E.L. Haynes Public Charter School
Minutes
November 2022 Board of Trustees Meeting
Date and Time
Tuesday November 15, 2022 at 6:00 PM
Location
E.L. Haynes Public Charter School
4501 Kansas Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20011
High School 1st Floor PD Room
Trustees Present
E. Westendorf, F. Sutton, G. Navidi-Kasmai (remote), J. Edelman, J. Hanna, L. Carlton Waller, M. Hall, M. Kovner, N. Greene (remote), R. Laine, R. Payes, T. Gibian
Trustees Absent
None
Guests Present
A. Brooks, Basil Chawkat, DiAnte McGriff (remote), Emily Hueber Stoetzer (remote), H. Darilek, J. Brown (remote), J. Callahan, J. Rydstrom, K. Wynne, K. Yochum, LaToya Hutchins (remote), Lenora Robinson, M. Boyer, R. Murphy, Z. Mahon-Belton
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
T. Gibian called a meeting of the board of trustees of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School to order on Tuesday Nov 15, 2022 at 6:22 PM.
C.
Approve Minutes
E. Westendorf made a motion to approve the minutes from October 2022 Board of Trustees Meeting on 10-04-22.
R. Laine seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
D.
Public Comment
II. CEO Update
A.
CEO Update
- H. Darilek thanked the Board of Trustees and staff team for making it possible for her to step away for a sabbatical to improve her Spanish language skills; and reminded attendees that every staff member gets the entire week of Thanksgiving as a holiday.
- H. Darilek provided a summary of the 10-21-2022 All-Staff Meeting, and invited all Trustees to save the date (December 15) for the upcoming All-Staff Winter Holiday Party.
- Tonight is an important opportunity to reflect on Q1 and figure out where to adjust to better serve students.
- Our high school soccer and volleyball teams ranked in the top 10, our MS coed soccer team had an undefeated season, our Elementary School Saturday Soccer program has over 200 participants.
- Our elementary school students are learning about constructions, our middle school is learning about human evolution and had a family-facing social studies fair, our high school has been holding college visits, visited the U.S. Capitol, and organizing an "Attitude of Gratitude Campaign."
- Our enrollment for budget purposes was 1,160; we're currently at 1,162.
- When the deadline for elementary school passed last week, we had three students that would have been excluded. With focused follow-up we only had to exclude one student for one day. At the MS, we have 23 students who are not currently up to date with immunizations. The DC Council voted to delay the COVID-19 vaccine requirement until next year.
III. Governance
A.
Recruitment Update and Next Steps
- We are discussing board outreach at different campuses to engage more staff and families, especially at the middle and high schools. This is part of an overarching effort to recruit parent trustees from the middle and high schools.
B.
Discuss and Vote on Board Candidate
- M. Hall provided an overview of Lenora Robinson Mill's qualifications and background.
M. Hall made a motion to Approve Lenora Robinson Mills as a Trustee.
E. Westendorf seconded the motion.
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
IV. School Performance
A.
SY 2022-2023 Organizational Dashboard
- F. Sutton: Are there any campus or grade band-specific differences in how families rated engagement? -- Low 90s in the elementary and high school, mid-80s in the MS.
- N. Greene: Can we get more clarity or context around staff satisfaction with HR services? -- This is the first time we've asked this question; we believe there is room for growth in both services education.
- E. Westendorf: Our family net supporter score is and has always been quite high, and yet students don't express as high a satisfaction rate; is there a hypothesis as to why this is. -- ES satisfaction was high, MS and HS were a bit lower. We're just getting back into sports and clubs, we don't think that student satisfaction will ever be 100%. M. Hall shared an anecdote that his 11th grader and their friends said that they're feeling more excited about the school year now that sports and other campus culture initiatives are running.
- J. Edelman: Can you talk about the results about the impact of instructional coaching on students? -- Alex Baron has been working with the coaching team to set targets that are clearly tied to student performance.
- J. Hanna: How is the trend in public comments related to (or not related to) metrics about diversity and inclusivity? -- Our first year back was a really difficult year. Almost all metrics for staff satisfaction were at all-time lows. This SY, we're starting to see increases from where we were last year. We don't know yet why metrics are lowest at the ES, where Brittany Wagner-Friel is using this feedback to delve deeper into the topic with staff.
B.
Reflections on Instructional Rounds
- The areas of deprioritization laid important foundations for us to pivot to areas of focus.
- We really appreciated staff being open to this process of observation and analysis.
- My big takeaway was: How do we increase student agency around learning? And how do we build up the scaffolding?
C.
