No student/teacher presentation.

ECR parent Marlene Widawer asked how the Board notifies the public of special Board meetings and asked for access to documents to be discussed at meetings prior to the meetings.  She also requested that more detail describing the nature of items to be discussed be added to the Agendas.

ECR teacher Shelley Marshall thanked the Board  for voting for the salary increases and thanked the Board members for their volunteer services on behalf of the school.  She thanked Dave and Marshall for their countless hours of hard work and dedication and commitment to the betterment of, and to ensure the future of, ECR.  She encouraged the Board to approve their proposed salary increases .

ECR Biology teacher Gail Turner-Graham thanked the Board the for their volunteering efforts. She also thanked the Board  for ratifying the recent salary increases. She also stated that their leadership and fiscal responsibility made the raises for the teachers possible and requested that the Board approve their salary increases.

ECR Science teacher and Humanitas Coordinator Dean Sodek thanked the Board for ratifying the teachers' increases and for approving and resolving the salary portion of the contract while remaining negotiations continue. He also voiced his support for the "me too" clause, to include salary increases for all groups of ECR employees who work to make ECR the high performing school it is. He also thanked all those responsible for taking the extra steps of surveying the teachers and individually tailoring the distribution of checks so that each teacher could decide if they wanted to receive their checks in December or January.

No Committee updates.

The vote for approval was included in the Motion and Vote in Item A above.

The vote for approval was included in the Motion and Vote in Item A above.

The vote for approval was included in the Motion and Vote in Item A above.

The vote for approval was included in the Motion and Vote in Item A above.

Three Board member terms (two Teacher Representatives and one Community Representative) will end June 30th (Obie Slamon, Peter Vastenhold and Odus Caldwell).  Attorney Janelle Raney reviewed the rules and procedures to elect Board Members. Each term is three years and Board members can serve two consecutive terms. The Board discussed waiting until May to give the teachers time to find candidates to fill the teacher vacancies. The teacher positions can be filled with teachers from other schools or retired ECR teachers, but cannot be filled by currently active ECR teachers, employees of ECR or anyone compensated by ECR, but the positions don't have to be filled by teachers.  According to the Bylaws, ECR teachers can vote on filling teacher vacancies.  Parents of currently enrolled students also cannot serve on the Board.   

Board members need to update their Form 700's and get them to Marshall by the middle of March so he can get them to LAUSD by the due date of April 1st.

Marshall updated the Board that ECR has been working with NPO Solutions and CEP, basic data consultants for schools.   Eric Wilson will redraft, oversee and re-write the LCAP.  He also stated that they are now forming committees for Educator Effectiveness.  ECR received a $228,000.00 allocation to fund the LCAP and Educator Effectiveness plan.

Marshall reported that ECR will be hiring two new part-time Security Campus Aides who will work less than 30 hours per week to help cover the front doors and to cover when Campus Aides are late or ill.and will also be trained to back up the Copy Center in the afternoons.  The Board also discussed additional safety and security training for staff.

No update - the Executive Director was unable to attend the meeting. 

Approving the maintenance and construction with Naerok was tabled until the next Board meeting after the Board members have had the opportunity to more fully review the RFP, Naerok and the contract.

The Board unanimously voted to table the vote until next month's meeting when they will vote to add an administrator as a third purchase authorizer.

Marshall updated the Board on the Governor's Budget and the impact the funding will have on ECR.

Marshall explained the plan of the financial benefit that Highlander would bring to ECR.  Melanie Horton informed the Board that instead of the LAUSD Board voting to approve ECR's Charter petition for the Highlander site, at the last minute LAUSD Board member
Scott Schmerelson (who represents our area) proposed a magnet for performing arts, grades 6th - 14th working with Hale Middle School and Pierce College at Highlander.  Instead on voting on the Charter petition, the LAUSD Board asked Mr. Schmerelson to provide a more detailed plan and a budget at their next Board meeting.

Marshall stated that ECR submitted a Material Revision in November to LAUSD for 300 students for Independent Study (at the the new Shoup site) and the LAUSD Board bumped the vote to their March meeting.

Marshall reviewed the financial effects of the salary increases on ECR's budget.

Marshall warned the Board of the challenges to ECR's budget going forward.  CalPERS and CalSTRS will be going up, LCFF funding will be slowing down, minimum wage will be increasing, and ECR's slow attrition all combine to make savings in the future a challenge and spending on programs will have to be carefully evaluated.  

Marshall stated that we have a Net Reserve to fund future liabilities, such as Retiree benefits (estimated at $46.6 MM), improve facilities, increasing health care costs and ECR needs to put funds aside to cover such liabilities.

Marshall stated that LAUSD is requiring changes in our fiscal procedures.  ECR's new ERP system is still being tweaked which will add layers of accountability to protect ECR and ECR employees.  Two new accounting assistants will be hired and the payroll will be processed by a third party and an accounting consultant team is looking at ECR's internal controls to confirm that ECR is financially compliant.  This will give ECR a fourth and fifth layer of audit and finance protection.

Items to be added to future agenda include the formation of committees, how to secure future Board members, address security.