Members from the public present, no public comment. 

School team introduced two Boston Prep juniors who attended the Spain trip to share out about their experience. They shared that they got to explore the area in Spain, explored different monuments. They took a Spanish class, they learned about currency, they got immersed in the culture. They went to the cathedral and took a tour. They got to go out to dinner and try new foods, they took a cooking class and took a dancing class. They also shared out about their key learnings- getting out of their comfort zone and trying new things. And they shared their recommendations for future students who are going to go on the trip. They shared it was an invaluable experience and they should work really hard to get to participate on the trip.

Board chair informed that DESE approved the last school year day. We are still meeting the mandate of our charter. This will give  us time to use the last week with the staff to plan for next year and wrap up this year.

School team shared out the data that was reviewed in outcomes meeting. First the students who were part of the Crescendo program, they outperformed students who were not part of the program. 

Question: How many students are in the Crescendo program? There were over 100 students, we reviewed their iReady data and previous MCAS scores to make groups to do targeted instruction to close gaps as quickly as we can. 

Additionally, we saw gaining momentum with different buckets: Grades & GPA, reading & Writing IAs, and Math Grade- Level performance. (** reference outcomes notes for further detail on outcomes from quarter 3).

Despite individual levels showing improvement for subgroups. There are still persistent equity gaps that we are still aware of. Multilingual and students with disabilities. (**see further detail on outcomes from quarter 3 for ML and SWD subgroups in outcomes minutes).

Overall the middle school is showing momentum. HS has bright spots but more challenges. The equity gap is still very real and we are thinking about how to really target that.

This year outcomes took time to review the educator evaluation outcomes. We have our own teacher evaluation rubric. There beginning, developing, sustaining, excelling. There are different categories to evaluate. There is a different story middle school vs. high school. What was revealed was that middle school teacher had 55% sustaining or excelling expectations. 22% excelling. in High school the staff is 70% developing, only 1 staff member in excelling. The gap between the two schools reflects the performance gap for students as well. But we do see that the investment we make in keeping staff is paying off. Many of our Middle school teachers are in their 3-4 years. Verse High school which teachers are mostly in their first or second year. It shows the importance of investing in consistent Professional development. If we invest strategically in staff we should be able to see more stability in teacher retention and should see student performance go up. With the state of educators in the country, we know the importance of keeping the staff we have. 

There are two processes in place to support and hold educators accountable to be the best educators they can be. First, we require that teachers are passing the relevant subject MTELs. In order to be highly qualified. This year we had 30 teachers who were not considered highly qualified. This year we reset and created a system to ensure that teachers have a plan and strategy to pass the necessary tests. We worked with HR, to create a process where teachers had to apply for an extension. They needed to meet with Business manager, sign up for a test prep course, provide the results to HR along with a study plan to pass the test in the fall. Once they did this they were able to receive their offer letter. With the understanding that in February of next year, if they have not passed the test they will not receive an offer letter. We also found that one of the barrier was the test fees. So we created a budget to pay for the test fees. We want to show that we want to invest in those teachers. All 30 teachers did the process and have received offer letters and have plans. A few have already tested and passed their tests.

Additionally, we wanted to raise the bar for who is receiving an offer letter to ensure they come and succeed here. The academics team met to ensure they candidates were fully aware of what life at BP is. The process is now-- HR screening interview, complete Demo Lesson, collect work from demo lesson and get feedback from teaching demo to check how they process feedback, they will do an abbreviated student work analysis, and can they do something with it to improve instruction, they will then complete a lesson plan internalization task, scenario responses-- classroom culture and management, and finally parent communication role play. This is because all of the staff are advisors and part of their role in parent communication. We want them having the full picture from the start. 

Questions:

Who is doing the evaluation? How does the process look? The direct managers, the principals are evaluating deans, Assistant principals. On average DCI's have 6-10 people they are evaluating. We have one rubric for all teachers, it is centrally decided what the bands are which land teachers in beginning vs. developing in both schools. To make sure there is commonality. Additionally, anyone who has admin level in teach boost to ensure that everyone can see the evaluations.

Why are there no one on beginning? The bands from beginning is smaller than the bands for developing. This would move teachers into the developing. It is a holistic approach, There are different bands to focus on. There are different bars for veteran vs. new teachers. Veteran teachers who are in developing. Many teachers found the scores are not a shock, they are things that are getting worked on consistently in their coaching meetings. This evaluation process final number and process is not a shock. 

