Roll call for attendance, Jon Here, Claire Here, Vanessa Here, David Here, Natalie Here, Sarah Here, Mayeti Here, Jon Here, Kim Here, Meekerley Here, David Wolff Here. David Berkley, Josh, Jovi, Bryant not here. 

Opened up the meeting and welcomed the board to the new year. We reviewed the overall agenda for the meeting. Conducted an ice breaker to conduct a warm and positive tone. 

School staff expressed new logistics for Board Meetings. Anders will be school staff on point for tech issues and we will have a parking lot for questions that come up during the board meetings. We are open to feedback on this new system.

A board priority is making sure that we have qualified staff to educate our students. We reviewed Jewel who is our HR talent acquisition manager. Meekerley reviewed the history of HR at Boston Prep and what it is currently is. Currently, HR consists of Chief of Staff, Director of HC, HR Manager, and Talent Acquisition Manager, and CFO. The main focus currently determining the policies and structures needed to respond to a multi-generational workforce. And determining the needed workforce size in response to the current student enrollment. She also requested if the Board has recommendations on new staff options or ideas to please email HR. 

Current key considerations are the size, composition, retention, and salary for our staff. Currently we have 143 full time staff, this is 33% increase from SY22. Over 60% of BP staff are in years 1-3, with progress in increasing the number of BIPOC staff. The target retention is 65% overall retention for SY26. Our salaries are competitive with charter peers but slightly below Boston Public Schools. Our benefits though surpass charter peers. 

Lauren launched discussion on Human Capital because she oversees the team. Discussion questions: General questions/What data is missing? And How do we leverage human capital to support achieve our goal of overall really good schooling? To start discussions, school conducted a broad overview of Human capital at Boston Prep school-- total staff, the composition of staff, the retention of staff, etc. We are also compared this to composition of school staff and students at schools across MA. We know that students being taught by teachers who look like them is extremely beneficial for them. This is a commitment for us at Boston Prep. This is something we think about as we recruit our teachers, currently the teacher pipeline for all students training to become teachers does not reflect the need for diverse teachers. Over the years at Boston Prep our diverse staff has increased. Currently, our diverse teachers are greater. Lauren reviewed the average tenure for staff at Boston Prep, right not the tenure is under 4 years. We want to bring teachers into the fabric of Boston Prep and train them really well and then retain them. It benefits our students when they see consistency in their teachers. We reviewed the average salaries by departments. 

Questions asked: 

- My employer started sending us a mailer that outlines the “value” of all of our compensation (think pie chart) that outlines how much I get paid AND the value of my healthcare, retirement, etc. Maybe would be helpful for the teachers that are newer to the workforce.

-Is there data on teachers/staff per student - how has that changed over time? 

-  What % of BP teachers (as opposed to all staff) are in years 1-3

Lauren reviewed the compensation working group. The context is that CFO and COS work with a working group that reviews the overall benefits and salaries that Boston Prep offers to make sure that the offerings are competitive and meeting the needs and goals of the school. Our key questions right now is how do we attract and retain talent in years 1-3? How do we leverage our compensation packages to support this effort? Currently, the compensation working group has three ideas they are deciding between. As we overall think about the overall strategies of the school, we want to make sure that there is a clear talent strategy that aligns with the school goals. There is a whole education context to understand- less people are going into teaching due to factors post the pandemic. We are grappling with critical question of what will motivate our students to stay through many years and feel supported. 

Outcomes committee led discussion about what the implications of the the MA ballot question #2. The vote determined that it is now up to each individual district to determine local graduation requirements and local competency determinations demonstrating students' mastery of 10th grade standards. All schools will be required to have students sit and take the MCAS still. Now graduating means local graduation requirements and local competency determination. We reviewed with outcomes committee and staff to align new graduation requirements with our mission of preparing students for four years colleges. We have always said the MCAS is not the ceiling for graduation requirements, but rather the floor. We want students still being able to show they can meet this requirement. 

