School Highlights

• Elementary School
  • Lion King rehearsals are well underway, and students perform scenes in many of the Friday all school meetings for their peers. We’ll make sure these performances are on your calendars!
  • Student government leaders are leading the school to prioritize new equipment for their new playground (wrote a survey, talking to their respective classes).
  • We have a new SpringBoard lead, who has hit the ground running. We are all very hopeful that we’ve turned a new corner with before/after care at the ES.
• Middle School
  • Tonight is the middle school science fair. Students are ready, and we’re looking forward to hosting families in this school-wide celebration of their learning.
  • Similar to ES, the MS production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is well underway. For the first time (at least in a long time?) the play will be hosted in a theater (CHEC).
• High School
  • Boys’ varsity basketball team is playing in the finals against Washington Latin PCS, after upsetting SEED PCS in the semi-finals earlier this week. Game time is 5:30 pm!
  • Yesterday morning, 25 students participated in the invite-only American Mathematics Competition. 25 questions, 75 minutes. We’ll know the winners soon.

Key Updates

• Student Recruitment – official recruitment activities are over, focused now on debriefing our events and approach this year. Lottery results…
• Facilities Update – the signs are on order and will be installed as soon as they arrive.
• EDP/YRP – We’ve officially made the decision and communicated to families that we will run our own intersessions again, starting this summer. Planning happening regularly and, as you’ll see in the budget materials, will have an impact on our budget for next year.
• 2017-2018 Calendar – near final. We are proactively planning key events already for next year (graduation, promotion, Soccer Day, etc). Related to next year’s calendar, we’ve also made final decisions on early release Fridays – We are not making any changes to the ES and MS Friday schedule. HS will have full day Fridays next year.
• Enrollment: HS lottery closed 2/1.
  • 603 students have ranked ELH somewhere in their list (1-12), up from 559 last year
  • Ward 4 is our highest ward (196 students applying to ELH), but Ward 8 is the second highest ward with student applicants (at 96 students).
  • As of the 2/14/17 report, 307 students are ranking ELH in the top three (up slightly – 20 – from the end of the year last year)
• CTEO Hiring Update

Key Near-Term Events/Dates

• Black History Month Celebration – Monday, February 27
• Be a National History Day judge for the middle school (March 7) or high school (March 9)

ELH will not be doing a formal School Review this year because of the 3-day Middle School Accreditation process.  

Q2 Dashboard Review
The full dashboard is available in the Board packet.  Each campus has planned priority areas to review based on the Q2 dashboard.

• B. Rawson:  Asked if ELH is considering spreading the required 100 hours of community service over 4 years in high school vs. putting it all on seniors.
• H. Darilek: Responded that students have the opportunity to do that, but students are still saving it for the end. Community service is not a requirement in each grade, but more accountability will be put on a student's progress.  
• E. Westendorf:  Asked how the current high school culture is impacting staff recruiting?  
• P. Hedlund:  Responded that each school has team plans for staff.  We also have an anchor group of true ELH "believers" in the academic changes.  These are the key people in our hiring teams.  
• J. Edelman: Thanked H Darilek and P. Hedlund for sharing the data with such clarity.  He remarked that the Q2 High School data are stark and are most impacted if the culture is off.  He asked on how short a cycle does ELH use for check-ins.  

 

• V. Carlo-Miranda described the increase in facilities need based on roof repairs. 
• As approved by the Board in 2016, ELH is investing cash through an M&T broker in short-term, low-risk instruments. 

M. McDonough: Asked what items is ELH hoping to deprioritize vs. continuing to add.  
H. Darilek: Responded that overall 70% of the budget is spent on Talent.
A. Smith:  Thanked H. Darilek for coupling strategic priorities with the planning and budget process and for including so much of the staff in the process. 
J. Davis: Asked if Broader Impact items are still anywhere in the budget.  
 

J. Callahan: Announced that we have verbally confirmed an honoree for T2.  It will be former U.S. Secretary of Education John King.  
M. McDonough: Said we are going to do an additional communications strategy.  A generic "Save the Date" will go out tomorrow.

 

• B. Rawson: Noted that we have three trustees that are currently term limited and are rolling off the Board. J. David and R. Jones will roll off at the end of the academic year and move to the Advisory Board. M. Hall will stay on for another year. Thus we will have two vacancies at the end of the year. We have one active candidate in the pipeline.
• M. Hall: Reviewed putting together an annual process that allows additional Board interaction with the family community this spring, with the goal of generating parent interest for new trustee members for the following year.


 

• A. Smith informed the trustees that R. Jones, C. Lujan and A. Smith will represent the Board on the ELH Race and Equity Steering Committee and attended the last committee meeting.
A. Smith then led a 30 minute diversity discussion with trustees where trustees answered two questions:
- What do we want diversity to look like in the ELH community?
- What should equity mean at ELH?