It does warrant questions in final years-- all strands are weighted equally. Are there different elements that school be weighted more heavily, without adding a new tool.

Question: When did you start using this rubric? Where did the rubric come from? This has been around a long time ago. 2 years ago there was a working group to create a 2.0 version of it. It is in a system now, vs. it used to live in document form. It now lives in the platform that we do all the coaching. 

SY27 Academic strategic planning. In march we were react and establish. instructional leaders pressure tests 13 possibilities. In April leaders voted to 3-4 priorities, We narrowing down in may to make sure. And it will be rolled out with teachers to plan out execution plans for SY27 implementation.

Board request: detail from outcomes dashboard, and we can use this to evaluate.

Hiring Projections: We have 35 open roles, 16 in interview stage, 4 in performance task roles, 8 in screening, and 7 roles on hold. We are prioritizing academic roles vs. a role that could be hired at any time. Focusing in on candidates who are searching for roles specifically around academic calendar. We did partner with an ex Boston Prep employee. To speed up the screening process. The number of individuals getting to interview stage has doubled. We are doing more thorough interviews of candidates to ensure we bring in staff who stay. Many schools are going through staff district cuts. One of the fields we want to focus in on the staff in special education. The needs are growing but the candidates is not growing. Asked the board to share any networks or individuals they think would be a great candidate. We are also continuing work with Teach For America.

We did make gains in highly qualified staff. Currently 56% of staff is highly qualified. We are hopeful with the new process that all staff will be highly qualified by offer letter season next school year.

Question: Is the problem they are not passing the exams or they are not taking the exams? There are some teachers who have taken it and failed several times. But there are teachers who have not gone through the process. So we are resetting our level accountability to take the test and put in the effort to pass. It is not a full indicator of whether they are a good teacher. But it is an indicator of if you know the content for your class. 

Questions: How many of the 35 roles are student facing vs. back office? 2/3 of the roles are student facing, and the other 1/3 are director level.

School team shared out the panorama survey data for staff culture. This survey was administered prior to leadership transition. Some of the key findings were: staff reported confidence in leadership, operations systems strong, staff largely understands the strategic priorities. Some areas of growth: student culture systems, ethical values, individuals report being weary of the future at BP. Suggested next steps: continue investing in leadership development, prioritize schoolwide alignment, increase communication around long-term organizational direction and progress. 106 of 139 staff members completed the survey. Something to consider for next year is what is the right timing for the survey?

Governance chair shared that we have one more meeting after this. There is a lot of wrap up and looking forward topics for this June Meeting. There is a lot that will happen in the committees to prepare for this meeting. More details will be shared in committees.

FYI: as we think about the leadership transition, the governance committee thought that it would be useful to engage some experts to think about the next steps forward. Especically some contextual information that is constantly changing. Introduced the individuals Dana and Rachel to provide extra capacity to support VaLonda and support for the board. Board member works with them many times over the last decade to be partners in the work. They can have the hard conversations when they are necessary. They will be doing school review and some executive coaching work, and work along the governance committee to support VaLonda and the school during this transition.  Rachel and Dana, introduced some of the schools and networks they work with. They reviewed the what they focus on. Specifically, Equip schools a to manage change, strengthen coherence, and cultivate healthy and effective teams. Additionally, pinpoint, collect, and visualize the data that matters most. Hold up to a mirror to your system, celebrate success, etc.

Dana is the Chief Schools officer at Attuned, and Rachel is the Chief Strategy officer. 

Development team shared out updates post the Toast. Thanked the board for the involvement back in April. The event was successful and we had improvements. We added 4 new sponsors. We raised the 2nd highest amount since a covid remote year. 

Board gave feedback that they loved the new venue and think we should renew for the next year. And liked that it gave space for the student to shine. 

Additionally, updated on the current progress on progress. We are ahead of where we were two years ago. But we are behind last year. We have a couple hundred to go. In terms of next steps, we have progress to go with LYBUNTs. We have 140k in lybunts, but we have 40k in less likely. We have targeted asks for additional gifts. We are going to come down to the wire and we need to meet the 1.5 mil fundraising. Board reiterated the urgency around 1.5 million. Because of the enrollment issues this year we are already pulling from the foundation. We do not want to have a hole because it will just build. We need to hit the budget we are going to have continue to make cuts from the budgets down the road. We have 50k we have to get by June 30. If you have someone that you think will make a gift, you do not need to do it, but direct them to Anders and Lily to make the asks. Also pitched that this is about 3k per trustee. If we can bring this in we will meet the budget. 

