Bill shared that the Ribbon Cutting with Governor Baker and Lt. Gov Polito was successful and thanked the Board for their help getting us to this point. He reviewed the memo briefly, discussing the COVID-19 updates in particular.

David Kelleher from AAFCPAs joined at this point. Tricia shared that the audit was positive with no findings. David walked through the audit and discussed the differences between this year with the building project versus prior years with a leased building. He shared that some of the differences are also caused by the addition of a new grade this year and changes to government grants. He also discussed the overall result of the year and reiterated that it was a clean audit report. David left the meeting at this point. (6:12 PM)
Doug shared that he discussed with Bill the creation of a primer for the board to explain the relationship of the various real estate entities. Bill and Meghan will create this and share with the finance committee and the Board.

Meghan discussed the process for determining a budget for ESSER III funding, including the detailed stakeholder engagement process. She shared that the budget proposed is for the next 3 years, with the goal to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on academics and ensure we have a safe facility moving forward. She explained that the funds are essentially guaranteed, and the application for the grant is to ensure that we are using them in a responsible way.  All of the budgeted priorities were supported by families and staff. The Board discussed what happens to these initiatives after the ESSER funding is done, and Meghan shared that planned increases in state funding from the Student Opportunity Act will reduce the impact of the loss of ESSER funding after the 3-year period and that she expects some of the COVID-specific funding needs to diminish over time.

Bill discussed that the school has been discussing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate and a weekly testing mandate, as have many schools and businesses across the nation. The Board discussed that there are considerations for now and in the future for these types of policies, and there are operational concerns regarding testing and exemptions to consider. Several Board members shared their experiences at their workplaces. The majority of Board members are in favor of a mandate in principle and wanted to wait until next month to have more clarity on the proposal and possibly more guidance from the state. Some Board members were either hesitant to create a vaccine mandate or were in favor of voting on the mandate immediately instead of waiting until the next meeting.

Meghan and Anne left at this point.

Bill discussed the statewide and school’s MCAS results. Our students performed at the state average for ELA. The school’s declines were more significant than the declines across the state, but that is in the context of our results being higher than the state average to start. The school’s results were similar to peer charter schools. Math numbers across the state are significantly lower than expected, and our school’s decline was significant.  Bill noted that the high impact teaching strategies we use, along with the two-teacher model, are very hard to replicate remotely, and this certainly had an impact.  The Board discussed these results and Bill shared that he would provide more detail about results, with a focus on additional learnings, trends, and subgroup performance, as well as plans for learning acceleration, at the next meeting.

Bill briefly touched on the September Dashboard and asked the Board for any questions, which there were none.

Bill discussed the Varsity Tutors contract for students who are out for more than 4 days on quarantine. The contract aligns with what we would provide to students (one-on-one or small group lessons) if we had the staffing. Amy raised the question of safety protocols of having a non-SPCS adult one-on-one online with a student, and Bill and Meghan agreed to follow up.

The next scheduled board meeting is on Wednesday, 10/27/21 at 5:45 PM.