M. Colaylat expressed gratitude to Pamela Klein for her excellent leadership of the Governance & Nominating Committee through the organization's transition to a CMO governance structure and expressed excitement for what the Committee can accomplish together in this next chapter.

M. Colaylat recognized and thanked Board Chair Cait Brumme for joining the Committee today to participate in discussion regarding the April site visit and the Board's recruitment needs.

N/A - No members of the public provided comments at this meeting.

C. Brumme, O. Stearns, and A. Kaynor summarized the results of the site visit that was conducted by DESE and SchoolWorks in April 2025 and discussed next steps with the Committee, as detailed in an Action Plan overview that was provided to the Board.

One of the main areas of feedback related to improvements to our Head of School and CEO/CMO evaluation processes. The Committee discussed DESE’s feedback that, consistent with the CMO agreement, the full Board should formally approve Head of School and CEO/CMO evaluations annually. This represents a change from the Board’s prior protocol, under which the Board delegated approval authority to the Chair. The Committee also discussed opportunities to further strengthen the Board’s evaluation and oversight processes, including clarifying the Board’s role in evaluating CMO services. The Committee discussed plans to report back to DESE by next summer on progress implementing these improvements. The Committee also discussed the need for the Board to retroactively vote to approve SY23-24 and SY24-25 evaluations.

A. Kaynor refreshed the Committee on the SY23-25 Strategic Plan and reviewed next steps to prepare updates to the plan and to draft SY25-26 Board Goals. The Committee discussed extending the SY23-25 plan to SY28, so that it is concurrent with the charter, and to set future board strategic plans concurrently to future charter terms. 

The Committee reviewed and discussed next steps related to recruitment priorities including the following: 

• Identifying a new Treasurer after David Stolow concludes his term in June 2026
• Identifying another person with marketing and communications expertise to pick up from Devon Petersmeyer Johnson after her term concludes in June 2026
• Rebuilding the Board's fundraising capacity

The Committee also identified the following as its typical annual "recruitment cycle":

• Q1 identify needs
• Q2 recruit
• Q3 interview
• Q4 onboard

O. Stearns and A. Kaynor will incorporate board recruitment and fundraising as topics during Board member 1:1 mid-year check-ins.

M. Colaylat and A. Kaynor reviewed progress last year in exploring options to improve how the Board conducts self-evaluations and to implement a skills survey. We intend to continue that work this year, although these improvements are of a lower urgency level than other topics discussed during this meeting.

List of documents used at this meeting:

- Agenda

- Prior meeting minutes

- Year 22 Virtual Visit Report

- Virtual Visit Action Plan Overview

- SY23-24 and SY24-25 Head of School Evaluations

- SY23-24 CEO/CMO Evaluation

- 2023 Board Self-Evaluation