Headlines: q3 results are ahead but given enrollment we are still behind budget and will pull from the foundation. We this commitment to avoid making cuts mid year. We did find some savings driven by medical and family leave. Net income is expected to finish behind plan for next year. Where we have been able to cut we have made the cuts. 

Shared Student enrollment projections. We currently have 672 students, 75 graduate, 40-60 retained withdrawals, 50-60 natural attrition. And in SY27 we will add 180-200 students. The possible scenarios: High 680, Mid 670, Low 660. We are budgeting for the middle at 670. The operations team is consistently working on bringing in new students for next year out in the community. The projection for next year is about 20 students behind our projection from last year.

Question: How many seats do we have in our charter? We have 700 seats, which is 30 extra seats that we are not securing funding for. Which accounts for about 900k we are not able to budget by not filling all our seats. We will make sure to take every student off the waitlist

Discussed the tuition rates per student is trending up 7% for FY27, which is driven by the student opportunity act ending. Additionally, it is driven by increase in BPS budgets. The state represents about 60% of the budget, and the BPS budgets overspending is the other 40%.

Overview: however enrollment declines is still larger than that increase. We went through a process to cut about 950k while preserving the student experience. We will be cutting the private bussing for 6th grade and special education. We will be going back to BPS bussing. They have agreed to show up at the dismissal time, and we are also hiring after school program staff to support kids in the case that the busses are late. The rest of the reductions came from back office staff. Additional contingencies to support against future threats to the model including: federal grants, tuition & enrollment, and fundraising. We are going through a transition and what does this mean to preserve the donors.

The last piece is staffing realignment on the instructional side: empower principles to own their school vision, streamlining culture and instruction, and more student facing roles.

FY27 Budget Overview: the budget meets the bank covenants. Finance committee has reviewed budget on 5/5, Board is reviewing today, the finance committee will review and make final draft on 6/16 and the board will vote on a final budget in the 6/24 meeting.

Question about back office roles: we lowered facilities role, we are lowering the custodian costs, we went through tech and operation budget to reduce supplies. We thankfully we had excess Chromebook so that was a budget cut.

VaLonda shared out plans for SY27 organization. Started by thanking Meekerley and the board for the support and setting her up for success. Feels incredibly honored to be able to step into this new role, and is in awe of how much they have been able to do over the years. Aware that changes can create uncertainty. The goal is to build on the past 4 years of progress to create great experiences for students. 

The goal is to simplify, strengthen, and align. Our students thrive the most when our team is deeply aligned and share a vision of where we are headed. One of the biggest changes: is creating a chief of schools role by bringing together chief academic office and chief culture officer to further align academics and culture experiences in the school. Those roles were necessary post covid but we now need to focus on marrying the two experiences together. Strong culture drives strong academic results and we need to make sure they are tightly aligned. 

We are adding a director of student life role which will allow us to preserve and elevate our student experience. Eliminating a more back office role. The next role we are re-introducing is the chief of staff role. The goal is to centralize the board management, DESE compliance, communications, cross functional board management, freeing up other executive leadership team to focus on academic and school culture. Also, restructuring the development team for great coherence, the team will be led by Senior Advisor for external relations who will supervise the development communications manager. The goal is to align on stronger on how we move our brand strategy forward. Because it creates a tighter integration of development and communications.

The other change is that we are asking all student-facing roles and leaders will be fully in-person in SY27. Being physically present strengthens collaboration, coaching, responsiveness, and community. 

The big changes are guided by building the infrastructure to meet our mission and the processes to fulfill that mission.

Question: have individuals who need to be in building, do they know? And how has the reaction been? Everyone has been informed that it impacts, and the reactions have been mixed. But we do believe that the benefits for students. We do not think that remote work benefits the students. In this next phase of work being in person is necessary. Additionally, our charter peers does not allow for remote work for student facing roles. This is not an uncommon practice amongst our peers.

Question: Is there an update for Chief of staff and chief of schools? There are several qualified for both roles. The goal is to have both roles ironed out by the end of next week. The goal is to get them started as soon as possible.

Board reviewed the end of year events. We have senior signing day on Friday May 22nd, This will be our annual event where seniors share out where they will be headed in the fall. Graduation will be on June 11th at Boston University. The 8th grade step Up ceremony is Tuesday June 16th at Strand Theater.  We will send an invite to all of the events. All board members are invited to participate! 

The board will move to executive session.