Mr. Ay informs the board that Harmony Public Schools was awarded an eight million dollar grant specifically targeting elementary schools that will be used to replicate our STEM model.  This grant was awarded to only 16 districts nationwide and Harmony was one of them.

Mr. Stewart states there is a correction to be made regarding a board members comment regarding starting 2018-2019 Academic Year board meetings at 9:00 AM or 10:00 AM instead of 12:00 PM but that it was placed vice-versa.

Dr. Bayhan presents the minutes and actions of the Finance Committee that was held on September 14, 2018 at 1:30 PM.  There were five committee members present including Mr. Stewart, Dr. Celepcikay, Dr. Bayhan, Dr. Bayar, Dr. Kose with one member absent Ms. Morales.  Dr. Bayhan states there were 2 review items covered in the meeting, 9 action items and 1 closed session.  The committee reviewed master agreement with Region 10 ESC and HSA-Grand Prairie new classroom building project.  The committee reviewed and awarded the following: Event Catering Services Procurement, Online Training System, Dell-Server consolidation and Data Center Project (valued 250K or more), Harmony School of Technology Houston gym renovation project, Harmony School of Business and Political Science Roof Maintenance Project, Harmony School of Innovation Carrollton Gym Rebid Project change order, and Harmony Science Academy Beaumont AC Repairs change order.  The construction department and finance committee recommended rejecting Harmony School of Discovery Houston Expansion project and HPS Houston North District Sport Field Project to extend the timeline in order to receive more reasonable proposals from contractors.  Finally, the Finance Committee had a closed session item regarding the next agenda item that would be presented by Dr. Bayhan regarding purchasing/lease regarding property in El Paso.

Dr. Kanlioglu asked where the data center is for HPS and Dr. Bayhan states it is in Houston in Central Office and a back-up is in Austin.  Mr. Ay also confirms regarding location in Houston Central Office and a back-up in Austin and this is for all data.  Dr. Bayhan states that each school has their own server however it is much safer to have a back-up for all data in these locations and it is a 2 year project.

Dr. Bayhan informs the board that they are currently in the process of reviewing and revising their policies and procedures.  He states in purchasing and contracting policy they were using Superintendent title previously and updated this using Mr. Ay's title of Chief Executive Officer title.  This update will also allow us to unify contracts with several different vendors and upon speaking with our attorney we would be able to have one single contract for HPS and ask them to sign our terms instead of the vendors terms.  Sometimes when we sign contracts with vendors it binds us for several years but this would allow us to have vendor's work on our terms.  This change would also allow our Deputy Superintendent Mr. Alp the ability to sign the contracts as well on behalf of Harmony.

Mr. Ay states we would like to renegotiate with vendors because some of the contracts are not in our favor.  All contracts and renewals still have to come to the board but with minor changes to delegate this.

Dr. Celepcikay states that this policy would be a master contract that would allow us to work with vendors on our terms and would save money in the long term regarding attorney fees as well.  Mr. Ay states this is correct and this will save us a lot of time and will allow us to create our own contract instead of going with individual vendor contracts which cost time and money to review.

Mr. Stewart states there will be one universal  policy instead of individual policies to bring upfront to contracts to save time and money. 

Dr. Bayhan states this is a small project and will assist in a conflict with one of our neighbors used for parking.  The neighbor is asking us to sell a portion of our land so that instead of having a 15 foot easement we would have a 10 foot easement.  Thus we are selling 2,500 square feet of land totaling $11,000.  Dr. Bayhan states this was discussed in the finance committee as well.

Dr. Bayhan states this was a closed session item for the finance committee.  On February 21, 2018 this project was approved and he states there is 18 acres of undeveloped land and is 3.75 dollars per square foot.  HPS is requesting to enter into a lease agreement with Charter School Solutions to finalize the process.  

