Dr. Celepcikay states this action item was removed from the board agenda during the last board meeting held on November 12, 2022.  Mr. Ay informs the committee members that similar to other policy sets we had our legal team look at the policies to assure they are up to date as each year the state legislation has required updates.  The majority of the changes are legal updates as well as minor wording changes.  

Joseph Hoffer reviews the policy updates with the committee members.  Upon Mr. Stewarts request, Joe updates the committee on the "new" policies listed.  Mr. Balaman informs the board that Policy 1.11 Board Meetings is in regards to us not having a board meeting policy in our prior set.  We have always had board operating procedures in place that is subject to the open meetings act and these procedures have now been turned into an official policy.  Mr. Hoffer states that this policy goes over how board meetings are conducted, when they need to be conducted under the Open Meetings Act and this correlates with your governance documents and by-laws.  Most of this comes from the Attorney Generals Open Meetings Act handbook.  Mr. Hoffer states the reason behind new policy 1.12 School Property is that the board shall oversee all use of public property and the fiduciary responsibilities.  

Mr. Stewart asks about policy 1.21 Exhibit EOP Template and Mr. Balaman states this was due to the latest legislative session regarding additional requirements related to schools emergency operations plan.  This has been shared with our Programs Department under Health and Safety and was approved by Schulman, Hoffer, Lopez attorneys.  Mr. Hoffer states with the passing of the new school safety bills the board is required to adopt a multi-hazard emergency operations plan.  We have created this plan and keyed it to the Texas School Safety Centers plan and this will be the foundational document that all our safety and security procedures will be based upon.  This is a procedural manual and is required for the board to adopt and will be a living document that the safety and security committees continue to use.  

Dr. Celepcikay thanks Mr. Hoffer and Mr. Balaman for there work on these policy updates.

Dr. Bayhan announces that Harmony has won the TASBO Finance Award and we are the first and only charter school to receive this award.  This will be announced later in the Finance Committee Meeting.

Mr. Stewart congratulates the team and is proud to be a part of the team.  Dr. Celepcikay also praises Dr. Bayhan and his team for this accomplishment.