Finances Committee

• Review financial update 
• Year 3 budget
  • Ongoing conversation 
  • Budget amendment 
  • Year 3 budget amendment in May 
    • Hearing 1
    • Hearing 2 - vote 
• We completed the year 3 budget
  • With new updates we’ll need to do a budget amendment 
     

Fundraising

• Juneteenth will be included in the current school year 2 budget
  • Last fundraiser before the June 20th fiscal calendar 
• Do we need different fundraising options throughout the school year?
  • Consider a winter fundraiser 
• Fundraising offsetting school cost
  • Board dues are a part of our fundraising efforts
    • For emergency use 
  • Could they be allocated to diff line items in the budget 
    • Teacher Appreciation
  • Consider for a potential vote in the near future 
• Tabled a vote about utility payment
  • Can we push vote to April once we receive accurate numbers

• Attendance
  • We lost 5 students in the last few weeks of school
  • Parent concerns related to school hours & lack of transportation 
    • Goal was to start transportation Year 3
      • This is not a feasible financial options for Year 3
  • 177 students currently enrolled 
    • 180 was our variance number
    • FTE report due at end of next week
  • Attendance in the 90 percentile 
• Enrollment
  • Ran lottery for 427 students 
  • 281 kids on our wait list
  • Accepted 169 kids for next year
  • Healthy wait list for every grade next year
  • Our first lottery was successful 
  • New parents completing enrollment will need the calendar 
• Communicating facilities changes
  • Had a marketing meeting around messaging
  • Interested parents Zoom 1X per month
  • Solidify image to share with families 
  • Announce first time tomorrow that we are moving
  • Hope to share a picture and address by the end of May
  • Needs for communication:
    • Need a mock up of what it will look like
    • Getting students invested 
  • Current families know we will only be at our current location for 2 years 
    • Want to know about the location 
    • Proposed less than a 10 min drive 
    • Kids and families were told they could help with the design 
• Staffing
  • Current teachers all want to return 
  • Offer letters go out in March
  • No Kindergarten teachers 
    • We currently have LT substitute teachers 
    • Leadership team is providing specific interventions
    • Short on 2 teaching assistance and 1 paraprofessional 
  • Next Year staffing
    • Specifically target SPED teachers 
    • More apps than spots to fill
  • Salary
    • LY we were ahead of APS and Fulton county with the salary compensation
    • Target recent college graduates
      • SPED graduate programs in the area 
      • Reached out to TFA 
        • TFA does not partner with school in its founding years 
      • Participating in various job fairs 
      • Hiring on the spot job fair 
  • Marketing feedback
    • In 2 hours we got 200 applications ready to leave the education sector 
    • People want more flexibility, less hours, more benefits
    • What are the flexibilities and intangible benefits we can offer staff? 
• Mask Mandate
  • Push mask mandate conversation to April 
  • No official complaints
• School Hours 
  • Traditional 8:30 - 2
  • AUA 7:30-3:30 for kids, 7 - 4:30 for staff
  • Lesson the hours by 30 mins
  • We would have 165 days instead of 180 days
    • b/c we have more hours our shorter days is ok 
  • Survey parents and staff to see if we can shorten the hours 
  • Implement hours change for next school year 
    • Plan is to send out the school calendar the week before or after spring break 
      • First week in April 
    • If we don’t change - incentives from employees 
• Calendar 
  • More breaks per month
  • More teacher planning days 
    • Tomorrow is a teacher planning day - they have the flex to use how they’d like 
• Many families have asked for afterschool
  • Afterschool is not accounted for in the budget
  • Point of contention for the school team
    • Current rotational schedule for pick up
    • Concerns with late pick up schedule
  • Opportunity for a stipend
    • This may not be feasible based on budget
  • Working with consultant to re-shift our org structure
    • Consider an hourly employee
  • Boys and girls club partnershi
  • 2 afterschool vans
    • AUA does not offer after school 
  • We get a lot of early dismissals 
    • Usually starts around 2:45
    • Parents have other kids at traditional schools 

• SCSC - Year 1 Evaluation 
  • Meet standard in
    • Academics
    • Finances
  • Approaching Standards 
    • Operations
  • Will need to go to state commission
    • What have we done to rectify the findings
  • AUA received met rating with most of the competencies we didn’t meet previously
  • 1 person from the board must be present for state commission meeting 
  • Talk in detail for next board meeting 
    • Solidify who may represent from the board in this meeting 

SCSC reached out to gauge our plan for our location for the next year

• Considering several options 
• ST plan vs LT plan
• ST budget impact vs LT budget impact 
• Consider amending charter as an option

Final required SCSC training for all board members coming up

• Public comment was asked for
  • No one from public was present to comment 
  • No public comments were shared