A. Volpe was voted to be a board member at the last board meeting and application and paperwork were sent to NYSED.  We are awaiting their formal approval. 

The Chair welcomed everyone.  It was noted we have a packed agenda and thanked the Governance chair and committee for working hard on the proposals for our review and using BoardOnTrack to help us progress in our journey.

Executive Director's Report was shared with the board. The school is awaiting guidelines and recommendations as to what reopening looks like. June 1 @ 3pm Charter Center is hosting a re-opening webinar. The NYC DOE sent correspondence that admin can go into the school to get needed materials, enroll students on ATS,  access to new student IEPs on SESIS, etc. May 30th the preliminary billing to DOE is due and another projection in July. The school is fully enrolled in 2nd and 3rd grades and two seats are open in 1st grade. 

The academic committees minutes and agendas are all in BoardOnTrack. Thanks were given to the academic committee and the school team who populated the new remote learning dashboard. Please note attendance, standards met, and special education services. 91% is the highest attendance and reporting is done on a weekly basis. Absent excused reflects a Covid-19 related excuse and is coded as such. Absent is typical absence or sign-in related. There is significant outreach and live teaching happening. Special education services: tele-services are being documented and noted if families have opted out. Standards measure proficiency vs. mastery broken down by grade and Special Ed and General Ed. Special Ed is showing higher achievement rates in certain areas than General Ed. This may be due to less gen ed students completing assignments, spec ed doing better on assessments, the way we are grading, IEP students had different ways to complete assessments, etc. Special ed is showing more proficiency in certain grades. Is this because we have appropriate on ramps? If so, this is a success story. Sample size matters and items are trending up in all areas. TBD items will be populated at June board meeting. Send any comments to Committee Chair R. Kerr.

Gathering detail on major contracts, lines of credit and liquidity and vendor relationships across the school. Think about contracts relative to committees. Salary and staffing plan coming in from task force. 
This is draft 4 of the budget and considers many factors and reflects what we believe and care about as an organization with belt tightening. The board will have a budget to vote on in June and will receive it the week prior to the meeting to review. The budget will be revisited quarterly after approval. A document will be shared with the board that has factors considered and assumptions in the budget.
Financial Plan tab - with this draft budget, there is a net operating surplus of $157,329 and ending cash balance of $403,736. The surplus has a formula and we targeted over $150K. A surplus reserve can be used as a metric to obtain a favorable interest rate. This budget will change as we have budgeted for 140 students but have 148. HMH has some professional development offerings being considered.
Please reach out to T. Castanza if you have any questions or require clarification.  All are invited to come to the finance committee meeting. 

On June 1 we will be discussing specific items coming out of the task force which will go to the finance committee to include in the budget. 

The goal was to review the bylaws, charter and meld all documents to be consistent and this being done through the bylaws. We added forming ad hoc committees and a parliamentarian if needed but not required. Governance is working on protocols to be utilized by committees, inclusive of BoardOnTrack, and will share in June. 

Sample annual calendar has board meetings listed as the 3rd Wednesday of the month @ 7pm with the exception of February 2021. Committee chairs need to get back to the Secretary with their standing committee days and times. FY 20/21 Annual Calendar will be presented at June meeting. 

Pink wording is to be deleted and green wording is to be added. Attestation was added which we will have in June. Annual elections we added Chair Pro Temp if there is more than one candidate running for Chair. The Pro Temp is acting chair during the election and once the election has concluded, the Chair is restored. Review of the bylaws will happen annually as best practices.

Given the demand for new seats, acceptance rate and higher than expected retention rate, the school is at 148 students and approved for 138 students. The school can go higher and up to the "at scale maximum". The board needs to approve the additional students from 138 to 148 in order to bill for all students. NYSED will then send a letter to be used for billing.

It was noted getting the ED Update and newsletters were appreciated by the entire board.