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Voices for International Business and Education

Minutes

VIBE Board Meeting

Monthly Board Meeting

Date and Time

Wednesday March 17, 2021 at 6:00 PM

Location

International High School of New Orleans
Community Room
727 Carondelet Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
Voices for International Business and Education http://public.boardontrack.com/VIBE_1

Directors Present

A. Tufail (remote), G. Lazard (remote), G. Medford (remote), J. Lampton (remote), K. Dwyer (remote), L. Scott Porter (remote), M. Roney (remote), P. Manson (remote), Q. Le (remote), S. Thomas (remote)

Directors Absent

S. Olivier

Ex Officio Members Present

S. Wilson (remote)

Non Voting Members Present

S. Wilson (remote)

Guests Present

A. Berger (remote), D. Deno (remote), J. Carreno (remote), K. Vo (remote), P. Recasner (remote), S. Schulkens (remote), T. Huynh (remote)

I. Opening Items

A.

Record Attendance and Guests

B.

Call the Meeting to Order

S. Thomas called a meeting of the board of directors of Voices for International Business and Education to order on Wednesday Mar 17, 2021 at 6:08 PM.

C.

Approve Minutes - feb 2021 VIBE Board Meeting

K. Dwyer made a motion to approve the minutes from VIBE Board Meeting on 02-24-21.
G. Medford seconded the motion.
  • There are no comments on the minutes. 
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.

D.

Chair Report

  • The chair report today - will be to board members. The report was sent out to IHSNO emails from the Chairwoman. 
  • The report consisted of information about the GALA. 
  • These were attachments within the emails that were sent out during the afternoon or 3/17/2021. 
  • There will be more discussion during the development section of today's meeting. 

E.

Head of School Report

  • S. Wilson gave his report of the Head of School Report for the month of March.
  • The Head of School report consisted of dates of importance and important items that will be taking place soon
  • Orleans Parish is currently in Phase 3 as it pertains to COVID-19.
  • IHSNO will begin to transition students who are on the Hybrid schedule to be in person. This will take place 4 times a week with Wednesday being virtual. 
  • Different testing will be taking place. Interim assessments will be this week. ACT makeup will happen next week. 
  • There will be a Spring Open House which will be by invitation only.
  • The Spring Open House will be advertised in multiple avenues.  
  • Virtual learning has been going great at IHSNO.
  • Student and family engagement are important to IHSNO. 
  • March - This month is the month of communicators in the IB learning profile. This is something that IHSNO really works hard at.
  • Senior graduation was talked about. If the senior has a composite score of more than 17 and also a silver lining on their work examined, they will be able to graduate on time. 
  • There are more ways that a senior can graduate on time. 
  • Department of Education has put out the requirements of how a student can graduate on time. 
  • IHSNO is looking at a 4-day return and 1- day in a virtual setting for students. The one virtual day would remain as Wednesday. IHSNO students learn better in person. 
  • The IHSNO Strong Start was talked about. 
  • Next week, IHSNO is having a STEM fair next week. This will contain Science and Math Departments collaborating on this. 
  • Social workers and school counselors have been working closely with IHSNO students. 
  • On Tuesdays, social workers have Tuesday Talks for student engagement. These are just open-ended talks together that are important to students. 
  • Seniors have nearly 6 million dollars in scholarships that have been awarded to IHSNO students.
  • The culture department has been working hard towards Capturing Kids Hearts and Positive Behaviors Interventional Support for students. 
  • Additional funds will be awarded soon. The utilization of funds will put into a report. 
  • The HVAC system has been installed. The basement project is almost completed. 
  • The development will be discussed in the Development Compartment of today's meetings.
  • The IT department has been working hard at keeping the internet connection strong for IHSNO. They are also looking at ways to fund the computer lab. 
  • The E-Rate funds will be available later. This helps the connectivity in schools. 
  • The 3-Year IT Plan was reviewed twice during Academics Meetings.
  • There are upgrades needed for IHSNO. The IT department is looking at ways to fund the Chromebooks laptop upgrade. 
  • Grant Writing was discussed.

II. Development Committee

A.

Report of Development Committee

  • S. Thomas spoke about details of the Development Committee meeting for March. .
  • The GALA is on April 17, 2021. It will be a virtual event. 
  • Once the ticket for the GALA is purchased, the individual will be provided a link in order to participate by logging in.
  • The committee briefly talked about grants. There was not any new information since the last meeting. 
  • There were emails sent out to Board Members at their IHSNO emails. These emails had 3 attachments. All Board Members were asked to read these documents for important information.
  • The GALA committee was off to a great start. 
  • Dookie Chase will be the catering company that is used to cater the food for the GALA. 
  • The honorary chairpersons are Ms. Carol and Mr. Percy.
  • There will be volunteers that are needed for the delivery of food. 
  • There will also be volunteers needed to make phone calls to people. 
  • All Board Members will be expected to sell at least 10 tickets to the GALA and a minimum of 25 raffle tickets. 
  • There was a link that was shared with each Board Member.
  • There is about $4000 worth of auction items currently. People are encouraged to donate items for the GALA. 
  • In the future people will receive correspondents about volunteering for the GALA. This is highly encouraged so that the GALA can have great success. This will really benefit the IHSNO language departments. 
  • The corporate donation goal has already been exceeded. 
  • The Honored Guest will be retired Saints Quarterback Drew Brees. He will have a message for IHSNO Gala attendees. 

III. Governance Committee

A.

