correct yes sir okay so i think last time when we met i think didn't we we sort of did we go through all the items or because of time we didn't complete all the items i believe to remember that do you recall miss willoughby how far did we make it through all of

[00:10:08] our information items last time i think we did just yeah um so i actually with the um With the modifications made and after looking over the comments provided, there were, okay, so let's, real quickly, I'd like to run through these just to make sure as soon as they're not in the package.

[00:10:40] Officially, trainers. Okay, so reporting of the incidents was comment number one. Comment number two becomes part of the student's record, allows for tracking repeat offenders. The accident obviously goes through the dispatch, and there's discussion on the use of the word timely consistent with the time frame stipulated policies 37 okay equity committee comments talk

[00:11:16] about the adult uh driver being the only adult on the bus bus attendance i agree that bus attendance can provide additional input but i don't think that the i don't know if this comment was to have them involved in the reporting process my my take on the comment was that having additional staff on the bus or having empowering student ambassadors to serve in a disciplinarian role to maintain order on the bus okay i didn't yeah that's not something i would support i think that

[00:11:51] we do need to keep that that division between uh lcps employees and our charges so did you have any thoughts on that miss okay yeah why don't we uh i'm going to go ahead and uh table this for for the next meeting and we'll keep it back on action because it is hard for us to run through the comments without having them so we'll move on push that to to the next meeting next is the woodgrove high school secondary or second entrance fund request is there a motion mr. meheny sure i'd like to have staff kind of go through because this one was not on the agenda in the last meeting

[00:12:31] so this is coming as an action item that's what probably threw me off okay because this was not an information item in the last meeting okay so before we make the motion we'll go ahead and uh and hold the information on this staff yes sir okay so um just a quick overview uh woodgrove high school as you probably know opened in 2010 on the campus of uh fields farm that is owned by the border supervisors and leased by the school board the lcps portion of the campus is shared with mountainview elementary school this campus is served by a single entrance off alder road alder school road and is subject to congestion and extraordinary congestion during large events

[00:13:10] that are held at the school or sporting events. It was always in the master plan between LCPS and the Board of Supervisors to build a secondary entrance to the school through property that was also owned by the Board of Supervisors on the south end of the campus when a park was built there.

[00:13:31] The Board of Supervisors has relocated the planned park to another property, and they are no longer seeking approval of the County of Loudoun planned uses for that site. The public road was previously approved as a separate project and could be constructed to serve the school campus and connect to the community.

[00:13:53] Support services staff has been communicating with the County of Loudoun staff regarding the possibility of LCPS assuming responsibility for construction of the road for the benefit of the school campus. On April 18th, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved the termination of the county capital project entitled Woodgrove High School Fields Farm Park Road.

[00:14:15] and then transferred the remaining money or voted to transfer the remaining money $5,937,951 to loudon county public schools capital project fund for the purpose of the schools then constructing the roadway staff is in support of the opportunity to achieve this much needed access to the school and we recommend that the school board accept the capital funding from the board of supervisors and proceed and allow us to proceed to assume the contract and work with the town of percival to

[00:14:46] gain approval commence the project as soon as possible so originally the ticket price on this was seven million and of which one million approximately was was spent do we know what that million was spent on very lengthy design and review process permitting process i mean the the design's been been done modified changed uh reviewed with the town multiple times we believe that they're really close on having an approved design with the town but that would be the step we'd have to take to go into it so it's been designed design

[00:15:24] money right primarily I was designed to go with the park and the park is not being done so is there a change in the design is it now it is going to be exclusively paid for by LCPS through the funds that were provided by the Board of Supervisors but is there is there any any other purpose other than to provide emergency access to LCPS so it at this point we would be building the road coming in to what was going to be the park property and then it would turn and be a driveway coming up directly to the school property so we believe that the town of Percival would is going to be interested in this because the county

[00:16:04] had already set aside two parcels on that property for the town and they can't access it unless we build the road for it and so that property is county property county property and I'm looking at the documents that's attached I think we're trying to look at the motion that's been made but I think the one that I see and maybe there are more documents the budget adjustments talks

[00:16:43] about or maybe that's not what it is maybe it's in the attachment they bought a supervised document that's what I'm looking at so which point us to where where that's being added from the supervisors?

[00:17:00] In their motion. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. The draft motion, that's all that was there. In our minutes online, there was the actual motion. It's a draft motion online.

[00:17:29] So I do have a hard copy of the Board of Supervisors' action if you'd like to see that. So what's the attached document then, starting from here?

[00:17:56] That's what that is. Okay, so this is the minutes. Okay, but there's no mention of the five-point, I mean, the actual, the only thing we have is, but the attached document has no mentions about the 5.9 million in the attached.

[00:18:14] No, I see that in the draft motion part of it. No, this is the background. This is the actual item that went before the Board of Supervisors. So this was the motion that they made based on this item, 7.8 million of which 5.9 million. So that's just the motion that you have, the draft motion.

[00:18:34] Okay. So this is just the dollars coming in additional to what the school board approved from the CIP that they're transferring the fund so that LCPS can complete the project. Yes, sir. We need the school board to accept the fund and give us the procedure process.

