The following people participated in public comment: Maryann Michalowski

Ms. Maryann Michalowski asked the OMI Board of Directors if they could revert to the old way of operation for public comments by eliminating the two minute per person limit for speaking.

M. Streshly began by welcoming A. Washington to the OMI Board.

M. Streshly mentioned that the focus of OMI right now is literacy and numeracy across all the curriculum and she wants a common standards aligned curriculum that every teacher uses. She mentioned that OMI is engaged in the pilot of instructional material for math and English. The goal is to bring the materials that were chosen to the Board by December. M. Streshly notified the Board that there will be a professional development day on 9/26/2022 and the vendors related the pilot programs will come in and review the materials with the staff.

M. Streshly mentioned that the rigor is done to ensure that the students are gaining the necessary knowledge across the board, but also OMI had made time to make sure that students know that the staff cares about their progress.

M. Streshly mentioned that there is an effort occurring that is helping teachers through the induction process and their journey to being fully credentialed teachers.

M. Streshly explained that there will be a WASC accreditation and a visiting committee will want to interact with the Board, so she encouraged the Board to come to OMI and speak to the visiting committee. 

J. Breckenridge thanked M. Streshly for her weekly reports to the Board because she enjoys that those reports keep her informed of what is happening at the school.

J. Breckenridge asked a two-pronged question about allocation of previous year's funds for new programs and the integration of the programs to maximize benefit for the student. She asked about the feedback loop and how the students are being evaluated for extra help after using the programs. M. Streshly explained that the initiatives that the school is taking will ensure that students have access to tutoring and credit recovery opportunities, while giving the teachers the power to adjust based on their view of student progress.

J. Breckenridge asked if all of the students have been assessed and placed into their respective interventions and M. Streshly answered that 95% of students have been assessed and the rest are new students to the OMI system.

V. Salazar explained that the change in disbursements from July to August was due to salary rates going up and having to pay for insurance.

M. Mares asked for clarification of spikes in disbursements in August 2022 and August 2023. V. Salazar clarified that he did not see a scheduled spike in disbursement in August 2023 as the height in spike for August 2022.

J. Brown mentioned that the school is spending one time money and the curriculum that is being invested in, will be here in the coming year(s).

V. Salazar explained that OMI will be able to stay above the $1.5 million allotted line of cash reserve and there are no issues with the cash flow as of now.

M. Streshly began by praising the efforts of K. Briseño (Data Manager) and T. James (Recruiting Specialist and Cadre Supervisor) in regards to the enrollment of new students.

K. Briseño started by stating that OMI currently had 446 students in the 22-23 school year. She also included a table that contained the enrollment for each grade in the previous school year to compare the enrollment numbers from this year and last. This year's enrollment numbers could be up to 471 depending on the response from candidates.

K. Briseño explained that in the first 30 days of school, the middle school and the high school are in the 90% and above threshold for daily attendance. The middle school's average daily attendance was 95.46% and the high school average daily attendance was 92.68%.

J. Brown asked if OMI could send out someone to make at-home visits to see why students are not attending school to potentially eliminate truancy. T. James let J. Brown know that OMI will be sending staff to the houses of truant students.

K. Briseño explained that there are three steps that OMI must follow to reach out to truant students' families. K. Briseño said that the first round of letters would be sent out to homes letting the families know that their student is truant.

M. Mares asked why there was a 25% drop in enrollment in the current 11th graders (Class of 2024) from the previous year. Some reasons for this drop are credit deficiency, no responses, relocation, or denial to return.

T. James let the Board know that OMI is conducting a camp for the new candidates (20 at the time) and were awaiting the response to offer letters from 5 other candidates. The camp was clarified by T. James that it would not be interfering with the instructional minutes of the students.

T. James explained that he exhausted the wait lists for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades and is unlikely to reach the 30 candidate goal that was set. He gave a suggestion of looking into the 9th grade wait list pool in order to reach the 30 cadet recruitment goal.

J. Wire asked what it takes to integrate these new students into the classrooms. T. James explained that the OMI team of recruiters used communication as their main tool to inform families and staff of the process of bringing a student in. M. Streshly mentioned that the teachers are meeting weekly to assess the needs of the students.

M. Streshly thanked T. Sun for her efforts in helping OMI with the WASC.

T. Sun explained what WASC was and said that OMI must be accredited to have courses and credits be accepted by the universities of California. T. Sun also explained that WASC is a self improvement process that allows the school to assess itself on the five WASC criterions.

T. Sun mentioned that the writing process for the WASC update is being written in a quick manner but the self assessment of the school had been going on for three years due to the recommendations that OMI has received.

T. Sun mentioned that she expected to have a rough draft of the WASC documentation by September 16. She mentioned that the draft will be presented to the OMI Staff at the September 26 professional development day and will be allowed to give feedback.

T. Sun signaled a date for a WASC visiting team to present themselves at OMI and the WASC report will be finalized in early October.

S. Lipsey started by breaking down definitions for the BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risk) and ASG (Academic Support Group).

S. Lipsey explained why OMI implemented and introduced the BARR system. Teachers split the case load of students that were assigned by grade level. A spreadsheet was shared with the teachers to increase accountability in helping the students that need the additional help and build teacher-student relationships and student-student relationships by implementing I-Times.

C. Lee explained that the OMI community embraced the I-Time activities full-heartedly. One of the concerns that teachers were having about the I-Times was the lack of supplies but there will be a community resource cabinet that all teachers could use.

S. Lipsey mentioned that the ASG meetings would be held twice a month and the off weeks were designated for meeting with students who are struggling a little bit.

C. Lee explained that the ASG staff gave overwhelmingly positive feedback and the students have shown excitement of their I-Time activities.

S. Lipsey recommended that she and C. Lee could update the OMI board each grading period to how the program is going with five different data points.