DeKalb County, GA — DeKalb County Schools wants parents, staff, and other community stakeholders to provide input on the 2023-2024 DeKalb County School District Code of Conduct.

“The Code of Student Conduct Handbook outlines the policies, rules, and regulations that govern student discipline in the district, including dress code, behavior, bus information, electronic communication devices, violence against students, terroristic threats, school personnel, and other student responsibilities,” a press release from the school district says. “The Code of Student Conduct Handbook is intended to inform students in grades K – 12 of the types of behaviors that are unacceptable. Students are taught and tested on the contents of the handbook.”

To see the current code of conduct, visit: www.dekalbschoolsga.org/student-relations.

People can send comments to [email protected] or mail them to the Department of Student Relations, 5823 Memorial Drive, Stone Mountain, Georgia 30083, until Monday, May 22, 2023.

In other school district news, the DeKalb County School Board will meet on May 8. The meeting will begin at 12:30 p.m. with an executive session, followed by a work session and then the regular meeting. The school board will examine the tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2024. A draft of the budget was not attached to the meeting agenda. To see the agenda, click here.

Other times for the school board’s consideration at the May 8 meeting include:

— Selecting Loomis Armored US, LLC for district-wide armored car services for a period of one year (with four one-year extensions) for $384,000.

“The SafePoint Titan smart safe … installed at each school will improve operational efficiency and increase security,” the meeting agenda says. “The SafePoint Titan smart safe system by Loomis is proprietary technology centered around an ATM-like deposit box and the industry’s premier cash management solution. It allows individual schools to make deposits on site as often as is necessary into a secure location, tracks those deposits, and automatically calls for pick-up as is necessary.  Loomis works with its banking partners to acknowledge each deposit into the smart safes to effectively ‘advance’ that deposit to DCSD regardless of when the cash is physically collected by Loomis. This cash management ecosystem, is designed to streamline cash-handling processes, increasing efficiency, and improve cash flow with guaranteed daily deposits in DCSD bank accounts based on the individual school deposits.”

The agenda says, “The purpose of the recommendation is to ensure the DeKalb County School District (DCSD) receives full district-wide armored car and ancillary services. Current armored car services are not meeting DCSD needs and Loomis provides unique ancillary services in the form of cash deposit boxes which will provide an efficiency and deposit speed that no other armored car service can match.”

— Approving a temporary staffing services budget in an amount not to exceed $750,000.

— Approving a $64,000 independent contractor agreement with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

“This ICA is for consulting services and advice on tax abatement matters affecting or in favor of the DeKalb County School District,” the meeting agenda says. “The term [of] the ICA is May 8, 2023, through December 31, 2023.”

— Approving a $150,000 contract renewal between Metropolitan Regional Educational Service Agency (MRESA) and Metro East Georgia Learning Resources System (MEGLRS)

“MEGLRS provides direct support to six area school systems: DeKalb, Buford City, Decatur City, Fulton, Gwinnett, and Rockdale Counties,” the agenda says. “In these systems, Metro East GLRS provides support for parents of students with disabilities, teachers of students with disabilities, as well as students with disabilities. Metro East GLRS also provides in-kind ancillary services for the remainder of the metro area: Cobb County Schools, Atlanta Public Schools, Clayton County Schools, Marietta City Schools, Douglas County Schools, and Forsyth County Schools. Metro East GLRS works directly with the Directors and Executive Directors of Special Education to design and implement the Statewide Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) and Corrective Action Plans (CAP). These services are in the form of planning, professional learning, seminars, coaching, and mentoring.

“MEGLRS has maintained a contract for services with MRESA for over 11 years. The amount for each of these previous contracts has not exceeded $50,000.  The need for professional learning in the supported districts has increased; therefore, the MEGLRS is seeking additional contracted services provided by MRESA to meet the need. The federal funds provided to MEGLRS by the Georgia Department of Education will allow the District to support the provision of services to special education staff and students.”

— Approving a contract renewal for the Incident IQ Ticketing System at a cost not to exceed $157,717.72.

“Incident IQ facilitates and organizes service delivery support for all student Chromebooks, staff devices, and other technology assets,” the agenda says.

— Approving the renewal of an agreement with BrainPOP and BrainPOP, Jr., with BrainPOP, Inc. at a cost not to exceed $186,637.42.

