PTCA seeing better communication in classrooms this year. 
November meeting has some new faces for the strategic planning meeting. 
PTCA has named the Run with the Wolves Winner's Circle after Matt Underwood in honor of his service to ANCS.
Next round of PTCA mini grants will be in January. 
GPNA is granting $500 to ANCS PTCA tonight. 
Next meeting is 1/8/19 - focus will be on security.
Amazon gift cards being purchased for faculty and staff and will be distributed at end of week. 
Board report is attached in packet. 

Lara Zelski out sick. 
Cathy Goodgame - Middle campus report. Teacher/staff spelling bee tomorrow morning to help kids get excited for spelling bee in January. Will have free time pre-holiday event tomorrow afternoon. Basketball team is off to a great start. Friday afternoons at 5 or 6:15 at Crim. 
Nicole King - EC 4th grade will be doing NAEP assessment in February. Teachers are working on progress reports, which will go home on Jan 7. EC raised $820 for CCYA, a shelter for homeless youth and young adults in Marietta. 

Kari Lovell provided an overview of the most recent audit. Happy with new audit firm. Audit highlights are included in the board packet. Alicia Howe from auditing firm presented highlights. Two deliverables - (1) financial statement audit and audit opinion which is clean and (2) a uniform guidance audit for federal funding which is also clean. 

Meeghan Fortson presented the proposed slate for the nominations subcommittee, which is included in the board packet. Subcommittee will work from Jan to April to select new board members for 2019-2020 year. 

Matt Underwood and Cathy Goodgame presented the leaderships team's recommended calendar, which is included in the board packet. 

Matt Underwood:
Context: ANCS has historically followed APS calendar. For past three years, ANCS has had a more balanced calendar for students with breaks spread throughout the school year. This year APS went back to a delayed August start and fewer breaks in the school year. Recognizing that we have historically followed APS and that we have liked the calendar of the last three years, surveyed teachers/staff/families. 

Survey trends: (1) families and teachers and staff generally want to follow APS; (2) teachers and staff have appreciated the breaks for students (and themselves) between Labor Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Spring Break; (3) the extended breaks pose a challenge with child care; and (4) it is hard to run camps during the extended breaks because the staff is small and those breaks are a good time to do building maintenance. 

Cathy Goodgame:
There are fatigue points during the school year in October and February, which is why breaks were inserted into the "balanced calendar" where they were. 

Leadership teams (3 different groups - EC, MC and overall leadership) decided to make APS's long weekends a little bit longer. Added 1 day to October and February long weekends. Decided to start 2 days earlier than APS to avoid a Monday start for the first week. Assumption was that some kids will miss days no matter what the calendar looks like. 

Summary: Start 8/8/19 (2 days earlier than APS), add 1 extra day for Columbus Day and President's Day weekend. 

Laura Melton presented an update on the strategic plan. Posters up at both campuses with goals and objectives and survey is circulating. A summary is included in the board packet. Committee might take a quick breather in January as the search for a new ED gets underway. Had planned to bring plan to the January meeting but PTCA wants to see the updated version with more detailed indicators and metrics. Getting that feedback will push the timeline out a bit. Goal is to have a finalized plan to present at the March board meeting so any budget implications can be considered prior to the approval of the next budget. It will be important for the Acting ED to be represented on the committee. Matt Underwood will continue to serve in an advisory capacity. 

Joyce Gist-Lewis talked about whether a new ED would need to have input on the plan prior to the plan being approved. Laura Melton said that her preference is to move ahead and allow the new ED to consult with the board as needed. 

Hanah Goldberg noted that some of the search partners for the new ED that it would be helpful to allow the new hire to participate in the strategic planning process. 

Melton expressed again that she is concerned about losing momentum if they hit pause.  

Meeghan Fortson asked when and how the feedback on the plan would be shared with the board. 

1. Review policies
2. Look back on what happened and how; learn from mistakes; document what happened
3. Communications

Joyce Gist Lewis - Reflection task force hired consultants who are interviewing key faculty, staff and leadership to understand how the situation occurred and to have an objective documented understanding of what happened. Fact gathering stage has wrapped up. They will do a preliminary call to report to the task force committee this week and a written report in early 2019.

Kristin Frenzel - Policy review - about 80% of the work has been done. Largest subgroup is student and family academic policies. As a board will need to look at some policies and where we need to go. Frenzel proposed taking some time at board retreat to determine whether policy changes are needed on the suggestions. Consider how to keep the community looking at policies and keeping them fresh.

Sabrina - Communications. First phase was to conduct a current state analysis and a review of the communications around the pledge analysis. Consultant has provided a report which has not yet been approved. Next phase of work is the development of a communications plan for the school. Consultant is working on an updated scope of work to ensure that the deliverable has the information the committee wants. Second phase will kick off in January.

Elizabeth Hearn presented on CREATE program. Her presentation is included in the board packet.

Fall 2018 - working on strategic plan with consultants from National Center for Teacher Residencies. Have a new logo, new vision, new mission. See inequities of all kinds and especially race-based inequities in Atlanta. Facing these inequities is central to the mission and vision. Presented video focused on work on training on cultural competency and XXXX

2 week long institutes in summer 2018 and will do 2 additional weeks in 2019. Encourage board members to come. Building capacity to lead the institutes ourselves.

Matt Underwood presented a summary for the CCRPI which is included in the board packet. 

CCRPI score at EC was higher than district and within expected performance range. Data is based predominantly on GA Milestones testing. Matt went through data to provide some context. Eric Teusink pointed out that ANCS is not "teaching to the test" due to the constructivist curriculum whereas some of our peer schools are doing teaching/testing more directly aligned to the Milestones test. 

Schools with smaller testing groups (e.g., ANCS) can easily swing results because it only takes a few students to change a trend. Issue area is closing achievement gaps. While ANCS doesn't want to overly focus on teaching to the test, but the closing gaps issue is an area of concern. Dr. Goodgame and Mrs. Zelski have been digging into it. 

At MC: Social studies and science - have made a lot of progress on content mastery. Kids are reading well; reading is a strength. Attendence is fine. Progress number was exceptionally low. No correllation to any data in the school. Pulled the high growth kids and asked teachers to characterize them to figure out how to improve performance. Not exactly sure what the number reflects but they are working on it. Each kid is placed in a band of "like students" and then get compared year to year for high growth, moderate growth or low growth. The growth measure doesn't seem to be correlated to any subtype or group of students. Biggest issue is the closing the gaps measure. This issue is reflected in classroom data too. Faculty is attacking it. Goodgame was surprised by the closing the gaps data. She expected to meet the target. The data swing a lot because 1/3 of school changes out each year. 

Feedback survey report from Matt Underwood, summary is provided in the board packet. Board discussion around how the data in the survey are influencing leadership decisions. 
 

Dashboard is included in the board packet. 

Working with Jared Apperson on a data visualization tool.

Laura Melton provided an update on the Business and Operations Committee which is included in the board packet. The school is in a good place financially. 

Jordache provided an update on the new roof. APS has committed to funding and will hire a contractor. Looking at options for mechanical systems on the roof: replace entirely, new HVAC system, or phased replacement. Will have updated bids at January meeting. Discussion around options and costs and timing. 

Subcommittees have already reported. 

Eric Teusink - 2 meetings since last boar dmeeting. Committee has done more in depth dive on CCRPI and MAP data. Looking for other ways to measure success at ANCS aside from test scores.