These policies and procedures will be part of the board manual which will include attendance, gift acceptance policy, public comment, board expectations. 
Background checks are in process, however fingerprinting will not be done until the state re-opens to non-essential services.
Criminal checks will be done every three years.  This will be corrected in the board policy from the 4 that is mentioned in the document.

No major changes have been made to the staff handbook other than removing references to Fairbanks and an HR department.

This is a group of new policies and procedures. It details all financial processes based on state audit requirements and will be submitted to the Mayor's office as part of our pre-opening report.
There will be a section added referring to additional audit procedures and will be brought back to the board at a later date.
This will be posted to board on track and is a great resource for the board to understand procedures related to signing off on documents.

Rachelle outlined the progress on the improvements being made to the new facility. The staff is currently packing up the school to prepare for the July 13-15 move.

IPS will make the decision on approving Hope Academy's application to be an Innovation school later this summer.
Rachelle has met with IPS staff to ensure that Hope Academy will become a choice for students facing expulsion or suspension.  Patrick McAllister will draft a MOU to formalize that process.

The CSP Grant is a grant for charter school start ups for $300K annually for 3 years.  The MindTrust will review the application on June 1.  The grant request will be submitted on July 30. This will be budget relieving and also cover start up costs.  There will be no new programs attached to this grant.

A new communications plan focused on enrollment and fundraising has been developed.  A conversation with Brian Dickey and Enroll Indy will help identify potential students for Hope Academy.

CVR has been engaged to help with media and public relations.

NickLeRoy of Bright Minds Marketing has connected us with TruthTree Constulting to help us with digital ads to improve our presence on the internet.This is a key way that parents find Hope Academy.
 

Brian Anderson reported that there are no new adjustments to the previously presented draft of the 2020-21 budget, however, it has been reviewed during 3 other meetings with the OEI.

Our focus needs to be on first year cash flow and likelihood of the enrollment projections.  OEI has been very supportive. They would like to see a number of scenarios in the budget as well as looking at 18 months down the road.

For Year 1, enrollment is not the primary factor for success. We are reliant on alt ed funding and fund raising.  Missing the enrollment goal by 1 or 2 students won't be a big deal. We will have access to a temporary line of credit should we need it prior to getting the state funding.  If we get the CSP grant, that will help a great deal as that is not included in the budget.

Of course COVID-19 is not anything we can control and could effect next year's plans.

Fairbanks will be paid for the outstanding direct invoices when state funding is received in August or September.

A board approved budget is required by June 30 so it will be voted on at the next meeting.

Marissa reiterated that OEI is being very supportive. Patrick McAllister's help with IPS Innovation process is appreciated. Patrick said we should not be surprised to have IPS come back and ask more questions about the sustainability of the school and enrollment plans. These will be questions that are revisited often.

Marissa thanked Brian, Rachelle and Janine for all their work on the budget.

Committee reports will focus on goals that have been set by the board. The goals will be included in each meeting agenda.

Linda Gagyi presented the academic and recovery.committee report.

Today is the last day of school.  We've learned a lot about virtual learning during the COVID.  Next week, the staff will review what we can do to improve virtual learning. The staff has done a great job with connecting with students and parents during these unprecedented times.

Our testing goals are to meet the national average.  We were not able to do the last round of assessments due to COVID.  Dr. Ratterman advised that we could use the previous 2 scores.
Grades will be posted next Thursday and we will report on that goal at the next board meeting.
Going forward, we will update our dashboard in a more user friendly presentation including graphs and data that will be presented to the board on a monthly basis even though the board meets every other month.  Deb Leser, the guidance counselor will be preparing the report to include referral sources, referring schools, special ed population, attendance, community outreach.  This will be presented to the board in  August.

Current enrollment is 27 students; 7 are graduating seniors; 20 potential returning students, we believe 15 or so will return (75%).  Five new students will be starting in summer school and we anticipate they will continue in the fall. We generally get 10-12 new students over the summer.

Summer school will be similar to what the last quarter was like with Zoom classes and paper packets.  Families report that students do best with the packets to be reviewed during Zoom classes. Knowing that there will be a lot of screen time for the students in summer school, the schedule will be adjusted.

We expect the governor will announce in July recommendations about whether schools will open in August.  The first day of school is scheduled to be August 10.

Graduation has been delayed by the Public Health Department until July.  There will be 4 graduates who will be walking and we will meet with them to decide if they want a virtual graduation or in-person. We anticipate they will want an in-person ceremony. If the Health Department approves it, graduation will occur in the Recovery Center on July 11 with fewer than 100 people and using social distancing.

The staff really appreciated the notes and gift cards sent to them during Teacher Appreciation Week. A big thanks to the board for their thoughtfulness.

Next week the staff will do a caravan to the graduates' homes which will be posted on social media.  Please consider joining the caravan and be sure to "Like" and repost the social media posts.

Janine Shopp reviewed the financials as of April 30, 2020. There is a healthy cash balance currently which will set us up nicely for the fall. There have been some savings as a result of the students not being at school.

We anticipate transferring the balance from Hope 1.0 to Hope 2.0 in August after financials have been finalized.

Liabilities show $586K, most payable to Fairbanks because monthly direct invoices have not been paid in order to preserve cash but will be paid once we get alt ed funding. Hope has not borrowed any money from Fairbanks during this fiscal year.

The Tom & Julie Wood Foundation has agreed to allow us to use their grant that was previously earmarked for the Agape program to be used for painting the new facility and move related expenses.

The Sheehan Foundation grant for a school bus will be used in June or early July.
 

Colleen Kenney reported through the end of April the fundraising goal for the year has been surpassed. Goals from corporations and individuals as well as from grants both in number of donors and amount received has been exceeded. Leigh Ann Erickson reviewed the specific year-to-date results and compared them to last year. There has been a significant increase. Gifts continue to come in from the direct mail appeal that was sent in early May.

The Rise & Shine breakfast will be held on Thursday, November 12 at The Wellington Conference Center in Fishers near 96th Street and I-69.  It will be a similar format as last year.

We will also have a week of Grand Opening Celebrations in August and will target specific audiences to attend on each day. The board is encouraged to attend these events and help promote them.

We are discussing a new approach for Taste of Hope to make the event focused on music which will allow that event to go virtual if necessary.

Sponsorships will be based on a Booster Club model so that sponsors will receive more recognition and be encouraged to be more engaged with the school.  Recognition will be at more events throughout the year.  Classroom sponsorships will also be available.

Angie Tomlin thanked Jan for her help in setting up Hope Academy for success with all her help in the transition. Angie referenced Rachelle's discussion on the communications plan.

Marissa Manlove thanked Jan and others at Fairbanks for their work and support of Hope Academy.

Marissa reported that goals for the 2020-21 school year have been drafted and need to be officially approved by the board.

A board retreat will be planned where these goals will be discussed in more detail.

Marissa met with a member of OEI to discuss ratings from first and second quarters.  She was disappointed to see so many areas in need of improvement.

The OEI has changed their process such that they rely on a review of minutes and documents uploaded to Board on Track. The committee feels that we have met many of the standards but they were not reflected in our documents so we will modify them going forward to better reflect our accomplishments.

One criticism from OEI was that there was too much attention placed on Hope 2.0 rather than current operations. Marissa feels the ratings will improve in the next report and will ask for the ability to rebut the ratings.  The ratings are posted on the OEI website. The board was disappointed to see the lack of objective feedback and direct conversations by OEI with the staff
 

An updated MOU with Fairbanks included things that must be done during the dissolution of Hope 1.0.  Marissa has asked Kreig DeVault to attend our next meeting to review those documents with the board.