R. Kerr welcomed the remote attendees and discussed that May is a very interesting time of the school year; it is the most hectic time other than the beginning of school in the fall; we can mold, recreate and re-envision our school for the next school year and affect change to see it grow. A special thank you to the all of our committees, especially the Executive Committee members for their countless hours spent in moving forward the end-of-year plans and future plans; at the school level, a special thank you to our Executive Director, his entire team, the teaching staff and the whole school for working so hard to make sure things are done right, it is fully appreciated by everyone and the Board thanks you.

T. Castanza discussed the following:

• Thanked the Board for their hard work and acknowledged their efforts in meeting multiple times each week; he wants the school team to know that the board members are working for us and with us and doing good work;
• Staff Appreciation Week was last week and we were reminded that there are 30 days of school left in this school year;
• Now that the PEP has approved our space expansion and planning proposal, we will begin planning with the DOE on the scope of the construction. We anticipate that construction will begin by the first week of July. We will meet next week with DOE Space Planning and Facilities to discuss design options, furniture needs and other logistical construction issues. Our operations staff will be working to identify operational planning needs related to the new site, inclusive of school safety, arrival/dismissal, lunch and school health.
• Kim Santiago (NYSED) will conduct an annual virtual check-in visit at Bridge Prep on Friday, May 14th; this visit is not evaluative and is meant to be a check-in for the school and to discuss the school year’s successes as well as for NYSED to visit classrooms. The agenda for the visit is as follows: 9:00am-10:30am - virtual classroom visits and Debriefs (2nd Grade OG, 3rd Grade Math, and 3rd Grade ELA); 10:45am-11:45am - NYSED meeting with BPCS Leadership Team; we will let the Board know how it goes.
• Thanks to the leadership of F. Ebanks, our first NYS Math Exam was a success and about 50% of our 3rd graders took the exam on May 6th. We look forward to seeing the data from the assessment.
• This year’s NYS Dyslexia Awareness Day (usually held in Albany) was held on May 6th and was a great success; I was able to highlight the Bridge Prep journey as the key focus of my breakout session; the session was attended by about 120 advocates, parents, elected officials and government agencies from across NYS, and the event and our message was widely shared on social media, providing the school with incredible outreach.
• The monthly Dashboard was shared with the Board members; a new format for the Dashboard is coming; in June we will have a number of assessments to report to the board.

T. Castanza discussed the following:

• Additional funding is coming from the Federal government related to COVID; our total grant will be $367,168; we need some guidance and clarification from the Charter Center and NYS on the usage and limitation of those funds and whether they need to be spent during the current school year or can be carried over into multiple school years; we expect to get some clarity by the end of May or in June;
• We continue to monitor the current year’s budget; our surplus is significantly higher than projected at this time, $1,167,473. The breakdown is as follows: 61%- additional revenue (student enrollment, PPP loan forgiveness, COVID-19 grants, additional Federal funding for SPED); 22.2%- direct expenses savings (various line items); 17.1%- salaries and benefit savings resulting from the period without a DTL and benefits costs being lower than projected. Spending will continue to occur over the remainder of the year, which will bring the surplus down, however these savings will provide the school with financial flexibility, as well as fund various projects and initiatives by the school.

R. Kerr discussed the following:
The main thrust of the Executive Committee Meetings has been the Executive Director evaluation, the review of the budget and the staff salary structure. Those are the key subjects the Executive Committee has been working on.

The next Executive Committee Meeting will be on June 9th at 7:45am.

