NOTE: As defined in §102(1) of the NYS Open Meetings Law under the language of the law and judicial precedent, a member of a public body may not vote by phone. There are only two ways in which the members of a public body may cast votes or validly conduct a meeting: in person or via videoconferencing. Any other means of conducting a meeting or voting, i.e., by telephone, by mail, or by e-mail, would be inconsistent with the law.

Board Member Maria Casale was present via telephone/audio link-up and not video conferencing; therefore she is unable to vote on any board action at tonight's meeting. 

R. Kerr welcomed everyone and offered congratulations to Mark Harmon Vaught as the newest board member;

Amy Margolis resigned her position on the board due to the pandemic and family responsibilities and we thank her for being part of our board's founding; we could not have accomplished so much without her expertise; she hopes to contribute in the future on an advisory basis.

R. Kerr welcomed Eric Shuffler, a driving force in innovations for our community; Mr. Shuffler spoke briefly to say that he is one of the owners of the entity bringing a new minor league baseball team back to Staten Island; he is partnered with John Catsimatidis and others; they hope to turn the Staten Island stadium into a year-round entertainment center for use by the community; Mr. Schuffler lives on the upper West side of Manhattan, was a PTA president and helped start a neighborhood school; he has a 14-year-old dyslexic son and wants to help other families to access some of the educational benefits that his son received. R. Kerr thanked him and said that she hopes he will be involved with our school, our board and our community.

R. Kerr reported that the Executive Committee met on October 12th and the following topics were discussed: the committee co-chair structure and meeting schedules - the meeting schedules are available online; a welcome package for new board members was discussed; a possible retreat planned; a structured approach to recruiting new board members; ED support and evaluation; reaching mutual goals with the ED to hopefully grow as an organization.

The next Executive Committee Meeting will be November 2nd at 7:45 am.

R. Kerr & M. Casale reported that the Academic Committee met on October 13th and discussed the following topics: a school staffing profile; the impact of the COVID mandate; the hiring status for the Director of Teaching & Learning (DTL) - a still vacant position - and changing the hiring profile to invite DTL candidates to spend a day visiting our school; an update on the Building A expansion; the after-school COVID related recovery program; status of IEP mandated services and how these were impacted by staff vacancies; the citywide impact of COVID on school busing; a dashboard presentation was given, including baseline OG data. Executive Director T. Castanza was invited to speak about the dashboard presentation given at the last Academic Committee meeting.

T. Castanza reviewed each page of the October dashboard with the board and focused on 2 sections: special education data and baseline Orton Gillingham assessment data; the OG data represents the average score (per grade) on each metric of the assessment; the growth of this data will be monitored between now and January; the November dashboard will include F&P assessments; MAP (ELA & math) assessments; attendance data for the first 2 months and school demographic data.

The next Academic Committee Meeting will be November 10th at 9:15 am.

G. Winn & L. Timoney reported that the Finance Committee met on October 4th and the following topics were discussed: we met with Schall & Ashenfarb who completed our school's audit which was clean; the audit report will need to be approved by the board before submission to NYSED; how approvals are made on recurring bills; a possible idea is an omnibus method of approving payments of recurring amounts specified in contracts - we may need to adjust the language of our financial procedures to allow this; we received some good advice from Schall & Ashenfarb about setting up a line of credit for the school; we are looking at our budgeting schedule for the coming year; also looking at the compliance calendar.

The next Finance Committee Meeting will be on November 8th at 4:00 pm.

L. Gyimesi  & A. Volpe reported that the Governance Committee met on October 7th and the following topics were discussed: an orientation and welcome packet for new board members; our goals for the year; a board retreat with guest speakers, possibly in November; working on a task force on renewal of charter - looking into retaining a company to help us focus on strategic planning and renewing our charter - they will offer a presentation to the Executive Committee and will then give a presentation to the full board of trustees; a structured approach to board member recruitment; possibly bring guest speakers to some board meetings; would like to have some clarification on the Open Meetings Law especially if we return to in-person attendance at meetings - when are minutes necessary or not; maybe invite someone from the NYC Charter Center to come and speak to us regarding how other charter schools are handling some of the current issues of lack of staffing and support services, vaccination mandates, busing problems, etc.  A. Volpe added that she spoke to Daniela at the NYC Charter Center and she will be happy to help us; an outreach to any other charter schools that specialize in dyslexia to see what they are doing. 

The next Governance Committee Meeting will be November 4th at 8:00 am.

L. Timoney reported that the ED Support & Evaluation Task Force is working on goals and expect to have a meeting very soon with more information.

T. Castanza reported that resumes for candidates for the Director of Teaching & Learning (DTL) position have been received and candidates were screened and we are near completion of the screening process; expect to have 3 final candidates presented to the Hiring Committee within a week; he expects there to be a decision or much progress by next month's meeting.  

Executive Director T. Castanza gave the following report: this has been a tumultuous 8 weeks due to vaccine mandates, bus service disruptions, staff vacancies and other COVID-related issues; staff and teachers are working very hard and students and families are happy; current staff vacancies are 2 classroom teachers and 1 SETSS teacher - candidates are being reviewed; a social worker has been hired; the allocations of the ARP Grant of $254,000 are being discussed for this school year; October is Dyslexia Awareness Month and our school is hosting a November screening of the film "Confetti" as part of the "1,000 Community Screening" movement - the film is the story of a parent learning to navigate the complexities of raising a child with dyslexia. More information can be found at https://www.confettifilm.com/.

Monthly financial data was viewed by board members. There was no questions or discussion.

A. Volpe gave the following report: the Family Association Meeting was held on October 4th; a "Trunk or Treat" event will be on October 24th from 10am-1pm in the parking lot near Building C at Petrides; there will be breakfast, pumpkin decorating, balloons, costumes, contests, raffles, Sundog Theater and trick or treating; Two book vending machines are now operational in our school sites - coins and tokens earned by students can be used to purchase a book - students are excited about the vending machines.

The next Family Association Meeting will be November 8th at 7pm.

T. Castanza stated that the school's annual report will be finalized in November and the board will be notified before submission.

L. Timoney reminded everyone that the next Board of Trustees Meeting will be November 17th at 7pm.