Tulsa School of Arts And Sciences
Minutes
Board of Trustees Regular Board Meeting - March 11, 2025
Date and Time
Tuesday March 11, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Trustees Present
A. Braggs, A. Hudson, C. Moore, E. Mortimer, M. Peercy, T. Powell, W. Wortham
Trustees Absent
C. Lindsey, J. Jenkins, R. Wilson
Ex Officio Members Present
L. Smith
Non Voting Members Present
L. Smith
Guests Present
A. Dumas
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
C.
Approve Minutes
Motion to approve the previous minutes with removal of Jay Jenkins from the voting portion on the last meeting minutes and add the documents to the meeting minutes on Board on Track was made by Peercy, Wortham seconds;all present members voted in the affirmative voice vote (Roll Call)
II. Reports
A.
Head of School's Report
B.
Principal's Report
Dr. Hahn gives an account of the incident that you were emailed about. There was an emergency security situation that was vague but troubling. A former student received an anonymous call on Saturday afternoon stating the student should not attend school. The former student’s mother then reached out to me and I contacted Dr. Liesa. We both thought that it warranted getting in touch with the authorities to see what they thought. The police were not able to trace the call. They did not see it as creditable, but thought that it merited extra security on our part. We had an event that night, a school dance with security we arranged to have prior to the anonymous call. The school dance went off without a hitch and about 100 students attended. Our attendance was a little low on Monday, but we still had a good school day. We enacted a soft lockdown yesterday where we had a member of the admin stationed at each entrance. Throughout the day we conducted inside meals and did not have anyone outside. The Tulsa Police Department was on site at both pick-up and drop-off lines outside, but periodically circled around campus on the exterior building throughout that day as well. Today there was a rotating circulation of administrators at the entrances. All entrances have cameras at them and someone watched the cameras throughout the day.
We are in the third trimester and currently doing WIDA testing with state testing to follow. Classroom observation and coaching are still taking place. We are working to improve literacy by partnering with the Teaching and Learning Incitative, an agency for reading literacy that launches next year. Staffing conversations for next year about curriculum and the budget are happening as well with hopes to have a clear picture of where we will be for next year. We do have a couple of teachers that will be moving on at the end of the year. I hope to have more information for the April board meeting. We are excited about the summer symposium program this year partnering with the 918 Fund and will meet with them this Thursday. Also, Ethan Hawke is in town shooting a TV show next Tuesday. They will have a school scene where they film the front of the building. They will contribute $2,500 to TSAS.
C.
Faculty Council's Report
No faculty council report.
III. Finance
A.
February Financials
Attached is the January financial report and some of this is a continuation of that meeting as well. Dr. Smith directs attention to page one of the financial packet under the building fund column where the balance is $786,58. Noting there is an increase of 170,000 which is the first installment of the building fund. At the end of the year we will see another 110,000 that will come in. We determined that the budget we had been working on was missing our stipends and the adjunct teacher salaries so the budget was off because it was not included. That number was added to the budget in January so this is the most accurate budget to date. On Page 2, we have finally received some federal funds for Title I, II and IV. We have received all funding for Titles II and IV, but please make note that for Title I, we have only received $18,000.00 of the budgeted $128,000.00 and we hope to receive the remaining this spring. Our budget is still projecting a negative balance of $197,000, but we are on track to address this shortfall with new strategies. I think we can celebrate that our net asset is higher than it was last year, so I think we are trending in the right direction.
B.
Approval of General Fund Purchase Orders, #128 - #135
C.
Approval of Activity Fund Purchase Orders, #28 - #39
IV. Financial Planning
A.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve Redbud Building Fund expenditures for building related expenses not to exceed $280,000.
Dr. Smith - This is our strategy to try and set the budget back on its feet. Which is to utilize some of the building funds. We will receive $280,000 and will not spend any of our reserves of $616.000.00. We will only spend a portion of the funds received for this year. The building fund can be spent on rent, utilities and other things related to the building materials. The current lease is $212,954.00, so one move could be to pay the entirety of the lease out of the Redbud fund and provide relief for the general fund, which is what we pay the rent out of. Stallings and Peercy state they are not necessarily happy about using the building fund to pay for the lease. However, they agree that this move would be beneficial being that we have a deficit.
B.
Presentation and discussion of 2023-2024 financial audit by Bledsoe, Hewett & Gullekson, CPAs, PLLLC.
Mr. Shane Murphy presents the audit, highlighting there were no significant deficiencies. He explains that there was one finding on the last page of the audit. He states there is not a clear audit trail from collections that are made to the corresponding bank deposit. The activity fund custodian is properly receiving and depositing money submitted by the sponsors, however, there are sponsors who are not properly using district provided receipt books. We just recommend that all activity fund sponsors receive a pre numbered receipt book with one copy of the receipt to be issued to every purchaser, one copy will remain in the receipt book and to turn in the last copy to the activity fund custodian with the deposit funds. Mr. Murphy said he appreciated the staff for having everything ready for them when they came and how she was able to answer any questions they had. Dr. Mortimer thanked him for their work through the years with the TSAS audit process. The audit acknowledgement was signed by the board members, presenting auditor, notarized by Ashanti Dumas and approved by all present board members.
