What Is Going Well:
 

• Leadership restructuring for next year is going well. We have a strong plan going in to next year and have made several steps toward creating an excellent instructional leadership team.

 

• We have made several new hires on the teaching side, with at least 4-5 more to go to be fully staffed for next year.

 

• Successful Lottery. We had over 500 applications for approximately 30 openings

 

• Our new building construction continues to be on track

 
Challenges:
 

• The departure of one of our lead classroom teachers continues to present a short term challenge for our teaching and leadership team.
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• We are continuing to work through the long term challenge of aligning our projections beyond 3 years with an enrollment capped at 360 scholars.

 

• Low performance in ELA in our 3rd and 4th means that we will be moving forward with a plan to provide interventions for all of these scholars this spring. The PARCC exam is in May.

The lapsed donor campaign has been successful, with 14 donors responding for a total of $5,500 raised. 

We have raised $147K total to date. The total fundraising amount is lower than has been reported in the past due to misinformation surrounding two wire transactions. 

Many foundations ask about board engagement/support when B. Kurie is applying for grants. They are looking for organizations with 100% giving from their boards. In our case, we have both the annual fund and capital campaign and would like to see 100% giving from our board members for both campaigns. 

B. Cunningham presented the finance report to the board. We are on track for an estimated $80,000 surplus, which will go into reserves. 

B. Cunningham and W. Gardner presented the draft budget for 2016-17. The goal is to have it finalized by May in time for a July 1 submission.

Board members Bronwyn Cunningham (remote) Bob Unger, Chris Arnold, Cile Hicks, and Mary Jean Blasdale met exclusively in Executive Session during the regular meeting  to evaluate the mid-year performance of our Executive Director Will Gardner. Together we agreed that his leadership of Alma is exemplary. Will continues to strive for excellence in all his areas of oversight in demonstrating integrity, cultivating a nurturing culture, driving academic excellence, developing and leading staff, building and maintaining family satisfaction and good community relations, financial performance, and increasing communication with the board. And he seeks to correct any situation that is not up to his high standards.

Mary Jean Blasdale, Secretary of the Board

The nomination will be presented at the April meeting if there is a quorum. 

W. Gardner presented the proposed changes to the leadership structure of Alma that would go into effect next year. W. Gardner explained that the new structure will streamline management. One note is that the "fellow" positions are very similar to that of a paraprofessional. We hired our first teaching fellow last month.

No update was given.