Submitted by Linda Robinson

Five Central High School alumni perform at the Chancellors Welcome for the Class of 2014.
 
Picture left to right Madalynn Couvillon, Kaitlyn Robinson, Maddie Svoren, Kelsey Frazier, Jessica Holden, Lauren Beddingfield, and Macy Cambre.

SEPTEMBER -
2          Meet the Wildcats-7 pm
3          Football Port Allen A   
6          Labor Day Holiday
8          Balfour here at lunch
9          Open House 6pm
10        Football St. Pauls-H (honor R. Devall)
11        ACT Testing (not offered at CHS)
13        College /Career-Gym-6-8 pm
14        PTO General Meeting 6:30 pm
15        Life Promotions Assembly 1:30 pm   Central Student Prayer Day Assembly-TBA
Central Student Prayer Night Assembly 6:30 pm
17        Football Sarah Reed-H-Homecoming
18        Homecoming Dance-Gym-8-11
22        Balfour here at lunch
24        Football Scotlandville-H
 
Please remember to join us Sept 14 at 6:30 at CHS for our general meeting. DONT MISS IT! Meet Principal Wales and your PTO volunteers. Important information given out about scholarships, TOPS, DOORPRIZES and much more.
 
BOOKS – all students should have their textbooks. Please check with your student to make sure they have gotten them. We have a few courses that are awaiting textbooks to come in. These students will be told asap when they can pick them up. Also I'D required to get textbooks. Contact Library with any questions.
PARKING – ALL student drivers MUST having parking pass as of Monday. Office has confirmed that cars without parking passes as of Monday will be towed.
STUDENT ATHLETES – Mandatory meeting Monday Aug. 30 at 7:30 in the gym which parents of all athletes must attend.
CALENDAR CORRECTION – Please not there was error on the October Calendar. The ring ceremony is at 7 PM (not am) on October 12th.
Basic Information:
Coach Sid is accepting nominations for Central Hall of Fame … they are due before Labor Day, September 6th… nominations to be sent to Coach Sid Edwards at 261-3169 or email at eedwards@centralcss.org
 
Central Prayer Banquet will be September 15th from 6- 8:30 p.m.  in the Central High gym.Ffree pizza, drinks and brownies for students…6th grade thru college… $10 for adults.  Guest speaker this year is Bob Lenz. Tickets MUST be obtained in advance and presented at the door. There will be no tickets sold at the door. Tickets available from Cental Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads Animal Hospital.

If you have not yet joined the CHS PTO, now is the time to do so before we get much farther into the school year.  Visit www.chspto.org to join.  Membership is only $5, and it is a great way to get involved in helping your child's school and to stay up to date with what's going on at CHS.

By Dave Freneaux

There is no doubt that if everyone had it all to do over again, the awarding of the Central School construction bids would have gone very differently.  As a quick recap, MAPP Construction was the apparent low bidder, but The Lemoine Company, who was $50,000 higher, got MAPP's bid thrown out when a judge ruled that a correction on MAPP's bid document was made without a corporate resolution authorizing the change.  Then, at the last minute, MAPP's attorney pointed out that the words on Arkel Anderson's bid conflicted with the numbers, and that the words prevail in such contracts, lowering Arkel's bid by over $750,000 and causing them to become the low bidder by almost $500,000.  The contract has been awarded to Arkel.
 
The question flying around Central in conversation, on the internet and in print is, "Who is to blame?"  There has been some effort to lay the blame at the feet of the School Board's attorney, Sheri Morris.  CentralSpeaks.com is a firm believer in taking issues and questions directly to those involved.  In this case, we went to Central School Superintendent Mike Faulk for comment.  In Mr. Faulk's words, "If there were any questions we had we should have sought legal advice from counsel.  Before the recommendation was brought to the board this step should have been taken and legal counsel reviewed the recommendation and information."  However, the School System did not seek Ms. Morris' advice in this matter.  Clearly Ms. Morris cannot be at fault for this error since she was notasked to be present at the bid opening and was not asked to review the bid documents.
 