C.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve the contract with Bledsoe, Hewett & Gullekson, CPAs, PLLLC for audit of school year 2024-2025.
Dr. Smith states that this company is the same accounting firm that has done our audit for years.
D.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve financial safeguard policy that would require the Head of School to seek Board advance approval for any purchase in excess of $20,000.00 not previously included in the budget; allowing for the Board President to approve emergency purchases.
The motion to approve the financial safeguard policy for a single purchase of $20,000.00 for the life of the contract was made by Peercy, seconded by Powell; all present members voted in the affirmative voice vote (Roll Call).
V. Policy, Procedure and Oversight
A.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve policy and process for responding to requests for information or building access by law enforcement or others.
Following the new administration and their removal of sensitive areas where enforcement employees could go to public spaces, many schools have been encouraged to have some kind of policy for those requesting information or access to the building and how we should respond. I received information from the Oklahoma School Board and from the Oklahoma Charter Association, and we were provided with sample policies from Denver, CO public schools as they have a lot of standing policies. I included all the recommended highlights and have composed this policy that aligns with every school as this language is in their policy also.
B.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve retaining legal representation for Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences.
During the meeting, the board discussed securing legal representation for TSAS. After thorough consideration, a motion was approved to move forward with a contract for legal counsel. The board authorized Dr. Smith to determine whether it is most appropriate to contract legal council through a retainer or an hourly charge. Before proceeding with the contract, Dr. Smith will confer with Mr. Peercy and Mr. Powell to ensure alignment on the best course of action was made.
The motion to approve securing legal representation for legal representation was made by Powell, seconded by Hudson; all present members voted in the affirmative voice vote (Roll Call)
C.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve graduation plan requirement changes corresponding to new legislation.
Stallings reports house graduation requirements have only two minor changes. One is that the English 10th grade course was bifurcated and will now be combined. The second is that students complete a computer or foreign language for Oklahoma’s promise. We typically require them to take two years of the same foreign language. What we are finding is that the size of the school isn’t maintaining that load and the graduation requirements coming down the pike are more explicit in saying that a student should take 2 years of computer technology or 2 years of a foreign language. TPS grad requirements and they continue foreign languages or computer science. We require one year of foreign language and one year of computer science and now that decision is up to the students. Fine arts have been removed from state requirements. There’s an increase in Math that will require an increase in our math teachers, but we will have time to grow that later.
D.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve adjustments to the 2024-2025 school calendar due to severe winter weather days.
VI. Executive Session
A.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve convening into Executive Session as authorized by Title 25 O. S. (2001) Section 307. B 1 and 7
B.
Executive Session
VII. Reconvene into Open Session
A.
Discussion, consideration and vote to approve or not approve reconvening to Open Session.
VIII. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
- TSAS-TPS Service Transition TImeline Summary.pdf
- TSAS FEB 2025 3.5.25.pdf
- GF FEBRUARY POs.pdf
- GF January POs.pdf
- AF FEBRUARY POs.pdf
- AF January POs.pdf
- Contract for Audit 2024-2025.pdf
- Draft_For_Review_-__POLICY_-_Request_for_Information_or_Building_Entry (1).pdf
- Grad Requirements through 2030 - Sheet1.pdf
- House Graduation Requirements rev 2024 - Google Sheets.pdf
- TSAS Letter - Modification to Calendar - Severe Weather SY25 (1).pdf
Dr. Smith reports on the transition of services. The hope is to be able to have a clear picture of what our choices will be and to be able to sign contracts by the end of the year in regards to the building maintenance, custodial, groundskeeping and child nutrition. We did open the bids and are interviewing the three finalists in the RFP process. We had the first interview today and the other two will take place Thursday this week. I thought we would have all of this done for April but we should have a final decision for the May board meeting. I am very hopeful that the CNP application with RFP will be submitted this week. If approved, it would give us the ability to approve a contract with the vendor by June. All of this is slow work. I have been examining the building maintenance log. Each work order we had for the last three years that included HVAC foundation, plumbing, anything structural is being calculated and subtracted out of the list leaving us a clearer idea what would be our responsibility in the future. I found the grand total average of those three years would give us approximately $52,000.00 of annual maintenance fees that we could estimate. We are currently paying $15,000.00 a year as a required maintenance fee that we will no longer be responsible for next year. Based on the three RFP bids, I am estimating an increase in custodial fees of $10,000 over this year and I am expecting a 20% increase over what we are paying for supplies. Groundskeeping will likely be a $10,000.00 increase and without child nutrition, I’m estimating around $60,000.00 increase in all of these services. That is where we are now with the limited information that we have been given. At the beginning of the year TPS added $.05 per sq ft. per month and that amount increase the rent by $53,000.00 that we are paying this year for rent, meaning that those two numbers aren’t too far apart from each other. This Thursday round two of the meeting with the TPS leadership team will happen to discuss the transitions. With your permission, I’d like to respectfully request that they reconsider returning to the previous year's sq ft rate of $.15 per sq ft rather than the current $.20. The challenge is ongoing to get the information while trying to build budgets for next year.