Kim called for public comment

Kim Stated I request that the board enter executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30A, Section 21(a)(6), to consider the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property—specifically, the potential purchase of the parking lot adjacent to the school—as discussion in open session may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the board.

Board came back to open session

WE are currently on track to meet 1.5 goal. We currently have 1.475, with some outstanding donations to get. In terms of our strategy for next year. We are working to build our donor pipeline and access new networks. We will be reaching out to the trustees, foundation board, dev committee, toast committee, and fundraising groups that help us make money. We are going to work on tightening up our internal systems to make sure we are bringing in supporters and keeping them with us.

Anders turned it over to Claire to help propose our fundraising goal for next year. We are proposing to 1.5 million fundraising goal, and we are proposing to focus on fundraising $600,000 for individuals, $400,000 for foundations, and $500,000 for Toast. Meekerley added that we are really focusing on the new, verses the past years that have been focusing on maintaining the relationships that we already have. We are focused on finding the new generations of Boston Prep. We are also looking for new people to join the development committee to help us further our mission. We are looking for both people on the board and people not on the board but who one day may want to join. Joining the development committee can look different for all members based on their preferences for bringing in their networks. They are also focused on give get for the board. Next year, you will hear us talking more about board asks for the board, be ready for next year they will be either personal ask to a donor, host an event, or make personal donations. 

Tyler shifted conversation over to Finance 101. How is Boston Prep funded? The biggest part of our revenue is the public tuition per student. When they come to Boston Prep, the funding follows them, and when they leave the funding follows them. When they leave their funding starts as of that date. This is the biggest part of our revenue, the other big pieces around the funding is fundraising, which supports mainly persistence project, enrichment trips. We cannot use public dollars to support kids who are not in this building which is why it is supported by philanthropy. The tricky part about public tuition, is that we will not know the student rate until the last date of the fiscal year. The other major piece of revenue comes from federal grants such as, Title I, II, III, IDEA, and meal reimbursements. 

It is important to understand the logistics of finances, so that when speaking about the school to others about charter schools, you are equipped to understand all students have access to free and equitable education. 

The other piece is we are two entities, we have a foundation and our public entity. The foundation helps support certain programs at the school, with an annual trip every year. Those funds are voted on in the school and support the projects at the school. The whole mission of the preparatory foundation is to support the mission of the school. That transfer amount is dependent on the needs of the schools. The foundation also handles the loan payments and foundation expenses. 

Opened it up to questions:

How does it look for next year? The student opportunity act is still protecting, we are more concerns about the federal grants, and what that may look like next year. Enrollment is the big focus too, Vanessa's team has allowed us to stay in a good place for enrollment. There are also students that needs are supported by federal grants, we will need to keep an eye on this

How do we protect our organizations? How do we focus to do the good work that we are doing. Is there anything that we could be flagged with about the anti-racism statements? Some schools have gotten these communications, but we have not yet received anything

Is the school getting any messaging from DESE/State about block grant paradigm? We are concerned about where the grants are going to go and what kind of stipulations will come with those. There will be threats and we are not sure exactly how to respond, but we will think about what we would do if those things began to be threatened, prepare yourself. If there were a transition to Block grants, there could be a shift of how grants support different priorities. The messaging has been around what the states would do if this were the case. 

For SY27 is there changes to the foundation liquidity to protect against, seems like and prudent thing to keeping on the radar. We have put aside money in the foundation to help protect us in the case we need extra operations costs. Could be a good idea to have the foundation board and school board to have a contingency plan.

The Budget we are proposing is slightly below breaking even.  There a couple strategic bets that we are making that would fall at break even. The bets we are making are New ELA curriculum manager, this role will support onboarding new teachers into it and supporting teachers with the curriculum. We are also increasing professional development. There will also be increased PD budget to support teachers. Additionally, staff salary increases and tenure bonuses. Now teachers who have completed 1st and 2nd years will get a bonus to encourage them to push through their hardest two years. This will help them get through the lower raise rates in the model. The goal is to help contain them, because teachers drive results. We are also expanding executive function supports and SEL supports. To close the gaps for these strategic bets in the case that we doing not get the funding we hope for we are working in finance committee to make a transfer if necessary. In big picture, we are headed in an upward direction, and we do not want to make any cuts that could get in a way of the upward direction. Bryant complemented Tyler's ability to make sure the budget is in a good place, and making sure to have the foundation as a back stop if needed. This is all about investing in outcomes and making sure we are meeting the needs of the schools. 

Question:

How are we planning to track if retaining teachers helps? We are going to track the progress of retention. And is there a way to specifically measure if that is what made the difference. For staff retention, there is the finance piece, there is the adult culture, benefits, etc. We are putting a bet there but we want to acknowledge that it is not perfect. But we will continue to do one team temperature checks to see if the finance investments are making the difference. And the big goal is the culture move upwards, and we can adjust as needed. We also work with HR to use exit interviews with staff to better understand the main reasons people are leaving, including financial data understanding. Additionally, for people we are hiring, what are the mean financial reasons people not coming to Boston Prep?

Any other questions on the Boston Prep SY26 Budget?

