Sisterhood focus and school culture was assigned to Risk/Audit Committee.   

Beth Blaufuss, acting chair to Risk/Audit Committee, provided an report on risk: weekly community circle, greet each other by name, staff spending time with 10 students for 10 days for a period of time, staff/student activity participation.  

There is now a better balance of school-wide culture building and responses to disciplinary situations.

Maureen Colburn congratulated Karen Venable-Croft and her team on this progress. 

Karen Venable-Croft provided an update on the audit.  The audit by Tiana Wynn was successful and financial statements were shared with Finance and Risk/Audit Committees for review.  No material findings.  Finance does a good job with oversight.  Recommendations will be addressed.  Audit will be finalized mid-December.  

Mary Pendleton provided a committee update. 

She provided information about moving to Quarter calendar, academic lever updates, and KPI Data Updates.  Also, she provided an overview on SY2122 PARCC performance-level data.  

Karen Venable-Croft explained that learning walks teacher to teacher and are admin.

Next update will fall in January.
 

Finance Committee report and revised budget were presented by Laura Bartos.  

The sustainable financial plan continues to explore long term solutions.

Karen Venable-Croft presented how funds were being used against the approved budget of June and information for the Board to vote on budget in November.  Ways to reduce our expenses are efforts that still persist.

GGA will meet with Calvary to discuss the rent schedule and enrollment trends and pursue foundation grants to increase revenue. 

No staff were laid off.  All efforts persist to continue to keep staff and not over-hire.

Recruitment Meeting update - workplan is still in development on team member responsibilities.  Julie and Shayne Swift do heavy lifting with recruitment and re-enrollment.  The renovated school is being shown to potential students/families. 

Enrollment audit took a lot of effort.  In the future, paperwork prep, completion and storage will be done in a manner to facilitate enrollment audit completion. 

Ambassador group has spoken to students and parents on why GGA is a great school to attend.  More students are able to speak about the school in light having attended the school as a founding student.  Because of the number of touches to convert an application to an admitted student, Julie has done the best she could to convert.  Julie has presented to middle feeder schools.  Last year, due to COVID, we weren't able to present in schools. 

January will have another community engagement event to invite students to learn about GGA.  

"People chose schools based on people they know." - Beth Blaufuss

Staffing - moving daily towards 100% staffed

Bellweather - 4 cohort convenings will be scheduled to receive support.   Currently, strategic priorities and initiatives are the focus with a 3-year time horizon for goal-implementation with feedback from families and students. 

Commitment to re-enrollment - time is now to include Committee feedback to grow student base

Audit/Risk report - Since more students are participating in more activities, sisterhood is growing because meaningful paths for students to be with each other exist.

Community Engagement - Shayne is working hard to bring community into GGA.  Student Ambassadors and families' voices matter.  When their voices are heard, recruitment and reenrollment process is strengthened. 

In summary, GGA is now a school that was envisioned to be.

Board work will grow over the next 2 months.

Deep dives will be scheduled in December and January.

By next Wednesday, Board members are requested to suggest additional Board Member nominations with glows/grows input. 

Onboarding with Board on Track for new members, Calvena and Adria, will get scheduled in December.  All Board members are welcome to attend.