[00:18:50] Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. That motion will carry 2-0, and we'll forward that to the board for approval. All right, we're on to the information items.

[00:19:08] We'll start with RFPR 23266, Lease Purchase, Financing of Vehicles and Equipment. Mr. Traynor, who's going to take that? Okay, so I have before you this evening our annual contract for lease purchase as approved in the budget for $10 million.

[00:19:29] The awarded vendor for this is J.P. Morgan Chase at a rate of 2.93%, which compares to last year's rate of 2.76%. That's amazingly low. I think we're very fortunate to have a credit rating that we currently have.

[00:19:49] Okay, let's see. So, is this the, in our annual budget, we have to set aside for $10 million for lease. That is the funding. This is the funding for that item.

[00:20:06] And this is going to be in next year's, or is this the current, this is for the current year? This will go to closing, I think, in August. Okay. And this will be for funding for this year. For that, okay. For FY24. FY24. I'm sorry. FY24.

[00:20:22] There we go. Very good. All right. That is a great rate. Okay. Further discussion on this? No? interest in placing this on consent let's place this on consent for the next meeting thank you 6.02 business financial services rpr 23261 fresh produce this year we did go back out to solicitation for our fresh produce our ice cream as well oh no milk was a renewal and what we have before you this evening is our award to kenny produce who is our current provider of produce for our school

[00:20:57] nutrition program based on marketing trends and the pricing comparison it appears to be about a a 5.41% increase for FY24 compared to FY23 for Kinney Produce. And this is a year-to-year contract, so it will price adjust every year.

[00:21:13] Yes, this actually is a market-adjusted contract. It does adjust during the year based on the market for the fresh produce. During the year? Yes, it goes, it fluctuates. Interesting, okay. Yes, but the average is 5.41%. Okay, further discussion on this?

[00:21:30] Just one question. Sure. Thank you, Chair. So in the attached tables that you have, it says unit price above current market cost per case. So $4.15, just the line number one, that's an increase from previous year?

[00:21:49] Is that what that is? You've got the market rate, and then the rate above that is for delivery and so on. So you've got the cost of the produce, and then the cost above market rate is for delivery. that is that is for no that's above yes that's the delivery fee to our 96 schools yeah so they deliver directly to all the 90 yes we do have delivery of all of these products to each school

[00:22:23] on a on a weekly basis further questions i like the selection of apples okay uh interest in placing this on consent so this will be placed on consent for the next meeting as well next item is information 6.03 business financial services rpr 23263 ice cream one of our students all-time favorites the ice cream contract this actually saw us with an increase of about 15 percent

[00:23:03] in the ice cream costs but it is the vendor we did use last year and this is a new award that can be renewed on an annual basis did we have a you you obviously consider this a competitive award how many people bid on this um just like with our other food bids one i do want to share with you part of the issue with that is the fact that we do deliver to 96 different schools geographically spread out throughout loudon we have even offered to vendors the opportunity to subdivide our county into multiple areas or even can you deliver to these elementaries and you deliver to secondary

[00:23:39] no takers on that so due to our sheer size and the number of schools we have we're very limited on the number of vendors that can provide these services to us and so only one bid on this well we can't take away the ice cream i mean of all the things we've done in the last four years that would be that would be the worst and and like i said one bid on produce one bid on ice cream

[00:24:14] one bid on milk it's it's our sounds like they're starting to to work together on how to best game this system so maybe we need to look at our acquisition process or it's i mean to the to the county there are opportunities here right i mean for somebody to apply and and and compete on this contract and we have marketed our opportunities for dividing the county subdividing the county we've added now you can't really do it too easily with ice cream but we've added offered nighttime delivery saturday delivery the issue with nighttime and saturday is people that

[00:24:48] want to work evenings and weekends to deliver to our schools and one last question so how often is Is it delivery? Is it daily or is it weekly? I believe this one's also weekly. I think all of these deliveries are weekly. I would guess it's a question of storage.

[00:25:08] We could go to every other week, bimonthly or monthly, but they wouldn't have frozen storage because that's a lot of ice cream. I mean, one more thing to add. Sure. I mean, the 15%, given the price of milk that's gone up, I think it's fair. 15% is not that high.

[00:25:24] I mean, not to put the vendors on notice, but it's fairly comparative given the price of milk is possible. It is with the price of fuel as well, and also one of the things our school nutrition program does do is if they see a huge increase in something, they see what else is available. Remember, the 15% is an average increase over all the items that are on the ice cream contract.

[00:25:44] We'll be moving to gelato if we're healthier. Okay, interest in placing this on consent? Okay, on consent, please. Wow, fudge frenzies. Okay. Item 6.04, milk and related items. Ms. Filio.

[00:26:03] This contract is actually a renewal of the services we have with our current vendor, Dairy Made Dairy, which was previously Lehigh Valley Dairy. We went through some transition with that as well in the factory that we were using with Lehigh Closed. So now we're with Dairy Made Dairy.

[00:26:20] It's about a 2.5% increase for milk. Keep in mind, milk is de-escalating, escalating, just as Mr. Mahadavi mentioned. Prices of milk are going up, so our prices for milk are going up. This vendor has worked very hard with us to meet our needs and provide the services that we need.

