Research Triangle High School
Minutes
RTHS Annual Board Retreat
Date and Time
Tuesday September 23, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Location
The Frontier
Training Room
600 Park Office Drive
Durham, NC 27709
(As you enter the building lobby, go left down the long hallway. The conference room is at the end of the hall on the left.)
Directors Present
A. Tobien, C. Coia, D. Requena, E. Cunningham, J. Berla, J. Corn, M. Dwomoh, P. Thermitus, S. Hunter, S. Khaliq, T. Shahi
Directors Absent
A. Saviello, M. Babb
Guests Present
A. Drake, A. Griffin, Melissa Metcalf LeRoy
I. Opening Items
A.
Call the Meeting to Order
B.
Record Attendance and Welcome
II. Public Comments
A.
Open to all community members (students, family members, faculty and staff, community members, and others)
III. Discussion: Understanding Research Triangle High School and the Role of the Board
A.
Understanding RTHS Data
Continued discussion of the RTHS data presented at the last Board Meeting, split into groups looking thru the 2 dashboards data:
- Student EoC data
- Teacher working conditions
Groups reported back on the chosen focused area.
B.
Break
Short break taken
C.
Understanding Effective Board Practices
Invited guest speaker: Melissa Metcalf LeRoy from OnFire Nonprofit Consulting, expert on nonprofit boards
- Required by state and federal regulations to have a board for non-profit organization (owned by the public)
- Ethical and accountable
- Habits and quality of board members — open interaction with board members
- Recruitment practices
- LinkedIn for nonprofit
- AI for sleeper donors and board members
- Board 3 duties:
- Duty of Care — responsible (board approved budgets)
- Duty of Loyalty — advancement of the mission/purpose of the organization, not personal gain. Conflict of interest
- Duty of Obedience — organization follows laws and board bylaws
- Retention of board members — open interaction with board members
- Development and Fundraising
- Board fundraising policy
- Personal giving policy - expectation is 100% for Board
- Fundraising Toolkit
- Development Committee of the Board
- DAF - Donor Advised Funds
IV. Lunch
A.
Lunch
Lunch taken
V. Planning: Establish Short- and Long-Term Goals and Priorities
A.
Board Planning
Areas:
- Staff Retention & Morale:
- Teacher communication
- Teacher engagement with the school, school budget
- Annual survey
- Facility expansion -> general purpose, lab space, robotics
- Partnerships -> Intentional community partnership for internships, facility rentals, development
- STEM school -> addition of extracurricular
- Preparation of students for life after RTHS
- Innovative models of teaching
B.
Committee Planning
- Governance: Board Succession Planning
- Development: Fundraising
- Equity - student and teacher input
- may need external sourcing to gather this data
C.
Wrap up and Next Steps
Committees to set goals and priorities
None