Paramount Schools of Excellence
Minutes
August Meeting
Date and Time
Tuesday August 14, 2018 at 5:30 PM
Location
3020 Nowland Avenue Room 13, Indianapolis, IN
Directors Present
B. Eldridge (remote), C. Park, J. Amu, J. Hazzard, Jr., M. Bishop, P. Blackard
Directors Absent
A. Bekele, T. Rude
Ex Officio Members Present
T. Reddicks
Non Voting Members Present
T. Reddicks
Guests Present
Adam Freeman, B. Richardson, Chris Larson, Daris Sawyers, H. Okerson, J. Monk, Jourdin Dixon, Kyle Beauchamp, Mary Laflin, Monica Hingst - Mayor's Office, P. Purvis, Precious Jones, Sarah Shaffer, Satchuel Cole - public, Scott Frye
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance and Guests
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
J. Hazzard, Jr. called a meeting of the board of directors of Paramount Schools of Excellence to order on Tuesday Aug 14, 2018 at 5:35 PM.
II. Public Comments
A.
Public Comments
No public comments at this time.
III. Consent Agenda Review and Approval
A.
Review and approval of minutes
M. Bishop made a motion to approve minutes from the July Board Meeting on 07-10-18 July Board Meeting on 07-10-18.
C. Park seconded the motion.
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
B.
Voucher approval
Mr. Hazzard recuses himself for the vote.
P. Blackard made a motion to approve vouchers.
C. Park seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
IV. Finance
A.
Financial report
This is the first meeting to report combined financials for both schools, Brookside and Community Heights.
Peggy Blackard would prefer to have schools financials separated on the report.
Peggy Blackard would prefer to have schools financials separated on the report.
V. Operations Report
A.
Operations Report
Tommy Reddicks
- Current grants update.
- Completion many summer tasks.
- Opening of Community Heights school.
- Darius Sawyers to be principal of 3rd charter school.
- Maintaining talks regarding health data.
- Working with Mays Community Academy, in Mays Indiana, on 21st Century Grant. Their Principal is a former PSOE Brookside employee, Shannon New.
- A meeting is scheduled, at the end of the month, with the Lutherwood board of directors to discuss property acquisition.
- Summer STEAM program funded from Lilly and McCoy. Their evaluators toured the farm.
- Attending the Independent Sectors Pathway conference for policy makers and funders.
- Distributed TURN information to all board members. Would like board members to purchase 2 tickets and invite someone to purchase 2 other tickets.
- Like, share, and retweet on social media for TURN.
- Good media coverage at the Community Heights Ribbon Cutting ceremony and the induction of Police Chief Jones.
- Butler students volunteered on the farm. Chance to talk to the students about internships with PSOE.
- Still in the process of on-boarding new hires. Many visits at the schools to help with employees paperwork.
- Went live with the new HRIS program on August 1st.
- First live payroll will be the 8/31/2018 payroll.
- Established connection with Guardian provider which is now linked to Centrix.
- To help manage our 403b contributions a 403b audit has been submitted.
- Unemployment audit has been submitted with no problems.
- Will be hiring a new assistant for the network office.
- Will be taking a maternity leave in late winter.
- Second checking account is active for Community Heights.
- Wrapping up all payments for summer projects.
- Fully expensed our state and federal grants for SY 2017-2018.
- Auditors will return the end of August for the financial portion of the audit. Audit will be presented to the Board in November.
- Received 1st round of basic grant monies based on enrollment count for SY 2018-2019.
- A school nurse has been hired for Community Heights.
- Summer projects such as the retaining wall and discovery center will be completed soon.
- Both schools have been granted free lunch and breakfast for the next 5 years.
- Expected completion of the playground fencing for Community Heights by the end of September.
- Continued meeting and communicating with IMPD, Sheriff's Department, and the FBI.
- Paramount Police Department now has an identifier, Paramount PD.
- Indiana Law Enforcement Academy will monitor all training records for Paramount PD and will advise if additional training is required.
- State police has approved dependent application
- Working with the communications vendor for IMPD to get on their radio frequency. This request will be reviewed in September for approval.
- New police vehicle along with bicycle to be out in the community.
- Invited to Butler to speak.
- Current enrollment is approximately 775.
- Only had to replace 3 teaching positions for SY 2018-2019.
- Approximately 400 people attended the back to school barbeque/National Night Out.
- Six students were retested for ISTEP resulting in an 87% overall pass rate.
- Summer STEAM projects are 90% complete.
- Minimum behavior issues with the summer STEAM program. One student was released due to attendance issues.
- Will be working directly with K-4 curriculum.
- Coordination with classroom teachers to make sure they have more access to the farm
- FarmShare was a successful program with good feed-back from the participants. Hope to expand the program to more participants next year.
- Farmer's market each Wednesday afternoon. Open to the public.
- Thank you to all who have helped with getting Community Heights up and running.
- Biggest compliment received was from the Rooney foundation who stated Community Heights feels like Paramount.
- Introduced Jordan Dixon as the school's guidance counselor.
- On track for oopeing a 3rd school
- Weekly checking in with Mind Trust along with six other fellows.
- Learning what it means to be a school in Indianapolis and visiting other schools in Indianapolis such as Crispus Attucks High School.
- Will be going to South Africa to visit schools.
- Professional development will include touring schools in New York city.
- Time will be divided between Brookside, Mind Trust and Network office.
- Moved to Brookside to assist in beginning of the school enrollment and registration. Will continue at Brookside through September.
- Working with both schools in training and setting up PowerSchool.
- Training new registrar, Conner Schultheis, at Brookside.
VI. Closing Items
A.
Next Board Meeting
The next meeting will be Tuesday, September 11, 2018 @ 5:30pm.
B.
Adjourn Meeting
C. Park made a motion to adjourn the meeting.
M. Bishop seconded the motion.
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 6:15 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
P. Purvis