[00:26:37] And once again, these are regular deliveries to all 96 schools. Do you recall the last year what the increase, the increment was? I do not. I can't get that for you. Because, I mean, that's pretty good. We were looking just at the ice cream at 15, and the milk's down at 2.5%.

[00:26:55] So I'm wondering if they captured a lot of that cost in the last increase. This is a company that has really wanted to keep our business, and they've worked very hard with us. But I can see what we did pay before we were with them because we also went through that transition when they were bought out and Lehigh closed and we were given Dairy Made Dairy.

[00:27:17] Okay. Yeah, if you could provide that and just put that in the notes for the board to consider. So we'll look at that. Mr. Mahedavid. Thank you, Chair. So this is not probably a contract, but I guess this will be, I'm not sure you or your staff, I think comes back to how much of this milk, I mean, the kids like it.

[00:27:41] Because, again, the feedback I've heard, limited feedback, the quality of the milk could be, I mean, I think they don't like the fat-free items. We could go on a different tangent about fat-free versus whole milk. That's a whole different discussion.

[00:27:57] I don't want to get into that. But what's the feedback on this particular milk from the kids? Because I heard, I mean, they don't exist. So I would imagine that if Ms. Mills was here, she'd probably give information about why we don't do whole milk as it relates to the nutrition guidelines.

[00:28:21] During the pandemic, we had also looked at shelf-stable milk because there was this time frame when we were challenged in getting fresh milk. We definitely heard feedback about the shelf-stable milk. They did not like that. In terms of the regular milk, I don't have any feedback directly.

[00:28:39] I haven't heard anything rise to my level regarding concerns. We do continue to have this. If kids have the milk and they don't open the carton, this is where our food recovery kicks in. So to avoid the waste, we work really hard to avoid the waste if they do not wish to drink the milk.

[00:29:04] So it's a conundrum trying to figure out how best to spread that out. As long as you still have the chocolate milk, though, chocolate low-fat. So far, there are discussions regarding whether or not to take chocolate milk off of the USDA.

[00:29:21] But, again, I have had conversations with Ms. Mills, and she has educated me, that it depends on the perspective that do you sacrifice maybe a higher sugar count to make sure that the children drink the milk and get all the other nutrients that is in the milk, or do you just offer white milk where they may not want to have that at all?

[00:29:43] So we are closely watching that discussion. There have been some recent studies that say that chocolate milk is actually very good, especially the low-fat, because both the milk and the chocolate providing that extra energy, especially for children that are very active. So there are pros and cons, but, again, I think we'll continue on with chocolate.

[00:30:04] Sure, I'm shaking my head. It's a whole different discussion, not for this committee. I know it's looking at it, Ms. Pillow is looking at it. But that's, I mean, the low-fat, non-fat, and the whole fat, that's a whole different level of discussion where, you know, to take it on as like a very philosophical, like CRT versus non-CRT.

[00:30:24] So we can put it on a consent agenda from my side. Consent it will be. Okay, so 6.04 on consent. Thank you. All right, 6.05, which is math intervention resources. Yes, we're going to switch gears now and go from food to academic math.

[00:30:43] this is funding that was provided as part of the year-end funding that you had moved from FY 24 to FY 23 and this was to purchase math intervention resources and materials in the amount of approximately four hundred thousand dollars after review by an evaluation committee the committee is recommending award to Heinemann and curriculum as well as curriculum associates for these resource materials if you have any other questions specifically on the materials provided miss Richardson is here to provide any information you may

[00:31:16] need excellent can we can we get some idea into exactly what what we're providing with those intervention resources is it is it strictly labor is it labor and other content is I think they're gonna come up and let you know welcome thank you I'm Margaret Osbury the special supervisor for specialized instruction so what we would be purchasing our materials to provide

[00:31:54] instruction for students. So it's mostly books, math manipulatives. The Curriculum and Associates product is a hybrid, so part of it is online software licenses for students as well as lesson plans for direct teacher instruction. So the firm that's providing it, do they provide just one standard set or do they do their own research and determine what kind of package to provide or do we pursue specific items from them? So for the Heinemann product, we would be able to select whether or not we want addition, subtraction, fractions, multiplication, or division based on student need across the division for various interventions.

[00:32:33] For Curriculum and Associates, it's one set software license that's leveled for individual students. Okay, so a lot of this is software. Okay. And this is a new award here.

[00:32:53] Any discussion? Thank you. So what is the current program you're using for math intervention at the moment? So this year, the Office of Special Education piloted Bridges Intervention in several different schools across the division, as well as a smaller subset of Pirate Math, which recently was made available to the public this past spring.

[00:33:15] So we have piloted both of those in the schools this year. We did as well. We got a lot of positive feedback from Bridges by the Math Learning Center. And Pirate Math, less so, is less used because of its very niche area of mathematics that that targets.

[00:33:39] It is not. The Heinemann product is called Do the Math, and the Curriculum Associates product is called IReady. It isn't the wrong committee than the thing we're having discussion on this thing.

[00:33:55] So I don't want to take up because this is more on the contract side than discussion on the curriculum itself. Because, you know, I don't know if you follow the thing. From what I learned, the bridges and the program that the special ed department was using seemed to be very effective.