Mr. Faulk, in addition to pointing out that legal counsel should have been involved, but was not, further states "Going back over the situation, my staff and I (myself, Ross, Rutter, and Kidwell) should have sat down and carefully reviewed the details of each bid."  In essence, Mr. Faulk accepts that there was an error made, and accepts that it happened on his watch, asserting that he, the school system's Construction Coordinator, accountant, and the architectural firm, PBK, made the error.  There was certainly no intent to allow the oversight and no one had a vested interest in happening.  It happened, end of story.
 
There has also been some discussion of the School Board's level of involvement in this bid process.  No school board members were directly involved in the bid opening, tabulation and review, but the decision to award the contract ultimately rested with the School Board, and each school board member did have the right to review any and all documents prior to voting to award the contract.  The School Board, with a majority of its members being professional educators, did have an ad hoc Building Committee in place which included persons with construction and management experience, but that committee was disolved when its work was completed and the Architect firm and Construction Coordinator were hired.  
 
So, having established that the error was made, what gets done about it?  In most professional environments people speak of "corrective actions" which are designed to avoid making the same mistakes again.  Along these lines, Superintendent Faulk offers the following comments: "This is one of the reasons for bringing a purchasing agent on board.  We need a more comprehensive system of checks and balances in our process so that the board will have the information necessary to make these decisions.  The person we are looking at bringing on board has knowledge of the public bid law, writing specifications, reviewing bids and contracts and making sure all items are in order."
 

By Dave Freneaux

The Central Community School Board held its regular meeting on Aug 23rd at Kristenwood.  The Construction Coordinator, Ross Bogan, reprted that renovations at the CHS, Bellingrath & Tanglewood are essentially complete and the schools were ready for the first day of classes.  The only remaining work were small "punch list" items.  Superintendent Faulk reported that enrollment had topped 4,000 and is slowly climbing.  The Board finalized steps in an agreement with DEMCO which allows the High School to receive emergency power from a large generator located at Demco's headquarters on Wax road.  In the event of a power outage the High School will run entirely off of this generator.

Submitted by Bernice Nelson

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 11:30 a.m., Tanglewood Elementary School held a luncheon to recognize the teachers and staff for third grade being #1 in Louisiana on iLEAP in May, 2010. The Central Community Schools Superintendent, Mr. Faulk, was the speaker for the event.  Thank you to the teachers and staff who helped our students reach a very high standard.  Thank you also to the following Central businesses who donated to the luncheon and helped to make it possible:
 
Oak Point Fresh Market
Judy's Heavenly Hair & Skin
Sammy's Grill
Subway Sandwich Shop (Hooper Road)
Central Florist
Gayle's Hallmark Shop
Cross Threads
Rainee Rayburn, Beauty Control Spa, Skin Care, Body Care and Relaxation
Sen. Cliff Richardson
Chris' Specialty Meats

From the City of Central Facebook page

Reminder: Central Public Schools school zones start Wednesday, August 25th. The times are as follows:

Submitted by Tracy Barnes                                                         

AGENDA

SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

August 23, 2010

7:00 PM

Kristenwood Catering and Reception

14025 Greenwell Springs Road
Central, LA   

1. Call to Order
2. Prayer
3. Pledge
4. Roll Call
5. To consider approval of the minutes of the August 9, 2010 Regular School Board Meeting, the August 12, 2010 Special School Board Meeting and the August 17, 2010 Special School Board Meeting.
6. To consider the Superintendent’s recommendation for administrative,
   instructional, and support staff positions. (Mr. Faulk)
7. To receive a report and consider recommendations from the Finance Committee Meeting held on August 12, 2010. (Mr. Guilbeau)
8. To receive a report from the Academic Excellence Committee Meeting held on July 15, 2010. (Dr. Holmes)
9. To consider an amended dress code policy for shirts worn by the Middle and High School Students. (Mr. Williams)