We are proposing the following graduation requirements:  Local graduation requirements will be MCAS score of 470 in ELA, Math, Sciences (Physics or biology) and the local competency determination is passing core requirements (ELA, language, History, science, math, PE/Health, arts, electives, ethics, summer enrichment) including an increased weight for IAs from 10% to 20% of final score. Also, passing the ethics defense. This means that the graduation requirements will not shift for students, and expectations will remain the same. Meekerley met with charter schools and this seems aligned with what they are proposing of doing. Discussed how families will feel about this, and emphasized that this aligns with the mission and what families want for their students. 

We will continue visit this on the outcomes committee and come up with a cadence of how these requirements should be evaluated. 

Meekerley led conversation that we want to make sure we have an immigration policy in place to meet the needs of all students. All students have the right to an education, and we will continue to meet this needs. In the agenda there is a hype link to react and address if ICE agents came to the school with a warrant. We want to have the needed steps in place on how to handle. We met with our school lawyers to make sure these are the accurate and necessary steps. Overall steps: notify school leadership, involve legal counsel, request identification, request documentation, inform parents, maintain privacy. 

Opened it up for questions. It was emphasized that we want to make sure there is an effort to have privacy within the school building by relocating the individuals to a private space. Board members brought up steps and district liability for bus stops and students being dropped off. This is important because we do pay for private bussing. We are going to norm expectations for bus drivers and bus monitors.  Also considering what to do if we see ICE in general community but not in our school yet. Are there steps we will follow here? There are also considerations on how to partner Boston PD

This conversation brought up that there school be an amendment to the campus visitor policy. Boston Prep encourages that community members visiting should have an appointment, they should not photograph or video the school without permission, you must show an ID and they will get a sign in sticker-- this allows us to have a running record of anyone who comes to campus.  This is in our handbook and we wanted to make the board aware. 

Governance informed that they have completed the midyear data gathering for Meekerley's evaluation, which is part of our evaluation cycle. And reviewed the overall cycle of the evaluation. 

Additionally, the Board received a survey. It is requested that the board take time to complete this Bellweather Survey. It will be in their inbox from Robert Carpenter from the MCPSA. This survey helps the school team understand where the board could use support. We would like to use these responses to help our board retreat planning. The Board retreat will be having in March.

The Board retreat will be Friday March 21st, 8:00 AM- 1:00 PM in Downtown Boston. We hope to have everyone there in person. Tentative agenda: relationship building, school updates, board roles, goal development, etc. 

Tyler reviewed the overall finances of the school and preparatory foundation. The bank sees them as the same entity. Explained high overview of how we plan for our revenue and expenses-- making sure that they are even to keep us in a safe financial space. Also reviews how charter schools are funding: Per pupil tuition, federal grants, and fundraising. Fundraising is used to support additional educational opportunities and experiences. 

Kim emphasized that it is a big fiduciary responsibility of the board to support with fundraising efforts and understand how funding works. 

Tyler explained how the tuition rate is a combination of two things: state foundation rate and the above foundation rate. This is what gets us to 28k per student. Also reviewed the overall MA budget cycle. The main issue around tuition rate, student enrollment is the biggest challenge. In the past we had much longer lists of wait lists. Our cap for students is 700 and we are having challenges getting this number fully enrolled. The school team has many efforts in action for student enrollment. 

Discussed what Boston Prep expenses are. Staffing is our largest expense, 2/3 of budget, building costs, students and administrative costs. And reviewed the timeline for planning the budget for the following year. 

Tyler gave overview of financial accountability that we must comply with and how we are doing with it to date. And how this plays into the charter renewal progress. 

Lauren explained how development works and that in future meetings we will be going in depth with the development strategy at Boston Prep

Anders talked about the Toast and how we hope the Board gets involved with this big fundraising effort. The Toast is April 4th at AFH. We look forward to celebrating the school and the work we do.