[00:34:13] And so that's one of the initiatives for me to push for this pilot program, pilot school, was based on that. So suddenly now we're changing gears. It kind of makes me. Thank you for that question. There's no need to pump the brakes or to get concerned. We still will be accessing and utilizing bridges as a sole source.

[00:34:33] It's unfortunate that they were not able to meet the request for proposal timeline for this intervention request specifically for math. But because they are a vendor that we have been traditionally working with, we were able to work with them through a sole source opportunity for math.

[00:34:49] So then I think it's opening up more questions then. So we already have a sole source with them. Just because we have been in contract doesn't mean, I mean. Excuse me. Yes. We're going to have to go back and look at that sole source because I don't believe it would be a sole source initially because of this RFP.

[00:35:07] There are other vendors out there. So before we say that it's a sole source, if I could go back and work with special ed, specifically I work with Margaret, and we can take a look at that in detail. So I can't. But they did not respond to the solicitation. Therefore, they were not eligible.

[00:35:23] And due to the dollar amount that was provided for these materials, we were required by policy to go out for bid. That's okay, but this is like the second or third time where our hope is that certain vendors also participate, and this has not been the case.

[00:35:44] I can't support this tonight on this night. We need to learn more about this. I just can't. Okay. You bring up a lot of interesting points. Would you consider this to be headed to curriculum and instruction or to student services? I think this is student services.

[00:36:01] Ms. Richardson, is that where you would? I'm happy to bring this back to the student services committee, which is slated for June 28th. Okay. Now, have they reviewed this? Have they provided input in any way? Or is this? Mr. Morse. I guess he would know. If I also, though, may interject.

[00:36:17] Yes. What's unique with this is that the school board had allocated $400,000 out of this year's funding. So we are running up against the clock. Is this a partial coverage for what we will need next year?

[00:36:33] So we're just paying it forward, or is this the full-year contract? This is a full-year contract, which we need to have the purchase order issued and the project started in June in order to utilize the funding.

[00:36:51] Mr. Matavy. Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I think I don't want to force that just because we did it. I mean, we can always give the $400,000 back to the county if need be. But we can figure that out, Ms. Billaby. I think I don't want to be forced into just because, you know, this is the third contract I'll be forced into.

[00:37:10] And I think if two of them I let it go, I'm not going to support this. So I won't speak to the contract because I totally appreciate what you're describing of feeling, you know, not wanting to feel the pressure. But what I will say, though, is that if we do not take action, then the funding, as you described, would go back to the county.

[00:37:32] We don't have $400,000 in the budget for FY24 to purchase another resource. So it is. We're kind of in a corner in terms of losing out on the funding to proceed with this.

[00:37:47] Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. I hear that. I think it's $400,000 in the scheme of $1.6, $1.7 billion budget for next year. I'm ready to work with the superintendent to figure that part out, but not be forced to make a decision tonight.

[00:38:03] And I'm going to make sure that I'm going to work with the board members to make sure that this doesn't get funded either. Let's take a look at what the impacts would be if this was not funded. What resources would be available to the students if we don't have this in place?

[00:38:20] We currently have two sets of Bridges Set 1 and two of Bridges Set 2 that would be available to students, which is what we currently have now. And we're able to support about eight schools with that. Okay. And what would we be able to provide if we had this additional?

[00:38:37] So our intent is to provide do-the-math kits to the majority of our elementary schools, and the iReady would be a resource for all of our students with disabilities with math deficits in middle and high school. Is this a one-year license, more or less?

[00:38:54] So the do-the-math materials are non-renewable for the most part, so once those are purchased, we would be able to continue to provide those and have those available for teachers and students. The iReady would be an annual software license that is currently for one year.

[00:39:11] And they are competing products. Do they both do basically the same thing? They do different things. And? Dot, dot, dot. Talk to us. The do the math product is really appropriate for students operating in an early elementary level or early elementary math skills.

[00:39:33] iReady is more so targeted, while it's available for students K-12, we would prefer not to have an online product for elementary, whereas in secondary, it's more applicable to the time that students have and the need that they have as students. But it does have a direct teacher component.

[00:39:50] So while they both work on math and they both work on math skills, they're not necessarily in competition with one another. Okay. It's unfortunate because we're in June, right? I mean, we are certainly up against it now. But, you know, one of my concerns is that we're introducing a new product.

[00:40:12] I think the preference would be to continue with the old product, but now you're telling me there are different age groups. Have the special needs instructors, do they support this? Is this one of the programs that they would prefer?

[00:40:29] Is this something that, or are we kind of putting this upon them because we have additional funding and a need? So for secondary especially, our intent was always to pursue an additional secondary intervention.

[00:40:45] While Bridges is fabulous for elementary and for some of our secondary students, the majority of our secondary students are working at a math skill that is beyond what Bridges provides. So we were always looking for a secondary option, and especially one that is a hybrid direct instruction and an online component is very requested by our secondary staff across the board.

[00:41:05] As far as elementary goes, yes, they want an intervention, and they want something that covers these topics, and Do the Math is different from Bridges in its timeline and its structure. Okay. So, Mr. Mejedevi, I agree with you. I don't know that we can vote this forward.

