Melisa Lemire, Board Chair, introduced Danielle Canty as candidate to join the Board of Trustees. Lemire confirmed that Canty had already completed the candidate process, which included meetings with members of the Governance Committee and School Leaders, in addition to shadowing the October 2022 Board Meeting. She asked Canty to share a bit a out her background and desire to join the Board.

Canty shared that she is a graduate of City on a Hill, a parent, and has experience in the retail operations sector. She thanked the Board for the opportunity, and noted that she looked forward to being able to positively contribute to her alma mater.

Lemire then shared with the Board that Jacqueline Bennett's first term had come to an end, and the Governance Committee would now present her for approval of a second term. She thanked Bennett for her three years of service to City on a Hill, and Trustees echoed her thanks. Bennett thanked the Board in return, and shared her enthusiasm for continuing on as a Trustee.

Sonya Pratt, City on a Hill (CoaH), Executive Director, began with school updates. CoaH is currently in the middle of second quarter and progress reports have gone out.  The School’s Academic Committee, which is staffed by Lead Teachers of each department and welcomes all teachers, has completed an academic assessment and found that CoaH has been trending upward in comparison to results from the same period last year and continues to be on track to hit all academic goals. Pratt also shared that the School has been consistently meeting or exceeding its weekly attendance goal of 85% average weekly attendance and plans to raise the bar to 90%. She cited strong collaboration between teachers, Student Support staff, and families as a key factor in that result.

Next, Pratt shared that, as the school year progresses, there continues to be opportunities of engagement for Board members to participate and get more involved with the students directly. Midterms at CoaH are traditionally a week long and include written tests as well as oral proficiencies.  Board members are invited to engage with Pratt’s students and participate in “Moot Court” during midterm week, in addition to the oral proficiencies that will be held in the Spring as final exams. Board members can also donate to the Professional Dress Fund, as students are required to dress appropriately for all oral presentations during midterm week. The Board inquired as to what types of clothing would be most appropriate. Pratt confirmed that business casual and business formal attire was sought, and that School Leadership would follow-up with additional information about where donations could be brought. 

Next, Pratt shared with the Board that she has coordinated a cross-functional enrollment and attrition task force which consists of staff members from the student recruitment, community engagement, operations, data, and compliance teams. This team will be tasked with not only creating and implementing a comprehensive student recruitment plan for School Year 2023-2024, but also ensuring that student attrition across all grades is also reduced. CoaH has been working on enrollment by deploying the following marketing methods: bus ads, radio ads, on site student shadowing, shelter ads etc. CoaH has been analyzing historical data, both before the COVID-19 Pandemic and before the consolidation of CoaH’s former Network in to a single school to determine how its current enrollment, application, accepted figures compare to those of earlier years.The most attrition is with CoaH’s upperclassmen, which the School believes relates to those classes’ experiences transitioning into high school during the COVID-19 Pandemic and staffing issues that affected their courses. Pratt confirmed that the School is taking action by meeting with all upperclassmen families to discuss support plans.

Finally, Pratt confirmed that the School has very successfully reduced the amount of suspensions at CoaH, which is tracking lower than that of the rate from the same time in school year 2021-2022 and is on track to stay below the School’s goal of no more than 10% of students receiving suspensions in the current school year. She shared, however, that a recurring behavioral issue in the school has been students vaping, which many Schools have struggled with after returning to in-person learning following the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a result, CoaH has teamed up with an organization to help students and their families to understand the harms of vaping and work with them - this approach has been exponentially more effective with CoaH students than disciplining them for such issues. 

Ted Gildea, Board Vice Chair & Treasurer, continued with updates on the status of Circuit Street Construction. Gildea reminded the Board that the scope of said construction has expanded from CoaH’s original plans to install partitions in classrooms to create smaller breakout space to also include the conversion of about 600 sq ft into an office space for administrators and leadership, many of whom do not currently have dedicated work space on campus. NV5, the School’s Project Manager, has been tasked with further reviewing the budget to get closer to the School’s targeted budget, which is continuing to cause delays in the project. Gildea shared that, assuming the project manager is able to produce a budget aligned with the School’s means, the bidding process will begin in early 2023 with the goal of completion by the end of summer 2023. Gildea also confirmed that given the School’s current budget and goals, the School is not currently seeking to pursue Phase 2, which would have included new construction to the building. Trustees inquired as to Gildea’s estimate of what this project should cost, given his background in commercial real estate. Gildea shared that the School’s project differs from that of his work in that the procedures and requirements of using public funds are more strenuous, which leads to higher costs. He did confirm, however, that taking this into account, he believes there are still areas in which the budget could be reduced and Leadership is awaiting an updated budget to that purpose. 

