School board
awards bids
for upgrades
LAKEWOOD — From the classrooms to the parking lots, the Lakewood school district will be undertaking various school projects by awarding contracts funded by the 2003-04 school year budget.
The Board of Education at a recent meeting awarded a $201,125 contract to ProMedia of Clifton for computer network upgrades that include hardware and installation for all schools in the district.
With additional computer users and the call for more bandwidth to support ever-changing applications, Wendy Devine-Stollar, who is the sales representative for the district, said during a telephone interview that the district’s current network will not support newer applications that will be used. She explained the added protection benefits the district will be receiving from an up-to-date network.
"They are going to manage all the securities from one central location which is virus protection, desktop security, email filtering and firewall so attacks from outside can not come into the district and also filtering of the Internet, or obviously pornography," she said.
Students and administrators are expected to benefit from the upgrades. There will be a separation between the administration networks and the student network.
In addition, Devine-Stollar said the network may have other future purposes in addition to email and other file services. This network will support bandwidth-intense applications like video conferencing and video distribution systems, which enable users to pull open a video file from any location in the network on a specific material or subject matter.
The board also awarded other contracts:
• JADS Construction of South River received a $25,967 contract for sidewalk and concrete projects at various district locations. Other bidders were: Diamond Construction, Dunellen, $33,824; and Cretan Concrete, Highland Park, $32,471.
• A contract for bathroom partition replacement projects at various district locations was awarded to RABCO Equipment of Farmingdale. The firm’s bid was $39,976. The only other bid was from Benco Inc. of West Caldwell in the amount of $42,304.
• For an Oak Street School parking lot expansion-paving project, Earle Asphalt Co. of Farmingdale came in with the lowest and winning bid of $45,427. Other bidders were: Penaloza/Calderone Asphalt Co., Somerset, $49,732; E&L Paving Co., Long Branch, $49,000; C.J. Hesse Inc., Belford, $59,616; Glenside Equipment Co., Farmingdale, $88,800; and Precise Construction, Freehold, $48,300.
• Using the district architect’s recommendations, the board awarded a contract for the middle school exterior lighting replacement project to the lowest bidder; Oscar’s Electric Services Inc. of Lakewood in the amount of $19,350. Lake Electric Inc. of Toms River bid $24,863 and was the only other bidder.