Dr. Smith spoke about the end of the second trimester on February 26th and the snow days that were taken last month.  We had a snow day built in the calendar, but had to utilize 3 more, so class will be in session on President's Day, February 16th, as well as April 17th and 24th to recoup those days without extending the school year. The first enrollment application window has closed. Next year, we will have 77 seats available for the 6th grade class.  There are no available seats for 7th and 8th grade.  9th grade has 18 seats, 10th grade has 10 seats, 11th grade has 2 seats and 12th grade has 5 seats available, making a total of 112 seats available. TSAS had a total of 520 applicants that applied during the first application window. We are gearing up for our financial audit that will take place on Thursday, February 12.  Our 3rd trimester will begin on March 2nd. Shaniece Randle and Jesse Stallings are working on the master schedule for next year.

Dr. Hahn reports on the trip to D.C. last week.  The purpose of the trip was to attend the annual conference and to visit three charter schools in the D.C. area. There was a discussion on how to make student data more available to teachers as well as parents without inundating them with a bunch of information. The conference also generated discussions about products and tech tools. We were able to meet with schools that were finding success in some of these areas and gather ideas on how to celebrate our students, both academically and culturally, in school, as well as the story we tell about our school.  Leadership from within the school was something that we heard a lot about at the conference. Many of the school leaders had been with the school for quite some time, as some taught and grew up professionally with the school.  Restorative justice is another area that was discussed, noting that suspension is often a last resort. Many of these topics align with what we are doing at TSAS. Trimesters and block scheduling is another topic that was discussed, which allows students to get more credits with more time in the classroom, reducing homework and class size. Another takeaway, all the schools visited had full inclusion for the SPED students, confirming the work we do at TSAS.  

Mr. Sharples announces that the Friends of TSAS are still working on the bylaws and actively recruiting board members. On February 24th, the Friends of TSAS will hold a board meeting at TSAS where both middle and high school student counsel will pitch their ideas for new initiatives they would like to see happen at TSAS.  Funding for those initiatives was raised from bake goods and dance ticket sales. 

Tiffany Gosvener with Opaa! gave a quick presentation about the new menu items and student surveys.