No public comment

• Celebration for Luis for National School Counseling week earlier in the month
• Reviewed restaurant nights
• Art Literacy up and running
• Review of Kindness Week
  • Friendship Day celebrations.  Families mentioned concerns about candy being provided during the celebrations.  Leslie to brainstorm additional notification ideas to families next year.
  • Received lots of food donations on Wednesday
  • Kindness Wall is up (handprint activity)
• Gave Teachers move-a-thon thank you gifts
• Preparing for Auction in April
• Leslie and Jessica looking to recruit new PTO President and Vice President for next year

Christa to attend March PTO meeting

Academic Excellence

1. Internal assessments
   • Finalizing easy CBM data analysis. Results coming in March 2024 to review  with the Board.
2. Updates re: grants tied to Academic program
   • We have submitted a Nike grant (Feb 15) with help from FundEd for $20,000 to support BDBT and purchases for PE equipment
3. Report cards will be going out this week. Our newsletter included language regarding our Standards Based Grading approach, for any new family joining Arco.
   • SBG doc

Staff Training and Retention

• Team trainings and support:
  1. Learning rounds for our team started in January and will continue this month:
     • Team members will have the opportunity to visit each other’s classrooms during instructional times.  We are making this possible by securing a substitute teacher for 2 days in February, 2 more in March, and 2 in April.
     • The team will follow  a rotation to observe each other in practice.
  2. Teacher and admin news:
     • Perla Murphy needed some time off during the month of February  for personal reasons.  She will be returning Monday Feb 20th.
     • Concepcion Constantino will need to have time off during the months of February, March, and parts of April for personal reasons, as well.
       • We are working with ESS to secure a bilingual sub.
       • Families have been informed.
• Hiring for SY 24-25
  1. We shared our intent to return forms with teachers to find out who is interested in returning next year. We can share these results during the next Board meeting.
  2. In anticipation of our hiring needs, we would like to move forward with these two hiring opportunities:
     • We are looking at two potential international teacher search agencies to help us find candidates from a wider variety of Hispanic countries.  We are still in the early stages of this process. The cost for using their services would be between $2000 - $6000 per year at a minimum, and could be higher depending on the number of teachers we hire.  Any candidates we find through these agencies would still utilize Cordell Hull for their J-1 visas, so we would incur visa costs as well just as we do with all international teachers. 
     • There is also an opportunity to hire teachers in Spain (Jesus to travel to Spain in March with support of the Embassy of Spain - the only cost here will be airfare as they are including stay and meals for this opportunity, so around $750-1200 dollars for airfare).
     • In order to move forward, we need approval for these additional recruitment costs.  If you have any questions, Michelle can provide more details re: agencies and Jesus re: Spain opportunity.  The two agencies we are considering are Search Associates and International School Services in case you are interested in learning more about them. The opportunity in Spain is being supported by their Embassy.

Community Engagement and Positive School Culture

• Fundraising events: 
  1. AFG Totals:
     • $123,527
• Community Engagement:
  1. Wonderful opportunities for community engagement are happening this week:
     • Kindness week activities
     • Friendship Day
  2. Upcoming community events/student assemblies:
     • In celebration of BHM, we are planning on bringing in a program/assembly on February 29th to highlight Black voices.  More details soon.

Financial Responsibility

• Grant opportunities and updates 
  1. Nike application submitted February 15
     • Support for BDBT with PE position
     • PE equipment
     • Total grant money requested: no more than $20,000
  2. FundEd is supporting Arco Iris with other grant opportunities
• Enrollment for 23-24
  1. Total enrollment:
     • 414 students and 4 spots offered
• SY 24-25 Enrollment and marketing efforts, including upcoming lottery. We have been presenting to potential families these past two months.  As a reminder:
  • Jan 8 - Feb 29, Open Enrollment.
  • Conducting informational sessions via Zoom every Friday during these months.
  • Conducting in-person tours every Wednesday starting in February.
  • Outreach (Spanish Immersion preschools) - dropping off materials.
• We are working on projections for next school year:
  • Use 450 students as base number (we took this from our strategic plan enrollment projections)
  • Eliminate ESSER and Marie Lamfrom income 
  • Staffing Projections
    • 26 FTE for teaching staff - salaries based on salary schedule
    • 11 Instructional Assistants (that is one more than we have this year) - salaries based on hourly pay rate with longevity bonuses
      • Note - Part of our office team falls into this category (Yvette)
    • 1 Student Success Coach 
    • 4 Admin staff - salaries based on negotiated pay rate
      • Admin assistant - Kat
      • Office manager - Cyndi
      • Assistant Director - Perla
      • Executive Director - Jesús
    • Special Projects Manager (Michelle) - this is a question mark.  Since pay would have to come from the general fund next year, we want to budget it at 2/3 of this year's cost to see if that will work.
• In terms of COLAs:
  • We will run scenarios with a 3%, 4% and 5% COLA to see how much we can offer to our educators.  Teaching staff would also get steps and IA's would get longevity bonuses.

Treasurer's Report
▪ ADMw received for (Month):    $303,303.00
▪ Total income for (Month): $414,169.13
▪ Cash balance for (Month): $2,869,957.47
▪ Accts Receivable for (Month): $58,675.35
▪ Net gain/loss for (Month):   $40,349.12

2 CD's are set up to date, with a third coming through today.

• Fund Ed provided a list of top Foundations we may apply for grants through.  Asked Board to review the list and make note of any connections they may have with those organizations. 
• Nike grant submitted today
• Erin to support with providing info for the mural grant.

• Josh and Christa to schedule date for volunteers to support with moving the storage shed.  Likely a weekend date, and weather permitting
• March 22nd---Josh to get construction professionals to do a site visit to get ideas for future design options for playground area.
• Our CCR's prevent us from building a fence.  Christa to forward the lawyer's email to Josh.  Unsure if there is an appeal process.

• Christa to send CCR's to Josh for review
• Christa and Josh to schedule volunteer day for moving the shed
• Erin to contact Fund Ed about options for grants for Michelle's position