• 2021 Turkey Brigade was able to provide dinners to 200 families in the local area.
• FRCS Debate team held their first tournament
• FRCS Girls Volleyball captured the 9th consecutive Charter School State Title

The board requested the stats on personnel vacancies and transfers which were not available for the meeting.  Annie Azarloza gave an update on recent hiring.  
 

RECENT HIRES

• MS Behavior Interventionalist
• MS Art Teacher
• ES Physical Education Teacher
• ES 1st Grade Teacher
• Administrative Staff Member for Culture & Learning

OPEN POSITIONS

• Approximately ten open positions including:
  • MS Assistant Principal, narrowed to 2 finalists
  • Grant Writer
  • Director of Human Resources
  • 5 Long Term substitute teachers to support maternity leaves this winter/spring

Ray Pavao presented with support from Aimee Sullivan an overview of the High School Science department's offerings to students. They walked the board through the curriculum, staff, and changes for students as they are newly entering the High School.  Their presentation is available with the meeting materials.

• Reworking the mission statement
• Discussed the uniform survey results
• Discussed disciplinary policies and gaps in the policies.  example: Bad behavior on school transportation.

PIE has not submitted any updates to the Board of Trustees but the upcoming Holiday Fair will be hosted by the PIE.

• The Enrollment Committee heard one appeal since the last board meeting.  The committee did not grant the appeal.
• School year 2022/2023 we have received 600 applications since 01DEC2021 when the application opened.
• Current enrollment is 1667.  The school cap is 1700 and budget number is 1675
  • This has been an unusual year for withdrawals.  Karen Calvert reported that at the last MA Charter School meeting she attended schools have seen a drop in enrollment between 1-5% across the commonwealth.
  • When we make midyear offers we have not been able to also offer transportation due to the existing waitlist
  • We will continue to make offers through February but do not expect a high rate of acceptance at this point in the year.

• The Board reviewed the materials submitted by Matt Harrington for discussion.
• The Elementary School Gym has not seen any progress in working with the companies that installed/manufactured it. The Board agreed it was time to involve our legal counsel. Matt Harrington will reach out to legal.
• The BARK System has been installed on the student network, which improves the school safety.  BARK notifies the school administration and key staff to threats to the school as a whole or an individual considering self-harm. The BARK System works on school and personal devices. The system assesses the incident and rates it low, medium, or high concern, and alerts the school appropriately based on a set of criteria.   Since the system was installed it trigged one escalation that resulted in a positive outcome for the student involved.
• The Board also briefly discussed the use of WIFI networks and the expectations of anyone using a network they do not personally own. 
  • The Board asked Matt Harrington to have our legal counsel review the WIFI joining acceptance message since it has not been updated in a few years. The Guest, Staff & Student messages could be looked at differently. 

• Currently trending as expected
• We have had a large swing in expenses compared to last year when the majority of the school worked from home.
• The annual tuition reimbursement rate is still pending from DESE

• Giving Tuesday raised $2000
• The foundation has mapped out an ambitious plan for 2022. There will be no Foundation meeting in December but will resume at the end of January. 

• We have 8 candidates for potential future Board of Trustee Members
• 6 candidates are current parents
• The Subcommittee is working on a list of questions for interviews.

• Metrics on discipline this year
• compared to a pre-pandemic year.
• review it for fair and equitable application