We will vote and approve January minutes in the March board meeting

Executive Committee had a discussion regarding retaining outside legal counsel for the school. L. Gyimesi advises we retain this lawyer, pay a $5K retainer and hours will be posted against the retainer as they are used. This does not require a board vote and will be incorporated in the budget.  The EC will set up a protocol and procedures on contacting counsel regarding school or board issues. 

L. Gyimesi has been outreaching potential candidates and they may be invited to the March or April board meeting.  L. Timoney will follow up with parent board member and provide a full in March. 

We had a finance meeting and the only outstanding item was the mentor consultant. 

The Academic Committee met with two goals - the first was to reframe the dashboard to be more informative and get input from the board and the other goal was to discuss interventions at the school. The Academic Committee will meet again March 5th and present again at the March 11th board meeting. Behavior and Crisis Intervention report will be forthcoming or shared at the March board meeting. Any changes in the dashboard you want to see - send emails to Rose and Tim. 


 

T. Castanza commended the school team.  There have been 0 suspensions in the past two months  and a reduction in school level incidents. 
Enrollment - As of January 6th when enrollment started there are 52 new seats available; (24)1st grade seats (20) 2nd grade seats and (8) 3rd grade seats. To date, we have received 42 applications across all grades. 1st grade 11/24, 2nd grade 12/20 and 3rd grade at 20/8. For 3rd grade, 17/20 have dyslexia and 10 are from outside of State Island. These numbers assume 100% articulation and there may be more actual seats in 2nd and 3rd grades.
A Vanguard mailing is set to go out the last week of February for students rising to 2nd grade only. We want to be targeted with 1st grade recruitment. Mall advertising is in place for the entire month of March consisting of (5) six foot stands.  In addition we are gearing up social media with targeted online ads and a video testimonial from parents. This testimonial is also going on the website with student profiles. 
School happenings: Wall Street Journal called and wants to come to the school tomorrow which is also the 100th day of school.  We are talking about what we have done so far. The Family Association has already raised $3K. 
Board remarks: The board asked for weekly reports from T. Castanza and wants to know what is being done to educate parents of Kindergartens and teachers to help screen.

Dashboard - we will review by category topics and importantly, these are the areas NYSED looks at. 
Enrollment - 3 times per year - Sept, Jan and April.
Discharge - monthly analysis. 
Subgroup Analysis - 3 times per year with enrollment.
Special Ed Snapshot - monthly.  It will change monthly as IEP meetings happen. There are two students left in 12:1 and we are fully in compliance. DSI is monitoring compliance.
Student Attendance - monthly and we will track trends. Attendance is a reportable measure at the end of each year. Our charter states 93% overall attendance. Generally that percentage is higher in D31 because higher grades drive the numbers up.
Teacher Attendance - to mirror student attendance.  Next meeting we will spend time getting this to a better method of reporting. We should be surveying teachers as part of retention plan. There will be two months worth of information on this report so we can analyze other possible school trends. For example, what does teacher and student attendance tell us about the length of the school day? 
All data is used to inform school improvement.  
Suspensions - monthly. 
NWEA Map Assessment - reading and math - assessed 3 times per year. First column is Rate of Growth and Second column is % of Students who Make Growth. Readiness to meet state standards and is nationally normed. This is the measure the state will assess in terms of rate of growth. Our charter states students with us for two years will show 75% growth between BOY and EOY assessment. We have seen tremendous growth as measured by MAP.  We need a better top line explanation of this.
OG - 3 times per year.  It will show Percentage of Growth in Decoding Assessment, readiness to read focus, letter sound, phonemic awareness, letter awareness, etc. Decoding is a good measure of reading readiness and they are cracking the code. Next report will be in May. 
HMH - monthly progress based on the standards. This will be on March dashboard. 

No comments or questions on monthly financials.

The consultant agreement will be finalized for 66 total hours for the remainder of the school year.