It was determined we would randomly assign terms alphabetically by Committee.
Term 1 (due to expire in June 2019) Maria Casale, Amy Margolis and Laura Timoney.
Term 2 (due to expire in June 2020) Witt Halle, Victoria Cerullo and Lou Tobacco.
Term 3 (due to expire in June 2021) Rose Kerr, George Winn and Laurel Gyimesi.

Resolution to give the Executive Director the ability to enter into contracts for $5,000 or less without Board approval.  

We clarified contract terms with BoostEd and Line of Credit wording and entered into contracts with BoostEd and Little Bird for the pre-opening year with the option to renew. They are low cost for the first year - $5K total for both companies. The line of credit was executed for $100K with BoostEd, and we will draw on it as needed.
On 10/1/18, Tim Castanza went from 1099 consultant to full time employee on payroll at Bridge Prep.

Open Meetings Law – Handout given and compliance reviewed with board. All Board meetings and Committee meetings require advance public notice. Also reviewed was video conference rules for Board Meetings.

Start Right program with the NYC Charter Center has started with four other charter schools. They are having all day, topic-based sessions at their office at Broadway/Trinity. Tim will send topic calendar if anyone is interested in attending. Start Right also provides a resource bank for grants, peer collaboration and provided a comprehensive NYSED checklist which was given to board members.
NYSED Monthly calls – NYSED’s pre-opening checklist has dates needed to complete tasks. The list due dates start in January but they recommend we do now.
Student Recruitment – will open mid-November and go through the first week in April. We will not be using the Common Application which could trigger a lottery just by sheer # of applications.
If we need to have a lottery, it will happen on April 8 or 9 and we will use NYSED’s weighted lottery generator. It will be weighted to students with IEPs. If there are not enough students applying, there will not be a lottery. We reserve the right to fill seats up until the school opens. We are going to follow the admissions policy from our charter application.
Parent outreach – we will hold information sessions starting in November. We need to target places across the borough like PTAs, Federation, CEC, Parent Coordinators, and public and private schools. We need to be very mindful in our approach.
Lou: Do we need a marketing budget for flyers, one-pagers, ads, website and social media?
Laurel: We need to focus on under-served markets
Maria: We need to be crystal clear about applying, enrollment process, wait list and post enrollment.
There should be a release on the application – terms which are accepted to submit the application. I want to caution about parents who don’t get in.
Vickie: We need to keep good track of sign-in sheets
Good discussion was had and we agreed upon a 48-hour acceptance period. The lottery must be a public event. If we have a wait list it will go until November, the end of our first trimester.
Applications + Admissions = Enrollment
Governance – We need to give a lot of attention to our Complaint Policy
Finance – 501c3 Application – Paul from BoostEd has someone who may be able to help us pro-bono or for a small fee. We get an actual number assigned while waiting for approval and we can use immediately. Lou noted that when we can do business it should be home grown and use local ties into fundraising. If there is a conflict of interest, a waiver needs to be filed.
Bank Accounts – they are set up with Signature Bank. We are getting QuickBooks which will include a license and training. Right now BoostEd has the license. We want to have the license in Bridge Prep’s name and add BoostEd as a user on the account. Maria asked if we have looked into Peachtree and George inquired if we have reports yet from BoostEd.
Hiring – Maria asked if we have a sliding scale salary and George related it’s fixed for now. The first hires after Tim will be an Office Manager and Director of Teaching & Learning. We need to form a hiring committee and begin recruitment. George cautioned we need a statement of cash flows before doing any hiring.
CSP Grant – We need to create a list of expenses for the CSP Grant. Once that is done, we forward to Bill Brinkman and he creates the narrative for the CSP application. We anticipate this being done by the end of October to submit and the grant to be dispersed in January/February 2019.
Budgets – we have two budgets. The School Budget – which the board votes on and approves. The CSP Budget – which we plan and state our school needs. The board will review it before it goes to the state and we can amend as needed.
School Siting – We had a call with the NYC DOE on Friday and there was no movement forward. Being in a DOE building is important for our budget and to have access to Reso A Funds. Our PEP member spoke to the Chancellor and CEC 31 is preparing a resolution to site us at St. John Villa permanently and provide temporary DOE space until the school is ready. The PEP meeting will be held on Staten Island 10/30 at Petrides and there will be a public comment period. We should take advantage of that. We should outreach elected officials.
Lou: This is the BP’s legacy and he should be made aware before we outreach other elected officials.
The BP has reached out to the Mayor and has a meeting on 10/24 with the Deputy Chancellor responsible for siting schools.

We are reviewing the financial policies and procedures manual and need to have Vickie review now that she is back. We need to have at the November meeting to approve and send to NYSED. It then goes to an audit firm for review and comment. We are going to interview audit firms and have 4 names given to us by BoostEd. We should have this done 120 days from charter authorization and BoostEd should have been on this. BoostEd has given us a boilerplate but details need to be worked out. This is a complex and needs to be in place as soon as possible. It is our standard operating procedure and the governing document for our financial performance. Once we spend $50K, it triggers an audit.

BoostEd will be providing reports for all future board meetings. 

The Committee shared the process to add a new board member which can be lengthy and requires a background check and fingerprinting for approximately $59.00.  We ask that the school absorb this cost and move Frank Santarpia forward in the recruitment process.  
Laura will find out from NYSED if this needs to be done for all current board members who have not been fingerprinted yet.

The Governance Committee recommends engaging Board On Track for an annual membership at the cost of $12K. We would need to commit to $1K now and the rest payable upon dispersement of the CSP Grant. Board on Track provides training, development, recruitment and alignment to help our board become a best practices board.

Maria would like to review the curriculum on the market and have the Academic Committee meet.