Keith McCann (MPA Parent): The group of parents who submitted letters at the February board meeting thanked the board for the prompt response to the questions and the increase in communication from the Board. However, they do not believe that the finance questions were fully answered. He stated specific questions regarding finances and requested responses to these questions.  

Darren Morgan (MPA Parent): Students and staff have questions about staff turnover. He is wondering if the board can share information on the results of the research done regarding leadership turnover. 

Miss Betty (Edison Club employee at MPA) expressed how wonderful MPA is and expressed that staff and parents should appreciate that MPA is very different from other schools (she works for others). She is proud to be a part of this amazing community. 

The monthly sponsor site visit is tomorrow. Ethics training is now required for Board Members and can be done online. April 30 is the completion deadline.

M. Vlasak requested that the Board Secretary verify that all lines of minutes are complete as the PDF version appeared to cut off a few words on some lines.

Dr. McDaniel summarized the School Director's report that was uploaded to EpiCenter for the Sponsor.

There are minor changes to the contract from last year, particularly changes to the beginning and ending dates of the contract term. A copy of the coming year's agreement will be provided to Melissa Miavez.

Enter into executive session to consider employment and compensation for a public employee (roll call vote recorded below - passed unanimously);  Invited into the session were Dr. McDaniel, J. Jaroscak, J. Ganim, Dr. McFarland, and D. Thompson. Entered into session at 6:28 PM and exited at 7:04 PM.

The board agreed to delay voting on the hiring of Marianne Elin as Teacher Assistant until later in the meeting, after the vote on the relationship between class size and Teacher Assistants.

Melissa Miavez summarized the monthly financials.

Status of federal revenues: Expenses are drawn down when revenues are drawn down. Draw downs happen every couple of months. We are expected to receive all budgeted federal funds this fiscal year. The deficit will disappear as funds are received. 

M. Miaviz reported that the Audit is still being worked on, but is in the final stages.

There was no expenditure approval document.

No report.

Dr. McFarland stated that the Framework is "irrelevant" at this point in time as teacher assessments have been completed for this year.
 

Stipends: The summary sheet provided in the email  from Dr. McFarland shows what has been approved and already paid, and what is to be approved and paid for the remainder of the fiscal year, after assuring that stipend activities are completed. Summer program tuition income was collected and deposited in the 2015-16 fiscal year. It was included in 2015-16 revenue, but should have been included in 2016-17 revenue as the summer programs were offered and the related stipends paid in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Referring to the uploaded document with charts re stipends: Money is left over from the London trip. It is recommended to allocate $2200 from the London trip income to cover additional expenses (stipends for staff chaperones) rather than paying the London stipends with regular school stipend funds. It is recommended to move $1900 of field trip teacher stipends to field trip line items.
Each stipend listed is approved to be paid. 

Stipends is an area that needs to have more clearly defined operating procedures created by the Board of Directors.

Last spring the Board asked the School Director to complete tasks related to the policies and procedures of student discipline. The Board asked for an audit report of disciplinary actions.

New software is being implemented that makes sure that we stay compliant with special education regulations and allows us to track students with IEPs or 504s.

AIR testing will begin next week with MAP testing to follow. D. Thompson reported that the MAP testing allows MPA to see the growth of students over time. October MAP testing provided a projected score for each tested student. Growth will be measured by comparing students' projected growth scores to their actual second test scores.

The results must be reported to the sponsor by June 2017.

Suzanne summarized Christian Long's visit. Seven teachers are part of the "Design Council." They are working with Mr. Long to begin to get a handle on all the things to be conceptualized to move to the new school building. Fraser arranged for teachers to see the new school building. Teachers were most excited about the amount of natural light in the building. The Design Council will be reading three books and will be participating in Skype discussions. The next PD day will be led by the Design Council. Mr. Long also talked about ideas of how to convey Menlo's mission and "voice."

Rosetta Stone and MobileTech: We need to address bandwidth issues to maximize Rosetta Stone usage. Can we allocate more bandwidth to Rosetta Stone by making it a priority for online work?

Plans are being made to accomplish KRAs. Student activities are being planned to help them think about the transition to the new school building.

The second edition of the 2017/18 budget was presented. Changes include allowing for staff salary increases and for an increase in . Capital Campaign and Marketing expenditures, resulting in a smaller projected margin. There was consensus to plan for a 25% annual renewal of Chromebooks.

Operating Development Plan: All Board members have pledged to the Annual Fund. 

Capital Campaign: Cathy Aldrich hosted a Capital Campaign gathering at her home in February. The next one is to be at Dr. McFarland's home.

Jen Ingraham sent an enrollment report and presented it at the meeting. We are at 94% of next year's enrollment goal.

M. Vlasak as DCRC Chair recommends approval for a glow in the dark party to be a spring fundraising event on April 22. It would not be at St. Mel's. It would be open to all MPA families and friends. 

The event is expected to raise approximately $2000. Fundraising revenue will still be $10,000 below the projection for this school year.

This will be a 1099 consultant. We are looking for someone to be paid for deliverables rather than hours. We do not know how much money is left in the DCRC budget to pay for a consultant. To meet the revenue projection we need to raise approximately another $90,000.  We might spend 20% of this on a consultant. Let's consider incentivizing the pay for this consultant.

The Transition Team has selected two teachers, four parents, and four MPA students to serve on the Search Team. Search Team orientation was held this past Monday and Tuesday, with participation of everyone except two of the students. 

Christian Long has suggested that we post a more dynamic, exciting job description on the Web.

Since the Sponsor and ODE are not official supervisors of the MPA Board, it was suggested to have a dotted line, not a solid line, between these two entities and the MPA Board.

-New concrete poured on floors 2,3,4
-framing done on floors 2,3,4
-Vacuuming 1st floor to prepare for second concrete pour

-Close to selecting security vendor
-close to finalizing details on the IT infrastructure
-roof is done
-elevator pit concrete will be poured in the next couple of days
-Percent completed by schedule will be presented by Geis next week

GC reviewed the KRAs and the board calendar.

At this time, no new board members are being suggested for election. Due to the many changes at MPA this year it is suggested that we keep the status quo regarding board members. The long-term goal is to have the MPA board focus on the educational program and establish a separate 501c3 "Friends of Menlo" organization within 2 to 5 years. 

The intent is to continue building strong committees and to recruit experienced committee members as future Board members.

All KRAs and related tasks are now entered into Board On Track to assist committees and staff in monitoring the completion of tasks and KRAs.  A big Thank You to Laura Lusk, parent and committee member, for taking the time to enter all KRAs and tasks into BOT.

We need to ensure a Board book with Board and Committee meeting minutes and attachments, as well as updated policies and procedures, is kept in the business office.
 

C. Leimbach noted that there is board work to be done to establish MPA-specific board policies. Policies related to compliance with educational law will be provided by A. Borman, an educational attorney with whom we have contracted. 

No end-of-meeting Executive Session.