[00:41:21] However, I do think, given the time criticality, that we need to forward this to the full board for discussion. And what I'd recommend you do is to identify the information that we need to hear about when it's brought to the full board so that the information can arrive along with this request and they can be fully aware of what it is prior to the end of the school year so that they could get it under contract if need be.

[00:41:48] Because, I mean, we could return the $400,000, but then we're going to be looking at the rest of the budget to pull $400,000 out to reapply when we could use this. Now, the other option is that somehow the Board of Supervisors uses this $400,000.

[00:42:03] They give us 2024 funds in a swap. But, again, we would have to work that out, and we only have three weeks. Yeah, so I didn't want to make it this in front of this thing. I want to get offline, and I think we can always put it on the agenda as an information item.

[00:42:21] When I meet with Mr. Sorotkin, I'll put it for considerations, but tonight I cannot support this putting it forward to the school board. Okay, so we will, I mean, it's an information item for us right now anyway. So due to the timeline, though, I mean, we really can't take action at the next meeting because then it wouldn't make it to the school board information.

[00:42:47] Yes, if it was information tonight, two weeks from now it would be action for us. At that last meeting in June, it would be an information item to the full board. So we need the decision prior to the last board meeting. So if we were to put it directly on action, that would be different.

[00:43:04] If we're going to put it on information item, it has to go on June 13th info to be on the June 24th action. So we can make the decision of the next committee meeting? I think we missed the board meeting's information session. So the recommendation was due to the time constraint that it was info tonight.

[00:43:22] It would be brought back as action to this committee on June 20th. And with our optimistic thinking, we were anticipating it being placed on consent agenda at the June 27th school board meeting. So skipping over info action at school board.

[00:43:39] And so as Mr. Morris was describing, just the way the meetings are lined up. So, but we will be bringing back to this committee on June 20th, though. That's not going to happen. But if we do, then it would need to go to consent or action at June 27th school board. We won't have another opportunity to take it to info.

[00:43:57] So then what were you expecting tonight from this thing? Info, action at the next committee, consent at the next school board. So I guess the question is, do you feel more comfortable getting it through action at the next committee meeting, or do you feel more comfortable getting it to the full board for discussion at an information item?

[00:44:18] No, at the action item. Okay, so that means that we're going to go ahead and try to place it on action item for here, which means the information that you need to make the decision, we really need to work with staff. And then it will come back for action, and then we will work to get it put on consent because of the dollar value and because of the time frame.

[00:44:40] And if it gets pulled off consent and put on action, that's fine. We can still have that discussion. But for the time purposes, we're going to need to move it. Okay, so we're going to skip over that. Thank you. On to item 6.06, which is business financial services, agency nursing, and special education student services.

[00:44:58] Ms. Filioff. This is a new solicitation we put out this year. This has come before you before on an annual basis. you may or may not recall we had agency nursing separate pt ot as we had everything separate this now puts everything under one contract there's 36 vendors we provided you a list of the awarded vendors as opposed to having you read off the names of all 36 along with the services they provided we are finalizing the hourly negotiation rates with these vendors these vendors are used by LCPS on an as-needed basis to fill in where necessary in Ms. Richardson's program areas.

[00:45:37] So, we bring it before you this evening to award this annual contract as per the attached recommendation for an estimated value of $520,000. And I understand having the number of agencies is beneficial.

[00:45:53] I'm just interested in the fact that it's only $520,000 and we have two dozen potential vendors. The vendors are selected based on our need at the time. I know that I can say that Student Services hopes that they don't have to use these very often, that they can fill positions.

[00:46:12] One of the big areas this year was the inability to fill our nursing positions. We relied a lot on this contract for fill-in, but we're hoping that's better for the coming year. So that's why it is only the $520,000. Thank you. So this is not the contract where we award equally to every vendor like we do with our other contracts?

[00:46:35] We don't award equally to every vendor. We try to do equal with every vendor. In this particular case, we're limited on the services the vendors can provide. So, for example, we may spend a lot of dollars on hearing services. There's very few vendors that provide those hearing services.

[00:46:54] We do look at the vendors that provide the particular services, and then we determine which vendors to use based on their availability. These vendors also are agencies and have a lot of clients that need their services. So we utilize the services as needed and based on those vendors that have availability to provide the services.

[00:47:14] My other question, I think maybe it's not for the contract related, but I think going back to what Mr. Morse asked, I mean, this award is only for half a million dollars for these services, but it's something maybe we could, Ms. Richardson, and since you're here, We could take up, I mean, I guess we could just take it up and figure out if the budget is enough or not enough for going into the next cycle.

[00:47:36] Yes, and we can also work with Ms. Richardson and provide her the details of what we've spent by vendor for each of those services throughout her program areas. We have that information available as well. So we'll roll that to the action item for the next committee meeting.

[00:47:53] Very good, thank you. On to 607, RFP R23257, Civil and Environmental Engineering Services. This is a new contract for the Civil and Engineering Services.

[00:48:09] The increase that we saw in these services is approximately 13%, but that is because these vendors remained fairly flat during the renewal period, so that we are seeing an increase to get caught up. This contract actually, just so you know, only has three additional one-year renewal options.

