Monthly Board Meeting structure - we will keep board meetings to 1 hour and be committee driven.  Chair noted the Board of Regents as an example.  We will have reports from committees, which is where important work happens. At board meetings there will be a report to the board and votes if needed. Each committee will have up to 10 minutes to report. The discussions that typically happen at a board meeting will now happen in committee.  We will open the dial-in line for 15 minutes at the start of the meeting.  If no one is on the call, we will close the line. 
 

January - we have a board meeting scheduled for January 8th.  The EC would like to propose a 2nd board meeting in late January to make up a board meeting.  The first meeting on Jan 8th will be an abbreviated board meeting and a special meeting. The later meeting will be a more informative board meeting. 
 

The Academic Committee will meet in January to finalize the dashboard to be more informational and not just data with breakdowns and discuss behavior management. For the behavior management call, include George Winn and the DSI. GW wants the call regarding behaviors to happen before the Christmas break as there are timely decisions to be made. 

Board on Track is working out well.  They are giving us the structure we need for the board.  We know we are a smaller board and need to expand.  They gave us sample job descriptions that we will tailor to include the time commitment we seek. We thought we built into the charter and bylaws the ability to put non-board members on committees. We do not have that structure built in but do have advisory members and committee structures.  We will go back to the bylaws to include allowing non-members on committees. This is not a material change to the bylaws but amending the bylaws and requires a vote.  This will be prepared for the January meeting.

Recruitment - we are writing job specs and focused on how to keep the board strong and diverse going forward. Board on Track has us on an accelerated track to do this with weekly calls. Our current board needs include business, finance, real estate, development, marketing or operations experience.  We are solid with academic experience.
 

Committees - we have to have three board members on each committee. This could include advisory members.   

Law Firm - we are looking at outside law firms whose focus is to advise charter schools or non-profits when needed.  We will look at fees and services provided and bring back to board.

Custody of the Walton Funds is a primary focus in that we have a segregated and separate account that is interest bearing and insured. We need to think about a separate non-profit 501c3 as a vehicle for receiving donations to the school with no specific purpose yet. Question: Do we want to wait to do that until we have funds or research now?  This is a good question for the board law firm.

CPI Training session - taking place Jan 7.  This is a standard 3rd party crisis prevention and intervention training to de-escalate behaviors.  We need a decision on the investment in a staff member who will be trained for 4 days at $3450 and come back certified to train the staff.  GW has asked for a spot to be held for Bridge Prep. Question: Is this a NYS certified training accepted by NYS Department of Education? They are recognized as an acceptable 3rd party certification. 
The committee will discuss and make recommendations.

We are expecting a budget vs. actual update from BoostEd/ED. ED sent that as of end of October. Friday, Dec 6 ED is meeting with Boosted and will refresh budget vs. actual. After Friday, ED will send an update and send November financials for upload to minutes. ED to get back with possible dates to have a call with finance committee and include BoostEd.

Academic Committee will have a lot to report next month.  Since last board meeting the Chair has had two visits to the school.  One was covering operations and controls.  Another was 2nd grade classroom observations. Some 2nd graders came in without letter recognition and now have it.  Jill got teachers from zero to be able to teach a lesson in OG. It was prepared, sequential and students would have been reading with CK if time allowed. Jill is invaluable in the classroom and her prompting helps the teachers and the students. Prompting, mentoring, training and learning is happening. The staff needs to be reminded how much they have accomplished in three months. The onsite mentoring is a wonderful tool. Right now every teacher meets with Jill every two weeks. She is onsite now two days a week and Chair made a strong recommendation to have her in the school more often.
ED - every day I am in classrooms and see confidence building.  Caution - the teacher's daily schedule is packed and tight and finding additional time will be hard.  We have a staff meeting right before our PD and need to be devoting more time to math as well. Singapore Math coaching will be happening in January and February. Teachers want more time with Jill and it was suggested to have teachers figure out how to work that into their already tight schedules.This to be taken up in Academic Committee.  
Three big items for Academic Committee to tackle in January - Dashboard, Crisis Intervention and more OG help for teachers. 

Enrollment - revisions to enrollment chart in actual students and language changes. From the calls, have gotten the technical feedback edits and will clean up the document and copy people on email sent to NYSED. Subject to their approval and ED will communicate back to board.

 

Website - Revamp and update to the website is happening with Dan from Magicx.  Dan charges $100/hour for edits/changes as a back up to edIT and staff.  $4,950 is the total cost for revamp.
SSL - we are going to have a new SSL purchased for the website. Website revamp is on target for December 6th completion.
edIT - hosts our site per contract. Matt from edIT should be updating the website through the end of the contract. After revamp of website, there will be minimal updates and Matt will train two staff members to be able to edit the site. We can discontinue the contract after six months.  edIT is for network and technical but not website design. LW's son offered to put this out to bid going forward. We don't need bleeding edge and have cyber insurance. 

Family Association - had elections after input from Federation regarding bylaws and elections.  We had a run-off for president and all elections were contested.  The family association will have their own EIN number and fall under the Federation's 501c3 umbrella.  They are opening an account at Northfield Bank. Azalea Volpe is the elected President and is the Family Association's Board of Trustee member.  She is an attorney and on the CCSE. 
 

Risk Management - ED will provide binder to board in January to see all the operational structures and procedures they have in place at the school. 

PAX Training - we can do on MLK, Jr. day.  Cost is $6,000 for PD, training and curriculum.  It's a tool for behavior management.  More to be discussed on Academic Committee meeting.  

Parent Teacher Conferences - we had them yesterday and today. Parents are pleased. We did a parent satisfaction survey and 95% expressed extreme satisfaction with the school. 
 

The ED went to another Charter school's board meeting and that school's ED reported exclusively on what is happening at the school. 
Chair recommends a weekly ED update to share all updates.  ED will send on Saturday mornings.

Add Satisfaction survey to the dashboard.
ED - we are going to do a robust review.  Attendance was changed to percentages.  The Academic Committee will take up staff absences.  

ED to get financials to Secretary to upload to Board on Track. 
School-based checking account was opened at Northfield Bank. There will be a school debit card and a debit card for the board.
Walton - Board wants entire amount insured but FDIC only goes up to $250K. Therefore we need to split the money into two separate accounts.
Northfield - we can get an interest rate of 1.75% for both accounts. They are a community bank and also have grants for schools.  
Citibank - called them to see what promotions we qualify for.
Chase - GW said they would give us an interest rate of 1.99%.
ED recommends Northfield for streamlined administrative and management but ED and GW will take offline and decide.

Do we want to add to website?  We would have to set up a non-profit Paypal account that is free of monthly fees and it would link directly to our signature money market account which is the school's general account. This will be a dead link for now and finance committee to discuss in full.