 

Dr. Ozer states in the past Academic Committee meeting there was a request from the committee to present Harmony's Accountability Results to the board.  Dr. Ozer states that in the attachments you should be able to see all of the materials that we will cover.  Dr. Ozer covers what the Accountability results entail and what the Texas Education Agency looks at.  The summary shows that all districts in Harmony received an "A" rating besides one district (Austin) which was one point away from an "A" but ended up getting a "B".  In regards to Public and Charter Districts in Texas there are 1200 districts and only 12.8% received an "A" rating and 29.7% received a "B" and 57.7% received lowered grades.  Among those numbers there were 177 Charter Districts which 18.1% received an "A" and 12.4 received a "B" and 69.5% scored lower.  Out of these 177 Charter Districts 6 Harmony Charters received an "A" and only 26 other charters scored an "A".  In regards to the 1200 districts in Texas only 61 districts received Postsecondary Designation and of these numbers Harmony had 4 of these designations.  In regards to our competitors such as KIPP, Yes Prep, IDEA, and Uplift none of these districts received an "A".  In regards to nearby districts Fort Bend received a "B" and HISD received a "B".  There are only a few districts who received an "A" and looking at our schools we still need to keep this momentum to gain these scores.  Dr. Ozer then informs the board of how these scores came about and what Harmony must to do keep these numbers.

Daisy asks if the Chronicle picked this up and Dr. Ozer states yes they did.

Dr. Celepcikay states one of the striking items seen was in terms of our size we make up only 2 percent regarding our size but have 20 percent of the "A" ratings.  Also not to take away from other district accomplishments but we have large district sizes such as 8-9 schools and some other charter districts only have 1 school.  This is a great team effort

Dr. Ozer states that the Academic Committee met on September 14, 2018 and the first item that was covered was the item I just covered which was Harmony's accountability rating.  The second item was Harmony's curriculum frameworks for Fine Arts, Music, and Physical Education by Ms. Thomas our liaison for the curriculum for these areas.  Harmony has curriculum frameworks for mostly core subjects but there was a need for the curriculum for these fine arts.  During the summer there was a curriculum writing camp and many campus individuals were invited to develop a structure regarding TEA curriculum framework and created learning targets from those standards.  We came up with target assessments that give flexibility for teachers to put their own color to what they are doing as this is an area for more independence and creativity.  I believe our investment paid off and teachers felt valued and were able to bring their expertise to this.  We are hoping to provide more support to PE, music and art from Central Office.

Ms. MacDonald states when speaking to families the first thing cut from schools is liberal arts and feels it is a commitment from Harmony for those programs.  It is exciting to hear each month what we need to do to get better and it is even more exciting to hear the accountability report and that it has paid off.

Mr. Stewart states one challenge is merging STEM courses to the fine arts.  One thing that Ms. Thomas added was bringing some infrastructure to these programs and empowering them as well.  

Mr. Polat informs the board that Harmony School of Excellence has opened a little late due to construction.  The campus opened 6 days late and has to make small changes to their schedule to assure the appropriate amount of minutes are met due to TEA requirement.  These minutes will made up due to their school day schedule but one day had to be added to the school year on the last day of school to assure these minute requirements were met.  

Dr. Celepcikay states instead of May 30, 2019 it will be May 31, 2019 and Mr. Polat states that is correct.

Dr. Bayhan states that he will be discussing the update regarding our policies and procedures that was discussed previously for the delegation of contract execution authority for purchasing and professional services.  We are asking to add the Deputy Superintendent for authorization to sign contracts on behalf of Harmony Public Schools and asking authorization for executive officers to sign contracts up to $50,000 which would cover all Chiefs and Area Superintendents.  This would revoke the 2013 resolution and would keep the 2015 resolution and add the new delegation changes.

Dr. Celepcikay states when we approved the previous resolution there was an update to the policy but this is separate to assure there is a resolution for the changes regarding delegation.

Dr. Celepcikay announces that board members will be going into closed session as permitted by Texas Open Meeting Act Chapters 551071 and Chapters 551074.

Closed Session begins 12:53 PM

Dr. Celepcikay starts regular session at 1:37 PM

Dr. Celepcikay states in closed session the board had discussions, shared feedback and evaluation results but there was no action taken.