G. Winn discussed the following:

• The BoostEd contract is being approved year-on-year with no material change; the compensation rate is being held at the prior year rate. The Finance Committee is presenting this contract extension tonight to be approved by the Board for the next fiscal year. 
• The school's tax return is due on May 15th; we are presenting this tax return to the Board tonight for approval so it can be filed.
• The school's budget surplus was discussed at the Finance Committee meeting; 
• The biggest topic now is the teaching/faculty compensation proposal which has been discussed in several meetings with both the Finance Committee and the Executive Committee. We hope to have a recommendation to the full Board by the next board meeting.
• The committee descriptions are now contained in the Board Handbook which is available for review online.
• The PowerSchool contract will be considered tonight, but we need to understand how our school's data is handled and managed, particularly if that agreement should ever terminate. (T. Castanza offered this clarification: on the bottom of page 1 of the contract with PowerSchool there is a link that contains further details on how our school's data is handled upon termination and the ED said he is comfortable that this issue is addressed.)
• F. Ebanks seems to be the key person regarding staff/faculty compensation and we need to decide how we will support her and how her coverage is bolstered by someone in the organization.

The next Finance Committee Meeting will be on June 7th at 4pm.

L. Gyimesi discussed the following:

• Working with A. Volpe to finalize the bylaws to be in conjunction with the Family Association bylaws, regarding the time of service and aligning the time limit for the president of the Family Association, which is different than most PTA term limits; we are continuing to work on that and hope to have something finalized by the June board meeting.
• Also continuing to work on getting new board members, which takes a long time; if anyone knows of someone who might be interested in serving on our board, L. Gyimesi would be happy to meet with them. (L. Timoney added that we have some good candidates for new board members who have experience with charter schools, financial experience, and someone who owns several businesses; in a year our board may look very different.)
• We discussed holding an orientation for new board members sometime in July; they could learn about our various committees, and where their talents lie; we are still discussing hosting an orientation or retreat. 

The next Board Development & Governance Meeting will be on June 2nd at 8am.

R. Kerr discussed the following:
The proposed prototype for the Dashboard was shared with the Board; it was worked on by the Academic Committee but is still a work-in-progress; the new design is more dynamic for school staff, Board members and NYSED. The goal is that this new format will show progress, month to month, as well as year to year. There are multiple layers to this new dashboard.

The categories of the new Dashboard were reviewed by J. Lee as follows:

• The Dashboard is designed with 6 categories that are measurements tracked by NYSED: All Students; Female Students; Male Students; Students with IEP; Economically Disadvantaged Students; Race/Ethnicity; and we added a 7th category of Staten Island Resident Students. Each grade will show data for students in these categories for each grade;
• In addition, there is information on literacy under Orton-Gillingham; MAP math-specific grade-wide and school-wide data; growth goals; and annual growth of returning cohorts. All of this information will indicate how we meet the metrics of our charter and how students grow year to year.

The Board members agreed that the new Dashboard looks wonderful.

R. Kerr then mentioned that during the Academic Committee meeting 3 contracts were discussed: Ann Edwards, our Orton-Gillingham vendor, the PowerSchool contract and the SunDog contract. The committee recommends to the Board that these contracts be approved.

The next Academic Committee Meeting will be on June 8th at 6pm.

L. Timoney discussed the following:
By now all of the board members and school staff should have received the Executive Director Evaluation Survey; it needs to be returned to the board by Friday; an email was sent today asking if anyone needs additional time to please let her know;
The process is as follows: when the surveys come back, Board on Track compiles the results into a report, the Board then meets to discuss the results and then it goes to the ED Support & Evaluation Committee who shares the results with the Executive Director. We are on schedule and everything will be finished by June 30th. 

As A. Volpe was absent tonight, R. Illuzzi offered the following information:

• The Family Association is working hard; they held a plant sale yesterday that was very successful with many parent volunteers; many parents are signing up for Field Day; every child went home with a marigold, even if they didn't have any money to purchase a plant.
• They are holding an O'Neill's Dine-Out Fundraiser on May 17th;
• They brought in breakfast for the staff during Staff Appreciation Week;
• The Family Association obtained a donation from Amazon for 900 boxes of potato chips valued at  $9,000; they are sharing this donation with Petrides School, and gave every teacher boxes of chips to share with any student that doesn't bring snacks from home; special thanks to members of our Family Association for helping to organize this donation.