Lemire moved on to update the Board on the Governance Committee meeting that took place earlier in the day. Lemire noted that CoaH is in compliance with all elements of the School’s probationary conditions. In terms of Board growth, the Governance Committee would like to add 2-3 more members to the Board, and reminded members to share the Trustee job description with their networks. Lemire then transitioned to discussing Spring meeting logistics. She shared that the Board is planning to move to in-person meetings given that the current law that permits the board to hold these meetings remotely has a current expiration date of March 31, 2023. She confirmed that this will also apply to all Committee meetings, and asked all Committee Chairs to discuss necessary timing and location shifts during the February Committee meetings.

Annie Azarloza, Committee Chair, gave the Board an update on the student's academic progress. She confirmed Pratt’s assertions about the positive academic trends seen across the School’s academic goals, and reiterated the School’s focus on upperclassmen given their introduction to high school being virtual and the higher stakes of beginning to look towards post-secondary life. All other updates were covered earlier in the meeting.

Next, Gildea provided updates from the Executive Director Support Committee, which included the mid-year Executive Director evaluation and evaluated a proposal for an amendment to Pratt’s employment contract.  Gildea shared that Pratt gave a comprehensive presentation on her progress to goals, which she listed as:

1. Following through on next steps related to the City on a Hill charter probation;
2. Creating a strategic plan through school year 2027-2028;
3. Develop a multi-year enrollment and attrition plan utilizing the Enrollment and Attrition task force;
4. Strengthening the relationship of the Board and School by creating opportunities for engagement with School programming; and
5. Participating in professional development cohorts and executive coaching to hone skills as organizational leader.

Gildea shared that the Committee believes that, based on her presentation of benchmarks met and plans for the spring semester, that Pratt has demonstrated strong performance in her time as Executive Director and proven to be on track with reaching all of her school year 2022-2023 goals. He confirmed that the Committee unanimously voted to recommend a satisfactory evaluation and pay out 100% of Pratt’s midyear bonus potential, which is currently $7,000. 

Next, Gildea transitioned the Board to the Committee’s next recommendation to increase Pratt's bonus potential. Currently, Pratt’s bonus potential is $6,000 lower than her predecessors’. Gildea shared that, following discussion with Pratt, the Committee confirmed that, despite being the Executive Director of a single school rather than a Network, there have been no reductions in the work requirements of the Superintendent (Executive Director) role, as Pratt and her District Team of three have also absorbed additional responsibilities previously held at the Network (District) level given the loss of roughly 10 roles during the consolidation of CoaH into a single school in July 2020.  Gildea shared that, based on the discussion with Pratt and their satisfaction with Pratt’s performance, the Committee unanimously voted to recommend an increase in the Executive Director annual bonus potential from $14,000 to $20,000. 

Ted Gildea, Treasurer, shared that CoaH has remained on target with the school year 2022-2023 budget, with many expenses, such as legal and personnel costs, coming in lower than expected. He confirmed that all other updates were given earlier in the meeting. 

Jordan Pina, Chief of Staff, walked the Board through the Organizational Goals Dashboard, which provides updates across all departments of the School, including academics and operations. She briefly reiterated the highlights and challenges related to the academic goals that were shared earlier in the meeting, before directing the attention of the Board to the new information related to District-level goals.  She confirmed CoaH has continued to evaluate the needs of its student population and staff members following the return to in-person learning in Spring 2021, and is currently planning updates to the School’s HVAC system. On the community engagement front, Pratt shared that there was a great turnout for the School’s recent community food drive, and a clothing drive is currently underway.