   10.   To consider and take action relative to a Cooperative Endeavor
           Agreement with DEMCO for back-up power to Central High School. (Ms. Morris)

   11.   To consider the staff’s recommendation to award bids for instructional
           materials and supplies. (Mr. Faulk)

   12.   To consider and take action relative to change order #1 to the
           Renovation Project for Bellingrath Hills Elementary School. (Mr. Bogan)

   13.   Construction Coordinator’s Report

   14.   Superintendent’s Report

   15.   Legal Adviser’s Report

   16.   Announcements

   17.   Adjourn   

By Dave Freneaux

At a called meeting of the Central Community School Board on Tuesday the motion had been made and seconded to award the Middle and Intermediate School construction bid to The Lemoine Company.  The project, in excess of $30 million had initally been awarded to MAPP Construction, but The Lemoine Co. brought suit contending that MAPP's bid form was flawed.  The court ruled in Lemine's favor and the School Board meeting was called to award the project to Lemoine.  Just prior to the final vote an attorney spoke during public comment and pointed out that the bid of Arkel Henderson Joint Venture was actually the low bidder.  A flurry of activity ensued with attorneys, school system officials and bidders consulting and reviewing bid documents.
 
The issue is that every bid is expressed both in numerical form and in written words.  The Arkel numerical bid was $31,788,000 but the written words read "Thirty One Million Seven Hundred Eighty Eight Dollars", which is $787,212 lower than the numerical bid.  The law dictates that if the numerical bid conflicts with the written words, the written words are to be accepted as the bid.  This inconsistency was not caught during bid tabulation and had not been pointed out by anyone during the weeks of litigation over whether the bid would be awarded to MAPP or Lemoine.  With the discovery that Arkel's bid was actually the lowest responsive bid for the project, the School Board unanimously awarded the construction project to Arkel.
 
Discussions after the meeting yielded additional information.  Arkel's bid was presumed to be the higher numerical bid and the discrepancy between that and the written words was simply overlooked initially.  It appears that the lower price is not what Arkel intended to bid.  A general contractor in attendance speculated that Arkel probably had enoucgh profit margin in the bid to do the job at the lower price, but that they would not likely make much money on the job.  Bidders have 72 hours to withdraw their bid without penalty.  In this case, that 72 hours had passed, so for Arkel to withdraw at this point would cause them to forfeit their 5% bid bond, which would be a loss of over $1.5 million, twice the amount of the apparent error that was made.
 
In the final analysis, the oversight in not initially discovering the inconsistency in Arkel's bid delayed the award of the bid by 27 days and involved The School System and two contractors in a lawsuit.  The good news, for the School System at least, is that the total cost of the construction project has been reduced by roughly a half million dollars.  Ross Bogan, the School System's Construction Coordinator, was reached for comment and shared that he believes that school construction can still be completed on schedule and that Arkel has expressed a willingness try to accomodate Central's target dates.

Submitted by Tracy Barnes

TENTATIVE AGENDA

SPECIAL SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

August 17, 2010

6:00 PM

Kristenwood Catering and Reception

14025 Greenwell Springs Road
Central, LA   
 

1. Call to Order
2. Prayer
3. Pledge
4. Roll Call
5. Update of The Lemoine Co. v. Central Community School District Board, et al, Suit No. 592795 in the 19^th Judicial District Court concerning the bid accepted for the construction of Central Middle School and Central Intermediate School.
6. To consider the remaining bids and take action to award the contract for the construction for the New Intermediate & New Middle School Building Package. (Ms. Morris)
7. To consider the Superintendent’s recommendation for administrative, instructional, and support staff positions. (Mr. Faulk) 
8. To consider the staff’s recommendation relative to the awarding of milk bids. (Mr. Faulk)
9. To consider and take action relative to a change order on the Earthwork Package for soil/lime stabilization. (Mr. Bogan)

NOTE: The item #5 may be discussed in Executive Session pursuant to La. R.S. 44:6.1(A)(2).