None.

Dr. Celepcikay announces that board members will be going into closed session as permitted by Texas Open Meeting Act Chapters 551071 and Chapters 551082 and Chapters 5510821.

Closed Session begins 6:40pm

Dr. Celepcikay starts regular session at 6:58pm

Dr. Celepcikay states in closed session there was no action was taken.

Dr. Akyildiz presented the meeting minutes for the Finance Committee Meeting that was held on March 19, 2018 at 6:00PM.  The attendees included committee chair Ms. Morales, Dr. Celepcikay, Dr. Kose, Dr. Bayar, Dr. Akyildiz and Mr. Homer Stewart was absent.  There were no public comments made.  During the meeting updated activity fund procedures were reviewed.  The committee also reviewed the finance committee meeting calendar and the decision was tabled to the next meeting.  There was a closed session for real estate related matters and meeting was adjourned.  The Finance Committee Meeting was adjourned at 7:20PM and Dr. Akyildiz informs the board that the minutes are found within their packets.

Dr. Akyildiz informs the board the lease agreement that was signed with Charter School Solutions that was reviewed by the Finance Committee for property in North Houston Texas.  This is for a new building in Houston North and Charter School Solutions will build the building with the lease that was signed.  Dr. Akyildiz states that the same language is used for this contract that has been adopted previously.  Dr. Celepcikay asks if the building is ready.  Dr. Akyildiz replies and states that Charter School Solutions has purchased the land and will build the building by hopefully 2019.  Dr. Celepcikay asks what grade levels will be housed in this building.  Dr. Akyildiz replies by stating it will be for Kinder through 5th grade and a feeder campus to the Harmony School of Discovery campus.

Ms. Jennifer Malloy presents to the board regarding instructional materials allotment.  Ms. Malloy states that the documents she is presenting to the board states that we are teaching our curriculum in Kindergarten through 12th grade and are aligning our subjects one hundred percent with TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills).  The documents are required to be signed and sent in to the Texas Education Agency on a yearly basis.  Mr. Stewart asks if there were any major changes to instructional materials since last year.  Ms. Malloy states there were not many significant changes but that we do have a big ELA adoption coming up for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Dr. Ozer 

Dr. Ozer presented the meeting minutes for the Finance Committee Meeting that was held on March 23, 2018 at 12:00PM.  There was only one item discussed during the meeting which was upcoming accountability system.  The new system is an A, B, C, D and F accountability system.  In 2018 our seven districts will receive a rating which includes A for exemplary, B for recognized, C for acceptable, D and F will be considered failing.  Campuses will get their first ratings in 2019 not for this year but at the end of next year.  The new changes place more emphasis on individual student's success regardless of being high performing or low performing.  In domain one it's all about student achievement in passing and domain 2 is student growth.  Dr. Ozer also mentions that TEA is now considering the amount of economically disadvantaged students and will take into consideration the demographics of the campus and TEA is also looking to close achievement gaps among those groups.  Dr. Ozer states him and his committee will review the data in August and review the data to shift their focus in certain areas.  Dr. Ozer also states that upon reviewing this information they will share with the board.

Mr. Stewart asks that TEA is looking into demographics and at what stand point are they taking into consideration.  Dr. Ozer states an example of having an economically disadvantage rage of fifty percent.  If a campus has a fifty eight percent passing rating with this economically disadvantaged rating this could still be rated an A campus.  However, if you have one hundred percent economically you only need forty nine percent to get this rating.  If you are in a zero to five percent economically disadvantaged area you must have at least eighty three percent of students pass to be rated an A campus.  Thus, they use a matrix to determine the ratings but this will not be done until testing is completed.  Dr. Ozer states that this comes as appreciation to educators in those challenging campuses.

Mr. Stewart asks if this will be the first year this is implemented and Dr. Ozer states for this year only districts.  Thus, this year we will be given scores for our 7 districts.  In January 2019 they will unofficially send letters to campuses stating what there rating would have been if there were a rating on this unofficially.

Dr. Koc asks if the numbers Dr. Ozer gave regarding scoring are set or still developing.  Dr. Ozer states they are still developing as the numbers he gave were only part of domain 2 and they will be looking at all domains but they have not finalized the official accountability book and this is just a sample but the number won't be much different.

Dr. Koc asks just to clarify the numbers for 2017-2018 will be for districts and next year the campuses will get ratings.  Dr. Ozer states yes this is correct but the campus ratings will not be announced to the public and will be unofficial.

Ms. MacDonald states how important it will be for board members to understand the new system because they may have to explain it to parents and it could affect enrollment.

Ms. Morales states that she would like talking points created for this internally.

Dr. Kanlioglu asks how often we update our demographics regarding disadvantaged, race, and other things.  Dr. Ozer states at the beginning of the year with lunch application and other information but with students coming in and out it is a continuous effort and this occurs all the time.  Mr. Ay mentions that this is also found through PEIMS typically taken in October.

Ms. Baca

Ms. Baca explains that the geographic boundaries that we are bound to accept students from have to live within these boundaries in order to go to our campuses.  Each year we have an application from outside of that boundaries and those students would not be allowed to attend our campus.  Thus, the campus submits there request to us and we apply to TEA to add those to our boundaries.

Dr. Celepcikay asks why TEA won't allow us to expand our geographic boundaries to encompass all these greater areas.  Ms. Baca states when we apply for the charter we have a list of ISD's we can accept students from.  Mr. Ay states that we have done this in the past where it encompasses a 30 to 50 mile radius but most likely we have a student wanting to attend one of our campuses that is 50 to 60 miles away.  

Ms. Baca states that the opening of these two campuses were previously approved by the board and TEA but due to delays we are requesting a one year postponement and to open these campuses during the 2019-2020 Academic Year.

Dr. Celepcikay asks what campus is being delayed for the Harmony School of Excellence charter and Mr Ay states that it is the North Houston campus in which we just approved the lease agreement and the other campus is the Fort Worth project.

Ms. Baca states the request is to extend our re-enrollment period.  The current re-enrollment period is December 1st through January 2nd.  The campuses feel more time is needed for parents to be able to accommodate their parents and are requesting an additional two weeks which would then be December 1st through the fourth Friday in January.

Dr. Celepcikay asks why we can't just have it be the last day of January.  Mr. Ay replies by stating the campuses are looking to have more time to prepare for their lottery process and this would allow them to do so and with this being around the holidays we want to also give our parents more time to re-enroll their students.  Ms. Baca also states that this was the language that was reviewed and approved by our legal team prior to proposal.

Dr. Kanlioglu asks when the lottery is held for Harmony.  Ms. Baca states the lottery is completed 15 days after the closure of our applications.

Ellen MacDonald states that she has two items she would like to share.  The first is for the next Academic Committee Meeting it will be a 3 hour meeting and all the districts will be coming and sharing their assessments for the year they are concluding and their plans to address needs they have identified for the next year.  Ms. MacDonald then informed all board members they are invited to attend this meeting if they are interested.  Dr. Ozer made a comment that he can send a reminder to all board members of this as well.  The second item is to inform the board members and all here know that her church St. Philliips Presbyterian is the Houston Satellite for National Program called Kids Against Hunger.  They have been doing this since 2009 and put together an assembly line of various nutrients approved by a national nutrition program and are easy meals for people who do not have access in certain countries and after natural disasters like the hurricane.  Ms. MacDonalds states that one of the Harmony High Schools are participating in the program this Saturday.  Since 2009 they have packed over 1 million meals and when the students come this Saturday they will be packing over ten thousand meals this Saturday that will be delivered to different areas of Houston as well as different countries in need.