Dean on Student Support Diana Williams voiced her complaint about tuition reimbursement she believed she had been promised by management. The Board explained that this was a matter best handled on the school level but noted that it had her written complaint and would respond within the proscribed timeframe.

The purpose of the Annual Meeting will be to reflect on last year and look ahead to the new year. Further, Board Chair Marsha Michael is looking to appoint board chairs and allow other board members to take on leadership roles in the committee. We will also set  our annual goals and look back at our goal progress from last year. 

 

Board Chair discussed making sure website reflected accurate meeting dates and board on track platform assistance with meeting open meeting law requirements. 

Governance training is confirmed for July 9 at 6:00PM. The Board is also planning a Board Retreat in August. The idea of a hike was proposed and the board agreed to revisit the subject at the next meeting. The Board also needs to do the board assessment prior to the July meeting. 

The Cash on Hand number presented at the last Finance Committee meeting was 57 days,  significantly below the 90-day minimum. Management presented an updated number of 92 days of cash on hand a few days prior to the meeting.  Management explained that the discrepancy was due to a number of June expenses that were based on the annual expenses divided by 12 rather than looking at the budget from month-to-month.  The Board has explained to ASN and to management that dividing the budget by 12 is not an accurate way to determine cashflow. 

ASN suggested that  Ivy Hill Prep solve their cashflow problem by applying for a PPP loan. The Finance Committee disagrees with this since the PPP loan was intended for small businesses. To apply for the loan, the organization must certify that they are currently experience financial uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A strict reading of the certification would mean the loan did not apply to Ivy Hill Prep. The committee also reached out to the auditor who explained while some schools did take advantage of the PPP loan IHP is not in the same position to make the types of certification arguments made by those schools. 

There are no significant changes in the balance sheet.  Title Grant funds were supposed to come in this fiscal year, but now may arrive as late as August. The title grant funds should not be included in the cashflow if we do not know when it is coming.  We are currently at $2.8 million in revenue and our expenses are at $2.9 million, equaling a $100,000 deficit. 

Budgets vs. Actuals
We are under in compensation and over in equipment and furniture. We are also over in staff recruitment due to one of the agencies charging an unanticipated fee. We have been over in these areas since last month. There are no other significant over spend in other budget line items. 

Cashflow Projection
Cash Balance in bank as of May 31, 2020 is  $873,375 in bank.
Cash inflows is $16,621.This cash inflow is from the Title Grant, which may not be processed this fiscal year.  Building Excellent School ("BES")  gave us a grant for $10,000. BES then billed us $10,000 for ongoing support to Ivy Hill Prep.  Therefore the BES grant did not improve our cashflow position. 

Cash Balance End of Month is $604,835.000. (which is about 3 months). But that’s assuming expenses stay same. Payroll and rent will definitely increase in the coming months. 

 

The Academic Dashboard is accurate as of June 7, 2020. Enrollment and demographics have not changed.


Scholar Enrollment is in a good position. We have received 349 applications for 65 available seats. All 57 kindergarten seats and 6 first grade seats are confirmed. It is always a challenge to fill seats in the higher grades. Management is using parents to recruit and  tapping into the network of sibling and cousins. Board suggested collecting data to determine how many phone calls it takes to fill a seat. This will help us plan and budget for next year. 
 

There are currently seven teachers employed at Ivy Hill Prep. Out of the seven, four will be returning for the 2020-2021 school year. 

Ivy Hill Prep scheduled an event entitled Let’s Talk . It was a  valuable event for children. Board Member Jen Small attended. The Board asks that the invitation for future events be sent out to the entire board in  the initial email. 

Management also held an end of year event to allow students to return their chromebooks and take school pictures. The event was successful; all but four chrome books were returned and those families were able to pick up their summer work.  All but nine of the new families also picked up their summer lifeworks binder. 

Ivy Hill Prep very recently received a huge donation of filming equipment, lights, televisions, computers, and office supplies from a law firm. This will hopefully be the beginning of a long-term partnership.

All construction should be completed by June 30.

Adam Jiminez-Schulman reported on the Head of School Evaluation and Support Committee. The Committee is looking at benchmarks for Year 1 and looking forward to building goals and benchmarks for year 2. The committee has been working on an updated head of school contract and job description. The documents were reviewed by our attorneys and are now with Ambrosia. There is ongoing discussion about succession planning for the HOS. This is a long-term plan, but the pandemic has revealed the importance of succession plans in case of an emergency. 

 

Paul Adler  provided some data points on his work with Head of School Ambrosia Johnson as her coach. Mr. Adler reported that Ambrosia holds the following strengths:

• Clarity of Academic Vision
  • no backsliding in reading assessments
• School Culture
  • tone with students is really on point.
  • she pushes and challenges students

Mr. Adler also mentioned that area of growth for Ms. Johnson is the management of adult culture. Teacher retention tends to very difficult for all new school leaders. Mr. Adler considers Ambrosia to be in the top 5% of leaders he has worked with. 

Reminder of the board giving goal.

There is no update on development initiatives. Our board development event is still on hold while we wait for restaurants to reopen. 

Board discussed the letter of complaint filed by Ms. Williams. Board decided next steps would be for Trustees to debrief with HOS.