If anyone has problems reading minutes, they are to contact Lynette Lopez

• We didn't have a student for this meeting as Z. Johnson, a senior had to babysit for her sibling and couldn't make it to the meeting. 
• We want to make sure we have a student for future meetings. 

• All committees are developing their goals in alignment to the Strategic Plan
• Committees will develop their own plan on how to achieve such goals. 
• Reports to the board should be submitted no later than 5 days prior to the monthly board meeting. 
• Since we have meeting minutes, we will take those as a report. The minutes will be shared that night with the committee chair for revision and once edited, minutes will be shared will be shared with all board members. 
• The idea is to collaborate in developing the goals and achieve the pillars. 
• CA asked for each committee to submit any suggestions for modifications by Nov. 15 for the board to review and discuss so by January 2018 the board can decide on any modifications to the strategic plan that may be needed in order to move forward. 
• FC looked at the articles of incorporation and Bylaws and found that they need to be addressed. 
• CA stated that governance is currently swamped with action items, they will look at the bylaws in the near future. 
• There will be an Executive Committee that will review and follow up on the pillar for exceptional staff. 

CA shared the board evaluation instrument and the responses collected. CA made some observations on the information marked on the document. 
Positive: 
Need more work: 

1. More timely circulation of documents for review prior to the meeting
2. Discussions could be more efficient and focused 
3. More effective use of Board on Track, especially given the cost of the software
4. The chair could be more knowledgeable of legal procedures  

BOT training. A Cheat-sheet was shared with the board members to be able to access BOT and schedule their committee meetings. Should they have any trouble doing so, they are to contact LL. 

Mileage. CA stated the OPSB millage renewal is on the ballot on Oct 14th. Election day. This is a continuation of a millage that has been in place a number of years and is dedicated, by law, to schools. Failure to renew the millage will affect schools to the tune of $850/student. 

• We had a spot on TV highlighting a grant that we got from Best Buy to support Operation Sparks project that our students are participating in. This program is about coding. 
• The administration has created standing committees to increase engagement of employees decision-making. Participation in the committees is not mandatory but strongly suggested. 
• The same way that the board is working on making sure they follow the strategic plan, the staff is internally working on aligning the school improvement plan for each department to the overarching strategic goals. 
• AT asked about a trend of students in honor classes, AB explained that we are pretty steady on that trend. 
• CA highlighted that it is remarkable that food services offer free lunches for all students. 

• CA introduced Mr. Batiste as a potential board member. His experience in education makes him a great potential board member.
• He is interested in becoming part of the board eager to see how can he support the organization to grow and move forward. He wants to be part of something that is going well for the city.

 

• Fr. Carter believes that the academic committee's goals are pretty solid. 
• The committee will meet on the second Tuesday of every month at 6:00 pm 
• The committee will tackle goal 1 addressing language proficiency. An action plan will be discussed and established in the up coming meetings. 
• During next meeting, the committee will decide how to go about the following goals. 
• The committee will review the school's manuals in November

• The committee didn't meet this month
• They will resume activities in October once BS's trial is over

• The committee met and had a productive meeting and it was determined to move with the three following items: 
  1. Get historical info about the property
  2. Research leases and board policy on leases. We will ask JC of Adams and Reese to see how much would it cost us to get it done through her. 
  3. Contact abstractors to find out how much it would cost us to get that work done. 
• Once we have a draft for the policy and the building's lease, we would take it to Mr. Woody Koppell, a school board member to pitch it and get it approved by the board. 
• We want to know what our building is worth in order to be able to negotiate renovation or any other action.  
• We are looking for a 100-year lease in order to be able to renovate the building into a state of the art facility. 
• The committee also requested that SW draft a "game plan" to move in this direction. 

• We didn't' find anything that causes concern out of the ordinary in the financials. Everything looks healthy.  
• There was a typo regarding students number 
• Our student count on Jcampus on 8/31 was 613 but was not accurate due to the beginning of the school year rosters being under update. The accurate number is 560. 
• Withney Hancock approved an extension of the line of credit without locking us in the financial institution.  

Strategic Plan Update

• Financial information is not available any time prior to the Friday prior to the board meeting. 
• Finance minutes will be shared with all board members on the morning of the board meeting. 

1. Exceptional Staff Pillar - The Finance COmmittee has the responsibility of making sure that there is enough funding for continuing education - Professional Training. Expenses on professional development will be tracked in order to find a correlation between student performance and dollars spent on professional development. Part of this pillar is also that board members are aware of their fiduciary responsibility. 

• All board members are invited to attend Finance committee meetings 

2. Organizational Sustainability - We have received some good information from LAPCS guiding our practices. The administration has been tasked to find what are the specific numbers that will keep IHSNO in good financial status. DD has been really good in providing important information through her reporting and financials. 
3. By April 2018 staff will have a recommendation for the benefits package for employees. The standing committees on campus will work on that plan. 
4. KPIs will be tracked on BOT 

The committee didn't' meet this past month, but will be meeting on 9/27 at 6:00 pm. 
The committee will work on some policies to be reviewed and revised as well as some potential board candidates coming through the pipeline. 

• Dr. Thomas introduced a potential board member, Mr. Drew.