[00:48:27] as per the Virginia Public Procurement Act. This is one of the contracts, as Mr. Mahadevi mentioned, that we try to look at the vendors, the services they provide, and try to spread out as best we can. So this is another example of that. And this is the same list of vendors that originally were in the original contract, correct?

[00:48:45] These vendors, actually, I would need to go back, Mr. Morris, and confirm that for you because we may have at least one new vendor on here, but I did not check that for sure compared to who we had on the contract last year. Oh, there's Joe. Okay. Thank you, Joe.

[00:49:01] Joe? Hi, good afternoon. Yeah, there's one new vendor on the contract that we didn't have previously. So if we're adding a new vendor to a contract extension, how do we do that?

[00:49:19] How do we, I mean, that's... This is not a contract extension. This is a new award. It's a new award. Yes, sir. Okay, I'm sorry. This is a new award with three additional one-year renewal options. Okay. And so all the previous vendors are continuing and we're gaining one, or did they replace one?

[00:49:37] We're net gaining one, but all the previous vendors are not participating going forward. There's a new mix of vendors. The reason for the renewal is that we recognize the need for additional capacity, and we think through this new mix of vendors, with the additional vendor, we'll have that.

[00:49:52] Okay. Further questions? Interest in placing that on consent? Okay. So we'll place that one on consent. On to 6.08, which is RFPR 21271 transportation management system.

[00:50:08] This is our software application system. used by Mr. Davis's area for routing, scheduling, everything they do. Over at Transportation, this is the software, the application that we use for those services, and this is our annual renewal with that vendor.

[00:50:26] This is the software that's had on iPads that the drivers use? Yes, sir. This is for the turn-by-turn directions, routing by our routing staff, time and attendance, and our field trip staff, and also GPS tracking for all the buses and all the white vehicles as well.

[00:50:44] And you've been very, very happy with the performance? We've made progress in improving their performance. Okay. I mean, from a board perspective, things just seem to have gone pretty well last year, knock on wood.

[00:51:02] Yes. I know there's a lot of manpower involved. I'm not just saying it's all software, obviously. Oh, and we have noticed, obviously, there were some issues with the StopPinder app that the parents use, and I'm sure board members received complaints about that.

[00:51:18] But we have, we put them on notice several months ago about the issues that we were facing, and they have gone above and beyond to make improvements. There's still more to do, but they are definitely turning in the positive direction. Excellent. Mr. Meherby. Thank you, Chair.

[00:51:33] So this is just a renewal of the, not a new contract? Yes, the initial term was two years, and this is our first renewal. No, no, you had a little hesitation to asking Mr. Morris the question. But I guess changing, I don't know if maybe you have different preference, but changing would be a whole different effort to do it, right?

[00:51:54] It would be a huge lift. This took over a year of planning and transition to maneuver from our old system, which we had for over 20 years. Okay, is there interest in placing that on consent? Okay, so that will go on consent as well.

[00:52:10] On to 6.09, which is RFPR-21270, Business Software Solution for School Nutrition Renewal. This is another application that we replaced a system we've been using for 20-plus years.

[00:52:27] This is with EMS Link. The application is called Titan. This is the one where you would go online to pay for your student's lunch account. They also have the point-of-sale system. They do menus. They do inventory and ordering through this system. Growing pains with this one as well that we continue to work through But this is the annual first renewal of this contract with an estimated value of five hundred thousand dollars So this is a renewal right now. This is tied into the student information system somehow Yes, this is tied into the student information system and all of the equipment is owned by LCPS as well

[00:53:01] Which in the past we bought directly from the vendor. We now own the equipment that's in our schools for this system I guess, Ms. Willoughby, what's the feedback on Titan so far this year?

[00:53:20] I'll mirror what Mr. Davies said. As Ms. Willoughby said, we have had some growing pains, but we are still rolling out being able to utilize the full capacity of all of what Titan offers. So we are encouraged by that work that's coming up this summer.

[00:53:38] In terms of the user experience from consumers or our customers, I don't think we've heard very much complaint. I think it's more behind the scenes that we're just wanting to iron out and make sure that we're using it as efficiently as we can. It's not like an Oracle problem, is it?

[00:53:57] That took us 10 years to put to bed. No, Oracle is its own special system. All I remember is hiring, hiring experts, bringing in experts. Okay, interesting placing that on consent. We'll place that on consent as well. 6.10, which is Woodgrove High School Communication Systems.

[00:54:19] Smith. Excellent. Well, tonight we're here to present an update at board member request on the unified communication systems, the situation that occurred at Woodgrove, and how that will look different in the future as we move forward. So, first, I kind of wanted to identify what our unified communication system is.

[00:54:39] It really is putting all systems together into a single unified system that includes clocks, intercoms, paging, public address, classroom-to-classroom communications, emergency alert notifications, everything that kind of goes on inside of a school.

[00:54:56] Legacy systems, like what is that Woodgrove, is five or six different systems, and they are not intelligent systems. These are, think of speaker wire, they're not monitored. So this will be a fully monitored, automated system. And this is actually has already been approved as part of the CIP project.