— Approving the purchase of the Lightspeed Content Filter platform from CDW-G at a cost not to exceed $903,550.

The purchase will allow the district “to purchase content filtering to protect all student Chromebooks and maintain the District’s Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) compliance, AUP adherence, and network security. This renewal will also incorporate an analytics platform to provide more visibility for stakeholders.”

— Purchasing an annual renewal agreement for the Infinite Campus Student Information System with K-12 Solutions Group at a cost not to exceed $1,274,733.19.

“DCSD transitioned to Infinite Campus as our student information system during the 2014-15 school year,” the agenda says. “The transition has successfully enabled DCSD to efficiently register, enroll, and schedule students; effectively support end users in various departments and program areas (e.g., CTAE, Counseling, EL/ESOL, Homeless, Hospital/Homebound, RTI, Social Worker, 504, and SPED); successfully complete state reporting tasks to acquire and maximize funding for the school district; and better communicate with parents via the Campus Parent Portal as well as the Infinite Campus mobile application. For the 2022-2023 school year, there were 70,886 active Parent Portal accounts (a 2.3% increase over 21-22 year) with a 5.5% increase in average weekly parent logins during 22-23 compared to the prior school year.”

— Purchasing the Canvas Learning Management System with Instructure, Incorporated, at a cost not to exceed $978,630.

Per the agreement, Canvas will support teaching and learning in a virtual environment, support access to approved curriculum, deliver professional learning to staff, facilitate collecting student assignments, integrate with legacy systems, analyze engagement data and promote parental engagement, according to the agenda.

— Approving an annual subscription for the wireless maintenance agreement from Integrated Communications Networks (ICN) at a cost not to exceed $335,055

— Approving the purchase of physical security equipment and services from Convergint Technologies, LLC in an amount not to exceed $17 million to support the District-Wide Physical Security Refresh Initiative.

“A significant percentage of the district’s facilities have aged physical security equipment that needs to be replaced,” the agenda says. “This initiative will replace our legacy infrastructure with state-of-the-art physical security components.  The transformational integration of these components will allow for better end-user access, monitoring, and operations experiences.”

— Approving an award of $2.5 million to PlayPower Inc, on an as-needed basis during 2023 for playground equipment repairs, replacements, and outdoor equipment installation services.

— Approving a $500,000 contract for gym floor maintenance, repair, and refinishing to Fuller Sport Floors.

— Approving a $2.75 million landscaping contract with Yellowstone Landscape SE, LLC.

— Approving a $3.5 million agreement with American Facility Services, Inc. through Marietta City Schools.

“Pursuant to Board Policy DJE III(D)(3)(d), Exceptions to Competitive Selection, the Purchasing Department is authorized to make purchases through contracts formally solicited and obtained by the State of Georgia or any other political subdivision of the State of Georgia,” the agenda says. “Marietta City Schools is a political subdivision of the State of Georgia.”

The agreement is for custodial services and goods, the agenda says.

— Approving a $1.1 million contract for district-wide furniture and fixtures. The contractors are Corporate Environments of Georgia, Ernie Morris Enterprises, Georgia Specialty Equipment, LLC., HCONE International Implex LLC., Lakeshore Learning Materials LLC., and School Specialty LLC.

— Approving the purchase of an annual license for using Kahua Project Management Information System for $397,000. This is the project management system for the district.

— Purchasing uniforms from Cintas Corporation for $235,400.

“The goal of School Nutrition Services is to maintain a professional appearance at all times and promote a positive image of a quality program,” the agenda says. “School Nutrition employees are among the lowest paid employees in the District, therefore a uniform program will increase morale and will be provided to Central Office and School-level employees at no cost. There are currently 41 Central Office employees and 720 School-level employees.”

— Approving the extension of bids to Brookwood Farms, Inc., Gold Creek Foods, LLC, Goodman Food Products dba Don Lee Farms, Jennie O Turkey Store Sales, LLC dba Hormel Foods, JTM Provisions Co. Inc., Land O’ Lakes, Inc., Out of the Shell, LLC dba Yangs 5th Taste and Tyson Prepared Foods in the amount not to exceed $4.6 million. This agreement covers July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024.

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