Report of Governance Committee

  • The governance committee met on March 2, 2021,
  • There was a discussion about the LAPCS Board Bank.
  • The PTO meeting took place on 3/16/2021. 
  • Gail Medford attended the PTO meeting on March 16, 2021, and it will be discussed during April's Governance Committee meeting. 
  • Title IX was also discussed during the committee meeting. 
  • The committee will be recommending the approval for the Title IX policy to the main board meeting in April.
  • There were also beginning discussions about the drug and alcohol policy during this meeting. There will be more discussions about this policy. 
  • The next committee meeting will take place on April 1, 2021, at 6:30 p.m.
  • The next governance meeting will contain more information about potential board member interests. 
  • Board members are encouraged to send Jennifer Lampton any board member referrals. 

IV. Academic Committee

A.

Report of Academics Committee

  • There were actually 2 Academics Committee meetings that took place. 
  • There were the normal one and a special one that was put in place. There was on Feb 27, 2021, and the normal one that took place on March 9, 2021. 
  • During the one on 2/27/2021, the special one, there were discussions about the various curriculum and culture programs that are already taking place at IHSNO.
  • The focus of the special meeting was to discuss what we can do to improve academics and culture at IHSNO. 
  • There were discussions about the IB learning program, the language program, and different testing and their scores. 
  • The IHSNO culture was also discussed and some of it included: Capturing Kids Hearts, PBIS, parental involvement, and the overall physical environment of the school. 
  • The committee talked about the things that the board, staff, faculty, and the school can do to improve IHSNO. 
  • There was a lengthy discussion between 3 board members and there were recommendations that came up.
  • The committee board members are very concerned with the academics at IHSNO. 
  • The Academics Committee board members are all in agreement that they would like to see overall student performance scores go from a C school to a B school. 
  • There were lengthy discussions about the IHSNO score and what IHSNO needs to do to improve this. 
  • Committee members realize that the IHSNO staff do work really hard however, the overall academics still need improvement and are not reflected in the academic achievement. 
  • The ACT scores that were on the academic dashboard are a concern to the committee. The scores are upsetting. This is just one example.  
  • There may be a disconnect somewhere between what IHSNO is doing in the classrooms and what is reflected in the data that was received in the dashboard. 
  • The academics committee would like to find out what is happening in the classroom and what the committee is seeing the data presented. 
  • During the 3/9/2021 meeting, the committee did a deep dive into the Mock ACT and progress reports for students. 
  • The culture department gave an update during the 3/9/2021 meeting. 
  • The Head of School report was also discussed during the 3/9/2021 meeting given by Tammy, Adierah, and Jenny as it pertains to the COVID-19 updates. 
  • The Main Board echoes the same concern and is disappointed about the scores. 
  • The Board will begin the see what they can do to make sure that the concerns are addressed and help the students. 
  • Some of websites that potential students look at while choosing a high school in US News Reporting of High Schools and also the Niche Reporting of High Schools. IHSNO is below a C and it can potentially harm the chances of recruiting the kinds of students that IHSNO would like to recruit as students. 
  • At least 50% of students are classified as ELL students. This may impact the curriculum and the English ACT scores. This may be a factor when looking at the scores. 
  • The ELL program will be discussed in the future. 

V. Facility Committee

A.

Report of Facilities Committee

  • The Facilities Committee took place on March 2, 2021. 
  • The meeting always begins with the reciting of the goals of this committee.
  • There was a discussion about the long-term lease and the academic goals.
  • Some committee members met with OPSB on March 9, 2021. 
  • There was a site evaluation that took place. The goal of the evaluation is to discuss the critical needs of IHSNO and the funds that were dispersed for those critical needs. 
  • There was some discussion about long-term needs and the cost estimates were finalized by the district. 
  • There was some discussion about the possibility that has not been defined yet of leveraging those district funds that will be dispersed for capital usage. 
  • At some point, there may an AD-HOC committee that will need to be put together in the future. This would be the Finance Committee combined with the Facilities Committee to discuss the needs of the future pertaining to the building.
  • The committee also discussed how old the building is and there may a linkage between how well the students can improve their academics if they had a more updated building to go to. OPSB will only provide the IHSNO building with some funding which will only cover some improvements but not all the improvements that IHSNO really needs.
  • There is a critical need and that is a discussion about what IHSNO will decide what to do because the lease is up for signing soon. 
  • The disbursement to IHSNO for improvements may be relatively modest. The Board will need to have more discussions about improvements of the IHSNO environment for students. 
  • The discussions will need to take place across the board with all committees coming together to discuss the needs of IHSNO. 
  • The committee would like to have a discussion about generating funding to improve IHSNO. 
  • For the most part, COVID-19 projects are completed. 
  • The basement project is almost completed. 
  • There is a camera that will need to be placed in the isolation room where students are placed while they await someone to come pick them up if they are sick when they are in school. 

VI. Finance Committee

A.

Report of Finance Committee

  • The finance meeting will be meeting on March 22, 2021. They did not meet during their normal scheduled time. 
  • The committee does not have a report on their meeting today at this time. 

VII. Public Comment

A.

Request for Public Comment

  • There was no public comment. 
  • The next Main Board Meeting will take place on April 21st at 6:00 p.m.

 

 

VIII. Closing Items

A.

Adjourn Meeting

There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 7:15 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
S. Thomas
Documents used during the meeting
  • SY'20-2021-WR-2021-0308.pdf
  • Jazz Around the World Save the Date 2021 (1).jpg
  • IHSNO 2021 GALA sponsor levels.pdf
  • 2021 Gala SponsorRegistration.pdf
  • Grant Pipeline- March 2021.pdf
  • Academic_CMTE_Dashboard-2021-0131 (2).pdf