[00:55:11] So we're already well on our way to getting some of this work done. But it does replace all of those other systems into one monitored, modern replacement system for everything at a school. So why are we doing this? Well, for a long time, we had limited refresh funding available.

[00:55:28] And individual systems were replaced on failure only. We have some systems out there that are 40 years old, and they run like they're 40-year-old tanks. And we have other systems that are more modern and more moving pieces that are failing faster. So systems are failing faster than funding was available to do some of these replacements.

[00:55:48] Really lack of replacement parts for legacy systems, which results in schools down for extended periods of time. We do consider this a life safety system and do everything we can to get it up and running as soon as possible. Just sometimes there's limitations in the market for those items.

[00:56:02] Systems were passive, so they're just speaker wire, so there's nowhere a way to monitor, to know what is and isn't working, and we usually hear about that after a situation has occurred, which is the worst case scenario, is someone reporting this didn't work when we really needed it to work, so a UC system could be fully monitored, and we only know about issues when they're reported and not working, and then limited area use for emergencies, which means if there is an emergency in the building, someone would have to be at that main office location in order to make an announcement, which really doesn't spread that functionality across the entire campus right it's only at that one location for them to do that work so with the UC system that we're installing all schools will have a modern

[00:56:42] integrated building-wide communication system all endpoints will be monitored and we'll know exactly what is up and what is down to be proactive and replacing that equipment and we will also know the location of all equipment recently there's Carey's law that has been passed that if you dial 9-1-1 from an inside location they need to know where in the facility that phone is located some of our campuses are pretty big so putting in UC means anyone who calls 9-1-1 we know the exact phone and time where the location is in that school for those where they've been called again ability to dial 9-1-1 from anywhere in the school automated reporting for all emergency calls so the second that someone places a 9-1-1 call our SOC actually gets an alert and says

[00:57:20] that this call was placed at this school so we're really excited about this type of automation processes that are occurring and then some standard messaging pre-recorded based on emergency so if there is a tornado warning that needs to happen a principal doesn't have to know what that warning is they just dial the code for tornado warning and a pre-recorded standardized message goes out to the entire school from anywhere inside of that school so kind of helping them to automate the process so the last thing we want is for someone to be in the middle of emergency and have to remember everything that they need to do inside of that so our current status for for our UC again is the CIP project it's a multi-year project to replace all the legacy public

[00:57:59] address intercom phone paging and clocks so we'll have can all those systems will be integrated into one system and we are also going to add visual emergency notification to all schools right now in legacy schools the only notifications they get are audio so these will add strobes type lights so that they can get visual alerts as well it's about a 36 plus million dollar project that was approved in CIP and our current status is phase one has been complete so all phone systems have been replaced again that's not every other aspect of it that's just the phones and then all LCBS classrooms have phones

[00:58:37] which we call unified communication devices which can be used in emergencies kind of view them as a safety net so they still have their public address and their paging systems in place but in case of failure such as what happened at Woodgrove these phones exist to still have a campus-wide communications and all calls can all pages can be made on those phones 11 schools have full UC systems 11 schools have partial UC systems as we are going in depending on what failed what time we have some schools we've had to expedite some of those things and we have 18 schools currently in the design phase with installs to begin as soon as cabling designs are complete a majority of this

[00:59:17] work is data cabling inside of a school which is what makes it more tedious than just going in we're able to put phones in a lot quicker because network jacks aren't existed in every single location network jacks network cable does not exist in all of the ceilings where speakers are needed and those type of things. So all of that to kind of summarize what happened at the Woodgrove incident. So at the beginning of May, May 2nd I believe, Woodgrove experienced some sort of power surge that took their PA and intercom system offline. So we believe that was blown fuses that occurred and again because they have a legacy system

[00:59:54] there was no monitoring or notification until the school noticed that that issue was there. Once notified, facilities, DDI, the vendor all responded immediately to resolve the issue. Again, because we have all these layers of systems, it's kind of turned into everyone working to solve the problem, but not working together to solve the problem. So I think that's what caused a little bit of a delay in getting Woodgrove on faster. So as we get into these new UC systems in a single managed environment with one team owning that, then it gets a lot more consistent with those responses.

[01:00:28] Again, the new phones were installed, so Woodgrove had that functionality in every single location to be able to have those all-calls and stuff in place, which we viewed as a success because even though their system was offline, we still had that capability. And they were already in scheduled design for FY24, so they're one of those 18 schools that we're moving forward with right now.

[01:00:45] It just takes a while to get those cabling designs and everything built so we can then begin the cabling work and then begin the technical system installation. So that's really all I had tonight and happy to answer any questions about it. Thank you for the update. Yeah, I mean, we're very interested in this.

[01:01:01] I was made aware of the classroom phone changes, and I just found the whole thing intriguing. So you mentioned security. That's obviously a primary means there. What about accessibility? Is it wired to the doors? Do we, you know, is it wired to the alarm system?

