Janine Shopp reported the finance committee goals for the year - approve a fiscally sound budget by June 30, 2021 for 2022-23 using tactics outlined as per the committee meeting minutes. Note that the date on the agenda is incorrect.  The date should be June 2021, not April 2021 for approving the budget..

Net working capital transfer from Hope 1.0 to Hope 2.0 was $308,000 - more than anticipated.
Fairbanks forgave $200,000 as an in kind transaction.
There is no further financial responsibility from Hope 1.0 to Fairbanks. 
The closing transaction took into account payables and receivables between Hope 1.0 and Hope 2.0 and was posted in September 2020.
Quarterly financials will go to OEI by the end of October.

Brian Anderson reported that our main goal is cash balances. At the end of September, the cash balance was $6xx,xxx and close to projections.

However, the student count was below projections, so further analysis of enrollment will be important to determine the long term impact of the student count. Budget was 34, we had 21 students on count day. This analysis will be brought to the finance committee next month and then to the December board meeting.

Future reports to the board will be more timely within the month of the meeting.

If we continue to enroll students, the additional funds from the state based on ADA will help to close the projected gap. Rachelle expressed concern about enrolling more students because IPS has no one in their expulsion tract and this is unprecedented. Nationally, students with substance use issues are falling off the radar because they are not being seen in schools. Deb Leser said that these students are not being tracked by the state.

Janice Gabe said that families are struggling and are no longer coming through traditional referral sources and that our marketing efforts need to be directed to families. There are families who cannot get their kids to login to e-learning and would welcome an opportunity to engage with Hope Academy.  The students who are struggling also want and need the social interaction and personal connection with Hope Academy.

Angie Tomlin said that the marketing committee has addressed digital marketing issues to reach families, but we need to reach out to primary physicians where parents are calling rather than the schools.  Clergy and hair salons are other potential referral sources. We need to stress the safety of Hope Academy, especially in response to the pandemic.
 

The audit will be presented to the November finance committee and December board meeting unless it is delayed.

Individual transition meetings are happening.
The new parent education and support meeting starts tomorrow.
There has been better participation this fall than during last spring for afterschool activities.
No admissions from Enroll Indy have happened yet, but conversations continue with them to update information and make them aware of our rolling admissions.  The number of high school students who are applying through Enroll Indy has decreased overall. Enroll Indy will push out information to their 20,000 Twitter followers, share our Hope Academy fact sheet and asked that we present to their upcoming partner meeting.

With the increased stress of the pandemic, Marissa Manlove asked if there are additional safeguards that need to be put in place.  

Deb Leser reported on the charts that she prepared on demographic and academic data of the student body. August is a time for returning students to request returning to their original schools, so we often see a dip in enrollment at that time. Special ed students are increasing - in person classes are very important to these students. We have only 1 black and 1 multi-ethnic student, so to protect anonymity the reports do not reflect these demographics.  There have been no COVID positive test results from students or staff.  

Grade distribution is trending more positive. NWEA testing results are as expected, especially considering we have 8 special education students who normally score poorly. We will be using Edmentum Exact Path online platform to use NWEA data to identify individual learning gaps and address them with lessons on those gaps to improve test scores and move forward in their academics.

Due to COVID, the final report for the last academic year had data on only 3 areas. 

Continuing discussion with the Mayor's Office will identify other school specific goals that will be reported to the board in the future.

Goals and tactics were approved by the Development Committee.

The Events Committee are 10 strong and working hard on raising money and planning our first virtual event.  We need help in bringing more attendees to the Rise & Shine virtual event. Our goal is for 150 attendees. It not only helps build our donor base but it is a big boost to our students to know that they are supported by many people in the community.

The board is encouraged to invite everyone they know to the upcoming virtual event on November 12, to comment in the chat feature during the event and to make their gifts.  We have commitments of $7,000 in matching gifts.

Rise & Shine will have videos from a student, a graduate a teacher and a parent as well as a tour of the new facility. Registration is free.  The event should last less than 30 minutes.

With the lack of school referrals, the committee may revisit their goals to include the faith community and others who may be trusted advisors to  families.

Although the board recruitment event through the Mayor's Office did not happen, we have receieved a recommendation for new committee members and will continue to look for diversity in our committee membership.

Last year, our overall rating was "Approaching Standards".mostly because of our focus on getting the new charter and relocation of the school did not reflect the other academic efforts that were made.

This year we will focus more on academic standards and expectations of OEI in order to improve our rating.

 

Amy Levander has been having meetings with key legislators to ensure the continuing state support of Hope Academy.

UIndy has been a great landlord and easy to work with.

Wurster Construction is working on the two new door installations.

The CSP grant will be a great help in that it is budget relieving and also gives us more marketing funds. 
We have hired Ty Spisak, a marketing consultant to help with PR and messaging and events. Ty was employed by Fairbanks several years ago and is familiar with Hope Academy. 

Alyssa Bullock, an African-American counselor will be facilitating the parent group which starts this week.

Each week, we will alternate parent education and support from other parents with experience with children with sud.

No complaints have been registered.

We are contracting with Suzie's Legacy to help with social and emotional learning that is being funded by a grant. The program will create awareness of the student's strengths and weaknesses and give them support for finding their passion in life.

We are talking with Aspire to partner for adolescent therapy for students who do not have access to treatment.  This will be family based referral services that we will provide space and access to students who need their services.  This is also part of the APG model.  Aspire is looking to expand their services to the Greenwood area so this will be beneficial to both of us.