Meekerley shifted to ED Updates. We are at the point of the year where kids are taking finals, and we are working on wrapping up the data from the spring, and will review more depth in the fall when all the data have gathered.

As a school we are starting to shift from stabilization to Strategic Execution. For the next 3-5 years we plan on focusing on college as our north star, ethics is our compass, excellence is a habit, 4 in 4 for college success, and build to last. 2-3 years ago, we were in a dicey situation, with new leaderships changes, gifts in governing board and operations/finances were being threatened by student enrollment. While we still have transitions and are still working on having conversations about school leaders, but the majority of our seniors leaders have been for a long time, and board has stabilized, and we have continued to have a clean audit. We are in a much more stable place. We are now shifting the stabilizing internally to focusing on our strategic plans. We are hoping that you feel more consistency with how we are speaking about our strategic bets and planning. 

College is our North Star Bet- We are adopting a new ELA curriculum to help addressing the literacy needs, we saw 20 point gain in ELA proficiency and 27% proficiency for SpED and MLL students. We are supporting roll out with Teaching Lab aligned PD, Read180, and iReady literacy diagnostics. We are investing in multi-tiered Student support (MTSS) launch for proactive support. We are uniform writing expectations across grade levels, and the progression to next grades. We continue to be concerned about our SpED and MLL students reading on grade level. Strategically we need to increase urgency around what we are doing for students and specifically what we are doing for our Tier 2/3 literacy interventions. Meekerley showed how this data can be found in the new board dashboard that we are working on rolling out. 

Ethics is our compass- internally we are thinking about how we distinguish ourselves as an ethics school. Most schools are college preps, we are emphasizing this in future years so that we can focus on empowering ethical leaders in society. This year we expanded ethics curriculum for grades 6-12, we are rolling out panorama survey cycles. These are culture surveys for parents, students, and staff to understand the state of the school. We have 9 full tine culture leaders to anchor systems and adult practice. Target outcomes is the 85% of families confirm this is an ethics focused school. But there is work to be done. Currently, suspension disparities persist, 21% suspension rates and Students with disabilities was 25%, Attendance and tardiness is still a focus. 35% of students were chronically absent, missing 10+ days of school.

Built to last- transparently as we have grown and embarked on new initiatives, the documenting has been a concern. We are focusing in on this to strengthen the systems we have in place. 

Additionally, student enrollment is going to be a continued focus. We are on track to have higher than anticipated staff retention, but this is hard to full gauge until August 1st when staff return to school. Remaining school leaders, and we are hoping to maintain principals for future years. DESE has expressed that staff attendance was a concern. On average, 94%  staff attendance across SY25. But 25% of staff had 20+ absences, signaling both progress and strain. We are invested in having substitute teachers, but the actual teacher being there is important. We are addressing this by changing our time off policy, and to acknowledge this shift we have engaged in conversations with staff so their needs are being met. But ultimately, we want our staff present and teaching students. 

College Persistence Focus- we are focusing on making sure that students are graduating within 4 years of graduating from college. To do so, we have 4 full time alumni and college counselors. We are using data to really understand what is working and what is not working. We are going to be working with non-profits to support our college and alumni counselors to be proactive with our students rather than reactive to obstacles that they are facing. 81% of Class of 2024 enrolled in college. But this data does not match the 35% of students who earn a degree in 4 years, 60% graduate within 6 years. 

We will come back to this in the fall, when we have all the data we need.

Meekerley proposed question: If you had access to this regularly, would this make you feel better to understand how the school is doing and be able to talk to others about how the school is doing in terms of DESE metrics, state metrics, and strategic plan metrics? We are in the process to start using it before officially rolling it out. Is there information you feel is missing? That you are not seeing here that you think could help. 

Responses:

- Yes, it gives us access to the data outside of the meetings. This is a great tool for everyone to have access to.

- The one thing that doesn't come through on the data dashboard, it doesn't necessarily connect the investments. How do you connect what the school is doing to explain data points and how they address. We are hoping to pair this with a newsletter to pain a fuller picture and also get a sense about how we feel about this data. This is something we are hoping to roll out in the fall.

- one thing I would push, is there a summary for red, yellow, green. Are they improving each year. This will be seen on the metrics tab, and cohort data will adjusted as we get more data. 

- How as a board do we plan to metabolize this data and come back to it? How do we isolate the data that is most important connect to. If we all have a data, how do we use this to be effective govern.

We are deeply invested in making this a tool we can come back to. Our goal as a school, was to get closer to a tool, and then a board goal is going to be what do stakeholders do to take this to the next level it and use it the most useful way.

Executive Director evaluation will be worked on this summer. Interviews have been held with school staff, and this evaluation will be finalized when we have all the school year data. 

At the board retreat we talked about the need to have more clear processes for roles and expectations for the board. We are starting with keeping the board informed to highlight areas of strengths and areas of growth for the school. We are going to be focused on succession planning, committee structures,  and engaging the board in the right questions at the right time. 

We have three trustees rolling off the board, we have David Berkley, Amelia Cheers, and Dr David Wolff. Thanked them for their service on the board.

We will be sending out a lot of information for calendaring next year. Thank you for your support this year. And have a great summer.