Veritas Preparatory Charter School
Minutes
Governance Committee Meeting
Date and Time
Thursday September 5, 2019 at 8:15 AM
Location
370 Pine Street, Springfield, MA 01105
Committee Members Present
A. Mendelson, D. Fuller, R. Romano (remote), T. Moran (remote)
Committee Members Absent
None
Guests Present
Tatiana Soto
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance and Guests
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
D. Fuller called a meeting of the Governance Committee of Veritas Preparatory Charter School to order on Thursday Sep 5, 2019 at 8:17 AM.
II. Governance
A.
Trustee Recruitment strategy
- The Committee spent considerable time discussing the school’s process for identifying and recruiting new Board members, and for retaining existing members.
- It was the sense of the Committee that a long-term goal for Board should be for the overall composition of the Board to consist of 50% of people of color.
- An aspirational goal was set to identify and recruit two additional Board members being persons of color by June 2020. It was noted that there currently exists one Board vacancy of the authorized complement of 15 members, and there is a willingness for currently-serving Board members to step aside to create an additional vacancy.
- Ms. Soto commented that a majority of the school’s student body are latino.
- Members Fuller and Mendelsohn will continue to identify community outreach contacts with whom to consult regarding prospective Board members, and will report the results of such efforts.
- Rachel Romano underscored that the Governance Committee should also communicate with all Board members to verify that Board commitments remain consistent with work responsibilities of Board members.
- The Committee also discussed the concept of permitting non-Board members to serve on Committees, which may both strengthen the Committees and allow the Board to retain interested supporters in a role less-demanding than that of a Board member.Tom Moran suggested allowing non-trustees to serve on committees and we agrees that was a good idea. This is a way for current trustees who can no longer attend meetings to stay involved and also to create more openings for new trustees to join the board.
B.
Governance Committee Goals for FY20
The Committee briefly discussed the issue of Committee goals for 2019-20, as impacted by the Board survey previously-conducted. Member Moran will review the survey results and communicate with the Board members, at which time the Committee will schedule its next session.
III. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
A. Mendelson made a motion to adjourn the meeting.
D. Fuller seconded the motion.
The motion did not carry.
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 9:21 AM.
Respectfully Submitted,
R. Romano