Discussion on Calendar and Use of Time
- Are we thinking about incremental adjustments, or is there enough space to think big? Will tightening the screws in some areas make possible the major increases in student performance we want to see? How can the board carve out time / resources / capacity for campus leaders to do major work to research and identify new ideas?
- R. Laine: What Rikki and Hilary and the rest of the team are moving in the right direction in terms of what they need to do; but we need to see dramatic increases in student growth. Are there things we can do increase student learning in a major way? Are some kids missing major fundamental grade-level learning that is hindering future performance. We may need to spend extra money now to increase bandwidth to explore - how do we give stronger agency to student to learn; how do we boost student learning; how do we double-down on student engagement so they can own their learning? How can we create space for staff to think transformationally?
- G. Navidi-Kasmai: Can Intersession be a time during which teachers who want to plan and tackle these big issues can do that?
- M. Hall: Is there a framework you can use to compare different options? -- We've been keeping the funnel wide open, including hosting some staff focus groups, to identify some options and pros and cons. We are trying to remind our community of the importance to center student learning in this conversation.
- E. Westendorf: Can you reflect a little bit about the main themes from the surveys and discussions? -- There are very mixed ideas about what intersession could be, who wants it, for what reasons, and what they would do with that time. In general, staff are leaning towards bringing intersession back, but for very different reasons, and it's not monolithic even within each campus. Teachers are telling us they feel they don't have enough academic planning time. Everybody wants more breaks.
- J. Edelman: We see all of the work staff are putting in to engage the community around these questions. We also know that not everyone is going to be happy with every decision, and we have your back.
- L Waller: Pre-pandemic, 50% of families participated in intersession; within that data set, are the students coming to intersession the ones with the greatest academic need?
- L. Mills: As a parent, what I observed in June intersession, it seemed to be mostly families who could already afford intersession - so I would recommend we lean into the data.
- J. Hanna: If we're making this investment, we need to identify and distinguish ROI and pay attention to who the beneficiaries are - are we centering decisions in terms of how they will enhance outcomes for groups with the greatest needs?
V. Audit, Finance, and Facilities
A.
FY22 Audit Update
- The FY22 Audit was a smooth process, and that's in huge part to Justin Rydstrom Hilary Darilek, and the full team.
- We're projecting the year with more days on cash than previously forecasted. Revenue has increased because of enrollment, especially as we've seen a doubling in students with the most need (Level 4).
B.
Review Updates to Our Financial Policies and Procedures
- The AFF Committee is in the process of analyzing our policies and procedures.
- Typically we complete a mid-year budget review. This isn't actually required, and we wonder if we can reallocate this time. We weren't able to find a reason of why we started doing this before.
- The AFF Committee recommends moving opting out of the mid-year budget process, since there are already monthly budget updates. PCSB requires schools to submit mid-year budgets if they significantly miss their enrollment targets (usually by something greater than 5%).
- Opting out of the mid-year budget review, it would open up more staff and Board time to begin tackling into financial sustainability topics.
C.
Review Next Round of Staff Compensation Work
- Round 1 work affected compensation for teachers and educational aides last year.
- This year, Round 2 focuses on all remaining roles in our community. The breadth and diversity of roles is a lot greater than last year. We don't anticipate major salary increases like we saw in Round 1. We want to learn what else is valuable to them in terms of total rewards and compensation.
- A. Brooks outlined the planning and engagement process.
- At what point will salary increases be communicated to staff affected by Round 2? -- We do not expect increases to be nearly as close to to the level as increases for teachers and EAs. We'll need to be careful and thoughtful about how we communicate salary adjustments.
D.
VOTE: Updating Staff Signature Authority
- H. Darilek noted that with her upcoming sabbatical and Justin Rudstrom being with us for the full year, it would make sense for Justin to have this authority in addition to Hilary, RIkki, and Norm.
N. Greene made a motion to Give Justin Rydstrom signing authority.
R. Laine seconded the motion.
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
VI. Community Relations Committee
A.
Annual Fund Update
- We've reached 13.3% of our FY23 goals. We received more money from OSSE IAQ, a $50k grant to support STEM funding in OST and class time, and we just kicked off the EOY campaign.
- The committee will be doing a stakeholder analysis to figure out which groups of people we can prioritize beyond our immediate community - including elected officials and neighborhood grasstops.
B.
FY23 EOY Giving Plan
- We'll be enlisting members of the board and larger community to invite high-level donors. We look forward to 100% board giving.
C.
Upcoming Events At E.L. Haynes
VII. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 8:00 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
J. Edelman