[01:01:18] Is that part, is it integrated with that, or is it standalone from that? So those are, once we get a UC system in place, then those are all options for integrations that we can perform. so there's various vendors and integrations that can be done one of the items that we have only 34 of our schools have actually phone type devices even if it's only not really a phone but only integrated to the to the main office communications so they can't really have a sensitive conversation without the entire classroom hearing it over the loudspeaker so we view those as some enhancements that are able to you know have conversations and do those

[01:01:55] communications in a more private manner than just blasting out full audio communications inside of the classroom as well okay and the HVAC and all that stuff that's all kept on a separate harness a separate network right correct okay thank you chair so I guess just going back to the where you had the CIP project status just curious I mean I'm sure so the list of the number of schools is 40 so out of you know 96 plus schools so are the other ones

[01:02:28] already in already with the UC I guess unified communications already in place and just the 40 that need to be updated or we're just at the beginning of this the 11 that are done are the only ones that are complete we have 11 that are partial so we can we we have 100% at 11 schools we say 50% just to add 11 schools and then every other school still needs to be completed before we had a CIP funding I think we were slated to get this completed in 2045 so being able to expedite that funding and replace these legacy systems that our life safety systems are really beneficial so that some of the funding goes up and down throughout the years so depending on the

[01:03:08] CIP allocation so that's where some of that scheduling comes into so we were able to use CIP funding this year to get those phones in place which we call phase one so every school is at least has those phones in place and then as we get into future years over the next four to five years depending on funding and how many schools we can get done at each time then they'll all be completed and then we'll have a single system across all schools so I think when you list out 40 here so we still have a plan for the remaining 50 plus schools correct that's included in the cip already right now no no just just because it's not because you could have said 50 you know it needs to be planned in the future but since only 40 were mentioned in the slide here

[01:03:46] that's that's what i'm trying to get and it's it exists in a project plan that is a tentative project plan because we'll we just want to make sure you know cip evolves as we get through it um and so schools have already even been notified of what fiscal year that their replacements will that's available on our Internet for staff to go and look up.

[01:04:03] I know Mr. Clark is here, and I'm sure from security it's probably high priority to get the communication system in place. Would you agree to that? So you mentioned the law that was created.

[01:04:20] When is compliance required for that law, and are we in compliance already? We are in compliance as of now. So part of that law is there's no barriers to dial 911, so it's not 911. It's just 911 gets you out the door. So we support both of those calling features out, and then we know building locations that are being reported to 911 calls.

[01:04:40] So we are compliant. I don't have the data of when you had to be compliant by off the top of my head, but I can get that. That's all right. If we're compliant, then we've achieved what we need to. You mentioned monitoring. Is there a position that we anticipate we'll be monitoring this at a school or centrally? It's really systems, so they're integrations.

[01:04:58] You put a phone in place, and you know it's online and its capabilities. And so in the UC system that we're using, it has that monitoring built in. So we know if there's 12 devices offline at Woodgrove, we can have a technician go and look at those. So it's more about right now we're spending a lot of time having to find those things.

[01:05:18] Like this past summer we actually went around and did audits in all of our schools playing audio and just listening to where speakers were working and not working in levels. And this is all able to be done centrally versus just walking around in manual. So we view it as like an enhancement for some of our resources.

[01:05:34] Okay, okay. And last, and this might be an interesting challenge, is multilingual. When we talk about the word being passed over, the announcing systems, do we have it going out in multilingual? So for prerecorded messages, I believe we can work on that.

[01:05:52] For live announcements, that might be a bit of a challenge. We'll have to look into that to do real-time live translation depending on room and location. I'm not sure that those services exist at this point, but we can research it and take a look into it. Thank you. Additional questions or comments? All right.

[01:06:08] Very good. Thank you for the update. I think we have one more item here, if I can find it. 6.11, which is Wallace Sanitary Sewer Easement at Banneker Elementary School.

[01:06:24] Yes, sir. So with this item, we are seeking approval to grant an easement on the Banneker Elementary School site to allow a future homeowner next door to the school, 2231 Bernard Lane, to make a sanitary sewer connection to a Loudon Water manhole that's on our site.

[01:06:42] Staff has reviewed the proposed easement request and determined that due to the location of the property line, the location of the manhole, the location of the property line, where the easement is at, that it will not have any conflicts with any proposed or any possible future development there at the site.

[01:06:59] We already have a Loudon Water sanitary sewer line runs right through the middle of the property, and this easement would allow the homeowner to come in and run right beside that cloud and water easement to tie into the first available manhole. And it looks like it's way out in the ball field, and they will restore it to its original.

[01:07:20] It is past the ball field, and the easement does require them to do any restoration of the site work. Mr. Manavie. Thank you, Chair. So this is more philosophically. Do we typically deny requests also if somebody is looking for easement of these kinds?

[01:07:43] We try not to deny requests. If it was something that we thought would have a fairly significant impact on our ability to do something else with the site, we would bring that to the board. And the staff, obviously, recommendation would be that we would not want to pursue it if we thought it was going to really tie our hands in the future.

[01:08:05] But we try very, very hard to work around to find solutions and then present those to the board. Okay, yeah, interest in moving this and placing it on consent. all right so that takes care of our agenda for this evening a little bit over i apologize but i think we got a lot taken care of for our next board meeting as well uh and as there is no new business we are adjourned thank you thanks for using webex visit our website at www.webex.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com