Governance Committee Meeting Minutes

September 16, 2024, 12:00-1:00 PM

Monday September 16, 2024 at 12:00 PM

This meeting is remote and will take place over Zoom.

R. Leonard (remote), S. Balogun, S. Monson (remote)

None

S. Monson

B. Seyoum (remote), B. Spirer (remote), D. Haghighat (remote)

B. Spirer called a meeting of the Governance Committee of Springfield Prep to order on Monday Sep 16, 2024 at 12:05 PM.

S. Monson arrived at 12:08 AM.

Bill shared the prospect of meeting bi-monthly given the stage of development the school is in.
Donna said she decreased meeting times at the Women's Fund and it had not been detrimental impact on the board's work.
Bob noticed that the agendas have become less substantive and is fine going down to 6 meetings per year.
Sherriff thinks it's a good signal of the school's maturity and the board's maturity. We've gotten good at working through issues efficiently. He thinks there would be even richer discussions when we do meet.
Bob asked about how this would impact committees. Bill said he thought committees would remain the same, since they meet between 4-6 times per year already.
The committee discussed the process of sharing this proposal with the board. Sarah will present this out to the board at the next meeting.

R. Leonard made a motion to approve the minutes from Governance Committee Meeting on 05-20-24.

S. Balogun seconded the motion.

The committee VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.

Sarah talked about the ED evaluation plan.
Bob will be traveling 10/21 so proposed moving the Governance Committee meeting to 10/17. Everyone agreed to do 10/17 at 8 am.
Bill will complete the self evaluation by 9/20 at which point board members will do theirs. This will provide additional time for members to complete their evaluations.
Bob asked about whether Meghan was involved in the ED process previously and whether Ben would know staff well enough to take over that role. Bill shared that Meghan did not play a role and staff members were selected at random so this wouldn't be an issue.

Bill returned to a previous agenda item, related to board meeting scheduling. He raised the prospect of having board meetings in the morning to potentially improve attendance, because evenings seem to have conflicts for some board members.
The committee was open to this and decided that Sarah would raise this topic when she discusses board reducing the number of board meetings.

Bill shared his plan to schedule one on one meetings with each board member to try to generate board leads for board prospects.
Bob suggested he share questions ahead of time.
Donna suggested being really focused on our target areas of need.
Bob suggested adding public relations and fundraising to the list of needs since Sally will be termed out at some point soon. Now that the school is on an even keel, raising money and awareness will be an even more important focus.
Bill mentioned a focus on accounting and legal given how important knowledge in these areas is to the board's effective functioning.
The committee discussed the prospect of having an additional parent on the board. The board was open to this if there were good candidates. It discussed the benefits of having additional parents on the board if there were strong candidates.
Sarah discussed the timing of recruiting board members. Bill said he believed we should try to recruit 2-3 board members annually in the spring and that we did not recruit any last year, although we also did not lose any board members. He noted that there's nothing preventing us from bringing on strong board members on sooner if we find the right candidate.

There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 12:54 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

S. Monson

R. Leonard made a motion to adjourn the meeting.

S. Balogun seconded the motion.

The committee VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.

Documents used during the meeting