Housekeeping done. 

Sign-in sheet passed around

Recap of prior year successes - Small Center Grant, Hanging Garden, Induction of new board members, Strategic Plan revision.

Exercise: What is your "WHY" for being on this board?

• Each member shared their reason.

ST gave an overview of the Board onboarding and orientation.

1. Member must attend all meetings and should they miss four meetings may be considered for removal from the board.
2. Member giving - each board member is expected to give to ensure the Board meets the 100% contribution mark annually.
3. Ethics training is mandated as a member of public board members. IHSNO is a public board. 
4. Financial Disclosure is annually mandated. 

Charter Schools & Board Governance 101 - Sarah Vandergriff

Support, Promote, and Advocate:
Charter Schools: A Brief History

• Choice - traditional zip code restrictions do not apply: parents select the schools that best meet their child's needs.
• Flexibility - free to make a timely decision on issues specific to their school, such as developing curricula, day to day operations
• Accountability- in exchange for autonomy, charters are held to high stakes testing and school performance

Charter Primary Resources: Law RS 17:3971, Bulletin 126, Charter Agreement

Common Terms:

• Charter Type,
• Charter Management Organizations (CMO) - non-profit
• Education Management Organization (EMO) - for-profit

The Charter Board is ultimately held responsible for the academic, financial, and legal performance of the school

• Duty of Care - exercising sound, legal and ethical board best practices
• Duty of Loyalty - giving undivided allegiance when making a decision 
• Duty of Obedience - acting in furtherance of the law

Governance v Executive Leadership

• Charter Board
  • long-term oversight
  • evaluation of the school leaders
  • develops and approve the budget
  • strategic planning 
  • school ambassadors
  • fundraising

Public Law Compliance - Code of Governmental Ethics LRS 42:1101; Open Meetings Law RS 42.11; Local Government Budget RS 39:1301; Public Records Act RS 44:1; Public Bid RS 38:2211 with $150,000

Open Meetings Law RS 42.11

• Quorum - simple majority (in person, board, committee, retreats)
• Voting - must have a quorum (in person, live, cast aloud); Agenda item, public comment
• Notice - Annual & 24 hours, reasonable specificity; Website + (principal office or location or newspaper); Media Requests; Unanimous approval for agenda changes
• Executive Sessions - Discussion only, no action; limited reasons - character, prof. competence, or physical /mental health, collective bargaining/litigation, security, misconduct investigations, extraordinary emergencies (natural disasters), students

Laws:

• Act 646 W Bishop
• Act 154 - Financial literacy for k-12
• Act 300 - Shaken Baby Syndrome
• Act 671 - Physics is a part of TOPS
• Act - Seal of Biliteracy
• Act 134 - Safe Haven Laws
• Act 241 - Student Privacy
• Act 688 - Literacy Screening
• Act 2017 - Mandatory reporting
• Act 411 - Dyslexia
• Act 673 - School prayer
• Act 369 - pornography
• Act 547 - Parents Bill of Rights Update
  • inspect student records within 10-days
  • school's calendar posted within 30-days of the school year
  • school fees information
  • school uniform
  • student grade promotion info
• Act 649 - Foster Care continues through 21 age if a student enrolled in school
• Act 694 - develop a policy that authorizes schools to maintain a supply of naloxone or other opioid antagonists
• Act 168 - 
• Act 716 - suspected threats and mandatory reporting of risks, investigating threats

EXERCISE: What's the News Headline in 5-years about IHSNO?

BOARD v GOVERNANCE
Board Impact: Dysfunction - Functional - Responsible - Exceptional 

The Idea Behind Charter Schools

Why do we have a Board of Directors?

• Public Stewardship - the board is responsible for the academic, financial and legal/operational performance of the school
  • making sure management is doing what it is supposed to be doing
  • Board acts a collective unit, deliberate and discusses, then, act; When the board adopts a policy or resolution, all board members obligated to be on the same page. 
• Oversight and Direction - the board is responsible for the ensuring direction and future plan of the school
  • Shape the mission and strategic direction
  • ensuring leadership resources
  • Monitor and improve performance
• Management Support

Board and Leader - Interdependency: the reciprocal relationship between the school leader and the board as neither independent or dependent, but rather an interdependent leadership partnership that is grounded in deep trust and mutual accountability.

Reviewed the outcome of the survey.

Key successes:

• Board member interactions and 
• student interactions
• address key items and discussions around key areas

Improvement

• Packet readiness for meetings
• Head of School report and board report length before the meeting and more focus on academic reports
• Head of School communications and relationship

MR presented a model for board calendar with some items prepopulated

A discussion was held around responsibilities for creation of committee meeting agendas, sharing of committee meeting minutes, Board packet materials, and timliness. It was agreed that beginning with the September meeting, packets will not be printed by the School for Board members.  Expectation is that Board members will review packets prior to meetings and bring their own packet, whether paper or electronic.  Due to time constraints, further discussion of BOT expectations were deferred to August Board meeting.

Step #2 Agree on Key Organizational Priorities
Most important things that need to get done this year
What of these key organizational priorities belongs to the board?
What belongs to the CEO - is management level work?

BOARD PROPOSED GOALS

1. Increase School Performance Score (Academics)
2. Long-term Lease (Facilities)
3. Building Renovations (Facilities)
4. HoS monitoring and evaluation  (Executive Committee)
5. Board work/focus evaluation (Board)
6. Amend Charter with IB Language (Academics)
7. Fundraising (Development)
8. Review Charter for Possible/necessary revision (Governance)
9. Expansion - a priority for research and discussion only (BOARD)

TAKEAWAYS:

1. Understanding and engaging around new laws
2. Board members prepared for meetings by reviewing meetings and packets in Board on Track
3. COmmittees need to base their goals based on the Priorities for the '18-2019