The Board was unable to approve the April 2026 board meeting minutes due to the absence of a quorum.

B. Carlson, Board Chair, read through the public comment. There is no public comment made at this time. 

No vendor approvals.

Cash position is adequate throughout the school year.

End of April Update:

• We received a 4th quarter per pupil payments. After paying some bills the ending balance is 1.2M
• Food account is low because we are waiting for March food revenue to come in. 
• The reserve account is 284,000 and the total amount of cash on hand is 1,559,000.

Fundraising- D. Zief and F. Martin are working on this. The 94,000 is from the Barr Grant. 

• D. Luciano, board members and teacher representative asked the finance committee and CFO, does the awarding of grants, we play catch up a lot depending on when we receive the funds. Does that play a role on the ratio of where it is and timeliness or when it gets awarded? CFO, B. Chan states we have to be sure of the revenue before we can book it. If it's not In the system then we can't say we have it. We are almost always a quarter behind on Sped funding, food spending so we always have to be mindful. 

Budget to Actual

• B. Chan reports we are where we expect to be. We are in a negative number because of outflow of afterschool stipends but it should clear up by the next board meeting. 
• Salaries are a little higher compared to last month. B. Chan reports he will look into that.

L. Hubbard, COO, went over the report with our board members. 

Enrollment:

We ran our lottery in April. Currently Grades 6 and 7 have open seats. All other grades are at 0 open seats. We expect this to change as the year comes to an end. 

Food Service Vendor Review & RFP Exploration-

Ongoing concerns with current vendor:

• Inconsistent service quality
• Limited diversity in meal options
• Late deliveries impacting service
• Frequent last-minute menu changes
• Inability to consistently provide CSDE-approved snack menu

Exploring formal RFP process to identify stronger vendor partnership : Whitson’s, Sysco, and Thurston. 

• Key operational consideration:
  1. No full kitchen on-site
  2. Requires vendor capable of providing high-quality, pre-cooked meals
• Priority moving forward:
  1. Reliable delivery
  2. Menu variety and student appeal
  3. Full compliance with CSDE requirements
      

B. Carlson introduced Thomas Herrmann. All board members present as well as Executive team introduced themselves.  

CEO, J. Scalice went over report with the board of directors.

Personnel Budget:

 Drivers to increase- Personnel Side

Healthcare - $150,000 increase

Federal Funding- Potential flat and removal of funding streams estimated at $85,000 in revenue loss.

Adjustment to Fringe- A move from a 17% calculation to an 18% calculation

No change to Funding Formula- Funding formula remains unchanged - $11,525 per pupil and only 56.7% of weighted funding

Drivers to increase - Response
Natural Attrition- Reduction of costs through non-posting and reduced need due to longevity

Restructuring- Internalizing some contracted positions to internal positions, saving funding

Supplemental- CT State Legislative Funding as a one time increase 

Conservative Approach- Consistently conservative approach to non-instructional positions

Initial Budget Deficit- $177,934

Supplemental Funding- 

• Unknown Amount for Charter Schools
• Non-disclosure of potential amount planned 
• Distributed no later than June 30th 2027  

• CT Finance Project predicts 517,475 - $536,732
• Strong metric for prediction
• Ongoing discussion related to disbursement timeline  

Operating Capital- $323,066

Historical Perspective - Per Pupil Impact

Historical- After Grant Allocations, typical remaining per-pupil amount sits between 3.0 million and 3.1 millions

Current Budget- After Grant Allocation, our projected budget remaining per-pupil sits between 3.3 and 3.4 million

What’s impacting the range?

Final Fringe- The final Fringe Benefit calculation changes the amount on the per-pupil by approximately 70-80K

Applied Funds- Great Oaks, after discussion with the Finance Chair, has allocated a smaller than projected amount of the Supplemental Funding (501,000)

Final Hiring- Final Hiring could impact the budget by small increments up or down (between 50-100K) based on experience of teachers and shortage areas
 

The Real Cost…No Change to Funding

ECS Weighted Funding Part 1: 

MLL, Title I, and Concentrated Poverty numbers are used to calculate a more “realistic” picture of the schools population

ECS Weighted Funding Part 2

Our 2025-26 population of 661 students is considered 881 students because of need, creating funding for 881 students.

ECS Weighted Funding Part 3

Charter schools only receive 56.7% of the new calculation (traditional districts are at 100%) - Resulting in a loss of over $1,000,000 in revenue

Update:

Pending a quorum and full board approval, the Finance Committee has given initial approval under the emergency provision for the personnel side of the 2026-27 budget due to the need to send out offer letters. 

Teach for America - Partnership

Great Oaks Charter School is entering into a three year agreement with Teach For America for 5 or more teachers annually. 
 

The cost of each certified teacher through this program is between $53-58K, an approximate $7K over open market savings.

In addition to nearly $35K savings per year (not calculated in this budget), Great Oaks also completes a three-tiered certification incubation program for incoming personnel through Fellows, Residency, and now Certified Teaching status opening more opportunities for grant funding and donations. 

Graduation is on June 18th, 2026 at the Klein Memorial Auditorium. Details will be sent via email from Farah. 

Board retreat possibly week of July 19th.